Every spring, the robins bring me a special message assuring me that no matter what is going on in my life, all is well. But this year, since they’re late, my over-active imagination suggests that maybe there’s a message in the silence. Maybe it’s a reminder that rarely does anything in life happen on my or anyone else’s time schedule.
The longer I work as a clinical chaplain, the harder it is to buy into the illusion that we humans are in charge of much of anything, much less the timing of things. Regularly confronted with the unpredictability of life, I have become all too aware that our human existence doesn’t come with a foreseeable shelf life. It is all too common for a day to begin like any other and end in devastating tragedy. The wife goes to the mall with a girlfriend and comes home to find that the husband, who has never been sick a day in his life, has suddenly collapsed and died. On the other end of the scale, an infant is born and the first tender shoots of parental love take hold in front of my eyes. To be sure, it can feel like a scary out of control carnival ride, which is not necessarily a pleasant sensation for those of us who are prone to motion sickness. In a lame effort to protect ourselves, we’ve collectively agreed that it’s really bad form to talk about the two ton gorilla sitting in middle of the living room-- i.e. our mortality. Much as we'd love to ignore the furry beast, consider for a moment how our approach towards life would shift if we were to openly acknowledge the holy uncertainty of life. Would we go through a day with our eyes open and our senses alive? Would we more fully enjoy the simple things we so often take for granted? Would we tie up loose ends, forgive ourselves and others, and use up every ounce of love we have to give? Fortunately or unfortunately (depending on how you look at it), the landlord never gets around to issuing a notice with the exact date we’ll be evicted from these rented mobile homes we call our bodies. I once met a veteran chaplain who was diagnosed with inoperable throat cancer. When asked how it felt to be handed what amounted to a death sentence, she calmly replied, “I felt relief at finally letting go of the illusion of control.” She didn’t live to be ninety, but once she started dancing with her gorilla, she waltzed through the time she had left with grace and joy.
Life never makes promises it can’t keep but it does ask us to trust that everything comes to pass in its proper time, like it or not, accept it or not, understand it or not. The robins will get here when they’re ready, not a second before. Meanwhile, the silent spring is bidding me to wink at my gorilla and cherish what I have in front of me now.
