The book leapt off the shelf and into my hands. The Mole People chronicles journalist
Jennifer Toth’s time among the underground homeless of New York City. Forgoing
the dangers of life on the streets, these people make their homes in train and
subway tunnels far below the towering buildings of the city.
Mac is one of
them. An erratic and often paranoid middle~aged man, Mac catches
rats by their tails for dinner, and collects pieces of wood and scraps of metal
for he knows not what.“‘You may not be able to see what its purpose is,’ Mac
tells Toth, ‘but everything has a reason for being.’” Wise words, and ones
that place Mac in very good company, indeed.
In Everything Belongs,
Franciscan priest Richard Rohr writes “Everything is sacred if the world is a
temple.” He encourages us to develop the vision to recognize “the divine image
in all created things,” including each experience.
As we develop this clearer sight, we become more skilled in
fashioning our own unique and honorable response to what comes our way. And the way we work the raw material of our lives determines whether we become wise or bitter, loving or harsh, deeper or given to pat answers and easy excuses. Thus,
we are given the opportunity to become active participants in the shaping of our
spirits.
In a recent commencement address at a local high school, former
teacher Heath Higgins referenced the two numbers traditionally inscribed on
tombstones, the year of birth and of death. He reminded the graduates that
these numbers are separated by a dash representing a life lived, with all the
experiences encountered and the choices open to each of us. He urged his former
students to “Make your dash count.”
It’s so easy to get lost in the hubbub of our busy lives.
Luckily, we have spiritual practices that slow us down, ones that help us
orient to that which is eternal, as well as to what Rohr calls “the sacrament
of the present moment.”
My thoughts travel now to Peru and to Puma, the medicine man
I studied with last year. He urged us to live each moment fully awake and in
harmony with the flow of the divine that is palpably present always. As we do
so, our lives will unfold in such a way that we can say, in Puma’s words, “We
have made of our lives the very best medicine, the best offering back to God.”
So, there ya have it…a homeless schizophrenic, a Franciscan
priest, a history teacher, and a Quechua holy man all offering similar wisdom
for living a rich life. Find the usefulness in everything. Honor all as gift.
Receive those gifts fully. Make them count, by crafting a worthy response to
what comes our way. And let that response be our very best medicine.
And it is so.
Leia Marie
