Have A Little...

Faith.  A simple word with complicated meaning.  It is a seed buried deep within our spiritual cores, ready to be nourished and blossom with the sprinklings of tragedy.  It is a belief that things will work out, despite our lack of vision for fate's secretive reasons of the bumpy journey we must endure.  It is an inherent hope that has either sustained us or has failed us miserably.  Yes, to me, this is faith.

We all have known faith.  Embraced it.  Bargained with it.  Coddled it within our breaking hearts. Placed it on a pedestal of worship. I have, too.  With undertones that may be religious, spiritual, or meditative, we lean against its pillars of reassurance.  Sometimes, as they say, it is all we have to cling to during desperate times.

Working in an emergency room for 16 years, I have seen faith present its various faces many times.  It may be within the circle of a grieving family, their hands clasped in prayer.  It may be in the young mother's eyes, watchful of her sick child lying in a hospital cot.  It may be in the older gentleman's anguished cries as I share the devastating results of his wife's testing.  It may be in the silent strength of the obvious love of a dying man's partner.  It may be in the ER staff's comforting whispers.  Faith cannot be contained, especially in tragic circumstances.  I tend to think it is a part of the coping fabric that threads all of our lives.

Why do I think that?  Because, those moments of my life where I had to believe in something more, where I had to dig deep within the rubble of my soul to scrape a little bit of sanity, were during intense, personal moments.  My son's illness.  My mother's death.  My grandmother's death.  A life-threatening injury to my father.  I swear, when my mother and my son were both simultaneously enduring chemotherapy, I stared faith right in the face and bargained with it.  Threatened it, even.  "If something happens to my son," I uttered to invisible universal ears while pulling at my hair, "I will never forgive you for it." Yes, I know faith.  It has been my best friend and my worst enemy.

After my son's initial diagnosis, I stood in the hospital corridors outside of his pediatric room, disheartened and in disbelief.  Cole had just returned from the OR where a mediport had been placed in preparation for an aggressive initial round of chemotherapy.  My spiritual guidance, Father Tom, stood beside me, recognizing my slipping faith.  "Why Cole?" I asked, over and over, tearful and angry.  "Why couldn't it have been me?  What kind of world do we live in for a child to endure this?"

Father Tom, in his infinite wisdom, answered my pleas with words that I still carry to this day.  His words, to me, exemplify the true nature of faith.  "Jim," he said, his voice husky and comforting, his arm wrapped around my trembling shoulders, "I can't answer your questions.  I wish I could, but I can't."  He paused slightly, choosing his words.  "I can only pray that at some point in Cole's life, on his journey, the answers of 'Why?' will become more evident.  That the reasons will be more clear to all of us of why he was chosen to endure this illness."  In other words, in staring at a big, suffocating fog of nothingness, Father Tom was telling me that I must have faith.

How does one do that?

At my rock bottom, the openness of my mind was staggering. I listened to any words of support and encouragement, my hopes and faith hinging onto any little hint of a better tomorrow. I'd walk away from family and friends, my mind reeling and spitting out their words to suit my recovery, my belief system.  Ultimately, I learned to believe that all things in our lives happen for a reason. I had to arrive at the belief that Cole would survive and thrive, that the years we will have together would be many.  To not arrive at this point would have meant a certain death in an unattainable part of my core.  I was learning to survive by walking the path that my faith created.

Cole survived.  And as I type these words, I whisper a silent thank you to those universal ears of faith that fulfilled my every request.

Every day, though, followed by every week, every month, and every year, there is more profound sadness, more tragedy, that requires us to dig deep and rediscover our faith.  To recommit ourselves to examine our morals and ideals while we cope with a crisis.  A few years back, another setback occurred in my life, plummeting me even farther into my spiritual well.  Cole had veered from remission while my mother concurrently fought a losing battle against leukemia.  And I was back to the same dark place that I had turned my back on just a few years earlier.

Again, though, my faith sustained me.  It wasn't easy.  But now, with things going well, especially after my very own first health setback, I sit here and appreciate the moments of goodness in my life.  I have learned, from these various experiences, to give my attention to faith during the good times, too.  My faith has been tested and tried and, fortunately, has sustained me in my times of need.  It is my time to feed some nourishment back, during the good times, to those who have surrounded me with smiles and encouragement and and unwavering friendship and love. A phone call. A card. A lunch date. A smile. Some kind words.

It is a two-way street that I have learned to travel with faith.

Where does your life sit right now, on this very day?  Are things going well for you?  Are you facing crisis?  Are you recovering from or approaching a trying moment?  Are you engaged in the environment surrounding your life? How is your support system?  And, most importantly, how is your faith?  Do you think maybe that little seed patiently waiting to sprout within you, in a moment of need, might appreciate a little attention now?  If so, give it some.  Sow it.  Water it. Feed it.  Coddle it.  Embrace it. The effort taken now to examine and understand your faith will reap you rewards when you most need them.

All around me, including dear family and friends, including strangers and patients in the ER, I see daily struggles occurring.  At times, I feel helpless and out of sorts, my seat on the sidelines but a useless location to witness another's misery. But I know, from continuing to grow as a compassionate and kind person, that good times will prevail if one can just hang in there. So, please, just hang in there.

