10/19/2012

houses of healing

Last Saturday I was at the hospital with my mom, who experienced scary issues with her heart that are, it looks like, being resolved through medication. Mom is now home. Yesterday I drove her through the chilled-sun afternoon to Winco for groceries. I am discovering new facets of gratefulness.

Which reminds me. At our church on a recent Sunday Fr. David, customary twinkle in his eye, made this observation: "We try to be grateful, but sometimes we forget part of that concept and just try to be great."

For myself I can say this sadly often rings true. Yet there is help -- so much of it -- for my forgetting the better part.

At the hospital Saturday I was comfy on the cushioned bench beneath the wide window next to Mom's bed. Our fifth-floor view was westward to the coast range foothills. I gazed. I dozed. Letting the capable staff check Mom's vitals came easily. The friendly nurse even brought Dad and me beverages. By the end of the day I had a sense of being lulled into a slight stupor.

I wanted to stop in at church that evening on my way home. The Vigil service I attend most weeks would be nearly over, perhaps, but maybe not. Sometimes it lasts til long past 9:00, and there is always much helpful instruction in the prayers, the odes about the saints, the sharing of Scripture and interpretation like treasure lifted from the vault of the ages, agleam with new meaning for this baby taking small steps.

I decided I was too weak of mind and body to go to church. I stopped instead at Trader Joe's before they closed, doing my wifely duty by picking up Tropical Carrot juice for Tim, who was at work, running master control during football games. As I wheeled my cart toward the door after paying, a voice called my name. It was a woman who taught my daughter during our homeschool years. She and I had some catching up to do regarding our children now launched onto their adult pathways.

Sometimes people can be extremely refreshing. After my visit with the woman, it was a no-brainer that I could make it to church, and so I went. There refreshment encompassed me further. I ended up reading aloud one of the odes to the Holy Disciple Ananias. His first-century life included being one of seventy whom Jesus sent out to preach the Gospel. Later and most famously, Ananias accepted the scary task of going to see Saul and to baptize this Jew who, in his zeal to follow God the way he understood following God to look like, had been responsible for killing plenty of Christians. Ananias was Bishop of Damascus and did many other things I don't yet know about, but simply entering into the chant-song of his remembrance at church added to the continual stream of healing waters trickling through my little soul.

2 comments:

Dee Ready said...

Dear Deanna, this is a lovely posting--calm, serene, filled with a joy that permeates all the words. Thank you for sharing your day with us. Peace.

Deanna said...

Hi, Dee. I hope your past weeks have been serene, as well. :o)

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