Meditations 4 Misfits

I know, it’s been a while.

A lot has happened in the past few weeks. We’ve safely moved into our condo in Ashland, and once again have internet access. That’s why I was off the grid while we got things set up.

Although much smaller than our former home, this is a lovely space. The views are spectacular. Morning sun melting the night’s fog on the Siskiyou mountains is a soul nurturing experience. Truth be told though it feels like living in an Airbnb. While it technically is our place and we’re buying the furnishings that are filling it up, it really isn’t our “stuff.” There’s no emotional connection or history to the items now dwelling in our new home. Nancy didn’t weave it, Aunt Rina didn’t give it to us as a wedding gift, we didn’t pick it up on our honeymoon to the coast. They’re nice items to be sure – functional, just not ours. Living here feels a lot like being out of place. It’s just not home.

The other morning while talking with Frank my spiritual director, he asked me to describe how my soul felt about it all and I said it feels like I’m a newborn. The womb that had nurtured my soul for the past number of years, particularly my library, is gone. My sanctuary of a home office has burned and is forever gone. I have been “untimely ripped” from that safe place where I could recharge when life had depleted me. Just as a newborn is unceremonially squished through a dark uterine canal and greeted into a new existence by a hard smack on the ass, so too has the Almeda wildfire thrust me from the safety and solace of my soul’s sanctuary. And just like a newborn, I’m fussy and crying like hell.

It’s not just the loss of the big things, the enormity of it all, but it’s also the memory of the little personal items that get to you. Like Yuri’s shadow box. On my first preaching trip to Russia back in the early 90’s Yuri was my translator in Nizhny Novgorod. We became fast friends. One day as we were walking through town, I noticed a street vendor selling a beautiful little shadow box for about $15. I really wanted it but decided against buying it thinking it would just break on my return trip home. Several years later, Yuri emigrated to the West and was able to bring one suitcase of belongings with him. He had bought that shadow box and brought it to me on a visit as a gift. So while on the insurance inventory sheet I mark it down as a $15 item, to me it is irreplaceable. I cry just thinking about it. It reminds me of Yuri and our friendship. How do you put a number on that? And our home was filled with innumerable such items for both Nancy and me. Now all forever gone.

So, like a newborn I’m trying to adapt to my new surroundings. Trying to discover a new way of being in the world without my old comforts. It is hard, but it’s not all bleak and dreary. Actually, there are times I find it quite hopeful. Just as a newborn has a whole new life ahead, so do I. What new adventures await? Like it or not, it’s time to rebuild. And the comforting thing is that I’m not alone. The One who created me also travels this way with me. While the fire has taken much, it has not been able to erase the Creator’s words etched into my soul, “Never will I leave you nor forsake you.”

BTW, here’s a link to a Washington Post video documenting the Almeda wildfire that took our home. https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/10/20/oregon-almeda-fire/?arc404=true

Here’s the latest dispatch from the dislocated. Nancy and Elijah have both safely returned from their wanderings. Nancy from her father’s 90^th birthday celebration in Massachusetts, and Elijah from his walk-about (he made it all the way east to Pittsburgh) – and we have secured permanent housing. Our home burned on September 8^th in the Almeda Fire, and PEMCO our insurance company moved heaven and earth to give us a speedy dwelling settlement enabling our future move into a small but lovely condo in Ashland. Words can’t adequately communicate what an emotional relief it is to have them home and to have found a place to live.

Had a chance to just get quiet and breathe this morning, trying to absorb all that has occurred in my life over the past four weeks.

Found myself wrestling with a jumble of emotions. First there is deep gratitude for Larry the incredibly kind insurance guy from PEMCO, Steve the estimator from Belfor Construction, and all those who made our more-than-speedy settlement possible. There is also overwhelming and humbling gratefulness for the outpouring of money, good wishes, notes, prayers, and chants from so many family and friends. The response from folks I haven’t seen in as much as 50 years has been unfathomable. For one prickly grumpy old man, I sure have accumulated some remarkable companions along the way. It is simply beyond understanding.

Alongside with this gushing of immense gratitude there was also bewilderment and deep sadness. I mean, why me? How can I be so fortunate while so many of my neighbors, documented and un, are still going through so much pain, uncertainty, and loss? Truth be told, it just breaks my heart.

If I’ve learned anything through this ordeal, it is to find a way of becoming part of a solution to these local disparities while resisting the divisive name-calling and labeling that produces only more pain and dislocation.

And finally, there was my emotional response to God. Through it all, the fires, the sirens, the numerous re-locations, the unbreathable smoke-filled air, the grief of loss, the uncertainty of the future – there was always a wordless awareness of being held by our Sacred Other. Never abandoned. Never alone. I experienced at the raw reptilian fear level what Erik Kolbell writes, “Life is arbitrary, God is not.”

And so, I’m left bewildered, incredibly grateful, broken-hearted, safe, and loved.  As I say, it’s a jumble. Maybe that’s the opportunity life affords? We’re given good and bad and we’re asked to make the best of it for ourselves and the others we share life with? We’re all in this ambivalent word together. We truly need each other. Nothing like a good crisis of biblical proportions to bring this truth home.

In closing, a favorite line from Hafiz, the Sufi poet, has come to surface from my soul’s musings.

“My love for God is such that I could dance with Him (or Her) tonight without you,

but I would rather have you here.”