And have a little...                     

The Power Of A Voice

This morning in church, I closed my eyes to fully absorb the priest's deep, husky, richly-layered voice which emanated from the alter and, suddenly, I was transported back ten years, to a time in my life when I was buoyed by this same powerful voice, the one speaking to me now as I sat in my maple pew on this cold, rainy Sunday morning.

Ten years earlier, I had been up all night, uncomfortably spooning with my wife in a lazy-boy recliner in my son's hospital room, waiting anxiously for morning to come. Neither of us wanted to leave Cole's side. Neither of us wanted morning to come, either. Morning would bring surgeons and specialists who would transport my son to the operating room, to debulk and biopsy a neck mass discovered the day prior. A day prior that was filled with haunting, harrowing memories of being told, after several emergency CT scans, that my son had something "seriously wrong." The news of the tumors in his neck and chest, accompanied by swollen lymph nodes, had collapsed our world.

Finally, five a.m. arrived. The early light of another day, confirmation that the world wouldn't stop with our sorrow, began slivering between the room's vertical blinds. I rolled off the lazy-boy, covering my wife with our shared blanket, before gingerly tiptoeing to the crib. I watched my son's chest rise and fall, his complacent, peaceful face giving no indication of the cellular war raging in his tiny body.

I was mesmerized, surrounded by my son's clouds of pure innocence, as I clung to the bars of his crib, trying to make reason with this path my son was suddenly placed upon. I listened to his steady breathing. I watched his little eyelids flutter. I wondered at the shadows of beautiful angles that his bent limbs created under his blanket. No different than the day before and, yet, the knowledge of his devastating illness now changed everything.

Suddenly, around 6 a.m., the room's phone screamed out, ringing to interrupt my trance.

"Hello," I answered, supposing it was someone from the hospital's staff.

"Hello, Jim," the familiar voice spoke, "it's Father Tom." Of course, I knew it was Father Tom. He needed no introduction to my ears, ever. Just hearing his calm voice, resonating with love and concern, wrapped a blanket of comfort around my aching heart. He continued. "I'm calling to see if you or Karen need anything." I should have expected our beloved priest to be checking in with us during our turmoil. Just not this early.

"Father Tom," I whispered into the phone, "we're okay. We have a tough day ahead of us, though. Please just keep Cole in your thoughts and prayers through the day and we'll let you know, as soon as surgery is over, what we are facing."

"Jim," he spoke again, his voice steady and strong, "I don't think you understand. I'm downstairs in your hospital lobby. I'm on my way up to your room but wondered if you or Karen needed some coffee or a bagel, even."

"What, Father Tom?" I asked, confused. "You mean you are here? Right now? In the Children's Hospital?" The hospital was at least two hours from our home, which meant that he would have had to have left by 4:00 a.m. to get to us at this time.

"You don't think I would stay away on a day like today, do you, Jim?" he asked. I couldn't answer, my wonder and thankfulness of his presence choking my words. A few moments of silence followed as he waited patiently for my answer. "No," I finally said, before continuing, "and Father Tom, thank you."

With that phone call, on that fateful day, Father Tom's voice ingrained itself into my memory.

And from that simple phone call, Father Tom's magnificent voice continued to harmonize much of the discord in my life. That day alone, in which Cole came through his surgery, Father Tom stood in a circle with us in the family room, hands joined, offering that consoling voice in prayer and reassurance. Later, when I asked him "Why? Why? Why?" my son was chosen to bear his burden, to have to fight for his life at a young age of two, his voice cracked, one of only a few times I have heard this. "I can't answer that, Jim," he had said, "but I can only pray that at some point in Cole's life, on his journey, the answers of why will become more evident." Yes, Father Tom, I can see some of those answers already.

Through those trying years, including an additional year of chemotherapy for Cole when he came out of remission and my mother's eventual death from leukemia, Father Tom, his voice in tow, continued to grace all of our lives. Whether at our home for lunch or dinner, or whether a Sunday morning sermon, his distinguished, distinctive voice, with its classy delivery, never failed me. Even before delivering my mother's eulogy, he approached me. "The grace of God is with you," he had said, clasping my face between his hands at her funeral, "you will do your mother proud as she sits there on your shoulder with you."

Unfortunately, as with our Catholic religion, priests can be reassigned to another parish after several years of service, and this was no different for Father Tom. He moved over an hour away, assigned to another parish, too far for us to travel for services . We did surprise him one Sunday but, otherwise, relied on emails, phone calls, and rare dinners to catch up. It wasn't the same.

I had lost my spiritual guidance, of sorts. I missed the power of his voice and wise words. And I missed my friend.

Thankfully, though, Father Tom informed our family at the beginning of this past summer that he would be returning to our area, to a parish just twenty minutes from our home-base parish. I couldn't wait for the day to arrive.

Today, finally, was that day. Today, on this gloriously cold, autumn day, I was blessed to sit in church, beside my healthy son, my lovely daughters, and my beautiful wife, listening to the voice of an angel.

The missing voice that I couldn't replace in my life.

The voice of Father Tom.

As always, big thanks for reading. Anybody's voice in your life that you rely/relied on? See you midweek...