Waiting as a Way of Life

After sitting meditation this morning I picked up the small labyrinth model that my daughter gave me a couple of years ago and was moving mentally through it as I have done almost every day for the last two years. Halfway through the exercise it struck me, as I entered the center and stayed for just a moment before heading back out, that a large part of the discipline of the Labyrinth is STAYING at the center long enough to hear the Word.

I am good with the part of the symboliic journey that puts me on the road - that keeps me on the road - and I can let stuff go along the way in and ponder what I want to bring out, but I continue to remain rather uncomfortable with the part where I am supposed to WAIT at the center.

The last two years have been for me a constant dropping away of the extraneous b.s. of the first half of my life. At each step along the way, each turning around at a corner, each doubling back of the trail, I again think, "now... this is it. I've done all the work. It's time to move on." What I find, however, is that no, unfortunately there is more work to be done.

Perhaps that's part of the difficulty of facing into the problem of New Orleans. I, for one, want everything fixed NOW. Actually, I want it all fixed a year ago. But there are still things for us to learn, and there are still things for us to do. There are still messages that The God/Goddess wants us to hear. It feels to me that I have been missing this huge lesson of the Labyrinth experience because I have forgotten (or avoided) the waiting part.

It's not for nothing that Moses was not called by God until he was over 80 (McSweeney's, by the way, just published a FIRST novel by an author of age 90, so don't go figuring that the Moses phenomenon has passed).

It's not for nothing that the Israelites had to wait in the desert for 40 years or that the Babylonian Exile lasted for something like 70.

Perhaps it's not for nothing (besides governmental ineptitude and graft that is) that the New Orleans Diaspora seemingly continues forever. Is it possible that there is something waiting here for us to learn?

There is a message for us at the center of the Labyrinth but to hear it we have to enter that center through a slow and winding path, letting go of our overwrought personnas and our excess baggage along the way. Once there, right when we're damned ready to go dashing back with the message (like Phidippides on the plains of Marathon) we find that no... we must wait instead. We must take a breath, sit, loosen our muscles, our hearts, and our minds and listen for the Word made Flesh.

I don't know how long it will take. All I know is that for me... well, I'm not yet done with waiting.

The Call Inside The Silence

I've been struggling for the last five days with how and what to write about my birthday (both the party that I threw and the event itself) while at the same time facing into a sort of low grade depression, leading into and out of the second anniversary of Katrina, that I hadn't even really noticed until this morning. For five days I've come to the computer to write my thoughts and feelings and for five days the page has remained blank.

Some of this comes from the inexorable driving force of SILENCE that confronts me at this time and in the face of these realities. My good friend E sent me a wonderful book of Thomas Merton selections on writing and while it has been a great inspiration and comfort over the last few days, it has had the intriguing effect of deepening the silence I was already experiencing, leading me into a labyrinth of memories, dreams, and reflections from which I can't seem to extricate myself, and from which I am not fully sure I want to be extricated. There is a sort of dull pain that I experience in this silence, but there is also a sense of coming hope, a faltering stumbling undifferentiated something that I can't see quite yet, but that I know is out there and that I think is friendly and does not mean me harm... I hope.

In the just over two weeks since I thundered out of New Orleans on a wing and a prayer in a desperate search for computer resources I have felt more than a little bit lost, a great deal disconnected, thoroughly frustrated, and clearly (though mostly subconsciously) depressed. That flight, for me, was a retreat, a collapse, and a semi-final resignation from all that I have been struggling to maintain since the Sunday afternoon two years ago when I rode with Roxanne across the bridge to Slidell and on to Mississippi.Unknown to me at the time, that flight was a final capitualtion to the forces set in motion by the storm, a reluctant acceptance of the inexorable power of the events, now two years old, that put the ending stamp on the life and love I had imagined; a life and love I had lived for 17 years and the hope of new life and love in The Land of Dreams.

Yesterday's anniversary was the final nail in that coffin. For the rest of my life the last week of August will be forever tied to four events: my birthday, my mother's birthday, The Thing (as Chris Rose calls it) and its annihilation of my dream of New Orleans, and the final swan song of my relationship to Wendy MacCall. I doubt if I will ever be rid of those memories, but I think that yesterday was the beginning of a healthy grief. A grief I needed to feel . A grief that will finally be the gateway to a new life.

Yesterday, as part of the Katrina anniversary memorial events, The Monette Trumpet Corporation presented "The Elysian Trumpet" to New Orleans' cultural representative, trumpeter Irvin Mayfield, as a symbol of remembrance of the people lost in the storm (including Irvin's father) and of the hope of renewal to come.

As a trumpet player myself, just having a look at this 24K gold plated instrument is enough to bring tears of hope and joy to my eyes. I can imagine the clear, crisp tone, and the muted low growl. I can hear it playing When The Saints Go Marhing In, and St. James' Infirmary. I hear it ring out to say that all is not lost... not by a long shot.

We are called to hope, to joy, to life coming around again and again and again. I believe in that. I believe it for New Orleans. I believe it for our country. I believe it for you. I believe it for me.

Sooner or later... one of these days... It really is gonna be okay.