Houses of Silence, Echoes of Words

Many of you here, have been a part of Scouting. I was active in Girl Scouts for a few years. I don't remember a lot of the details of it but for various projects, a camp or two where I didn't seem to really fit in, wishing to wander on my own, categorizing the things found in the forest by genus species name rather than give a wedgie to some kid with braces. But I learned many things, of teamwork, of self reliance, of myself.

On my honor, I will try:
To serve God and my country,
To help people at all times, and
To live by the Girl Scout Law.

In cleaning out some boxes in the garage, I found the green sash that had all of my merit badges, the brightly colored bits of cloth that spoke of learning about more than that which the badge was given for. I packed it up and sent it off to Brigid Jr., so she could have that little part of the history of me she never knew.

 But it also brought back some memories of some of what I learned with that banner of cloth.  One of the first things I learned was the acquisition of knowledge before attempting a task, a lesson that saved my bacon more than once as I grew up.  Each of those badges represented something new, something viewed with wonder.  We did things alone, we did things as a team, which as small children often meant the tasks were tinged with the innocent absurdity of good intention, even in the face of failure, something our leaders found endearing and not grounds for ridicule.

But as I entered my teen years, the acquisition of  badges had become, at least in some of our troop, a status symbol, more than an accomplishment, whoever had the most apparently "winning", though what they actually "won" was subjective beyond our years. The quality of the effort was less important than the quantity of the reward. The Troop Leaders tried to instill the sense of pride in the effort itself but a few of the scouts were less than nice to those who didn't earn as many as they did (many of them with parents that did most of the work for them).  "I have more than YOU do", was not merely a boast but a taunt. Granted it wasn't all of the kids, but it was a window into adult behavior that has not changed over time and one that I didn't particularly like.

When our activities became competition as opposed to adventure, myself getting as caught up in it as the rest of them, I left Scouting for other activities that would stretch my mind. Like anyone, I wanted validation, but I could not do so at the expense of others, learning that lesson for the first time then, then a lifetime later, that to hold the joy, to contain the peace and to witness the truth, one must grab their reward with clean hands.

It's human behavior though, the need for validation, the same thing I witnessed sitting in the orthopedic doctor's office recently - "I had a double bypass!" to which someone else chimes in "well, I had a QUADRUPLE bypass" and so it went, some of the seniors comparing ailments as if whomever gets the most artificial stems and valves and joints wins. I could not help but think back to a story of Christian desert Fathers who tried to outdo one another in self mortification so as to die unto oneselfand a monk boasts that "I'm deader than you!"

But we all have those moments when someone says "oh I did this or I did that" and we immediately jump in with our own story. I'm guilty of that as much as anyone, the whole "been there, done that" probably invented by a pilot. You know "there I was, fangs extended, hair on fire and #3 rolled back right at V1" and you chime in "well BOTH 3 and 4 quit, the APU wouldn't light off and we were out of coffee!" Yup, guilty.

But then you have those moments, where what you see and what you witness, are so beyond the pale of anything man can dream up in his own personal darkness, that to try and compare is impossible. It's chaos and blood and the sound of screaming until the voice is spent, and nothing is left but the ghost of that scream. It's fate, it's history, it's man, machinery and microbes and sometimes it's simply a losing battle with physics. It can be a steep slope which you can tumble down in a flurry of words, it can be precarious balance, that moment where you come up abruptly to the precipice, only to stop and find you have no speech.

It is in that moment that you understand what faith is made of,  its severity, its saving grace, the power of its secular right to your fidelity.

Those moments.

Sometimes its the smallest of things, that person on the corner with the sign that may well be a con artist in beggars clothes, or someone truly sleeping on the streets, their broken bearing sometimes only visible in the eyes, which you would see if yours were not half averted.  It's cursing at the bathroom door that is sticking so in opening, makes the sound of a Wookie being water boarded, then you walk outside and see someones home at the end of the block burned to the ground. It's complaining to a freezer full of food, that there's nothing good to eat when elderly people who served their country and worked most of their lives, go to bed hungry. It's whining that your welfare check doesn't allow you to have an even bigger TV and a new car, when across the world, there are people that sleep on dirt floors, among the vermin and the predators, with no handouts and even less hope, because that is what being poor truly is.

And sometimes it's those big moments.  It's having to get up early, when you'd rather sleep in, to get in a vehicle and transverse miles that might as well be days, to do what you are expected to do. It's standing there under a weeping sky that amphitheaters what now lies beyond your power to heal; it's accepting that which you have not elected. It's broken skies and broken limbs, bent as if by an invisible hand. It's harnessing without hesitation the armored heart that lies within a web of flesh and bone, in which you walk and search and fight the raging fire with little more than your eyes and your mind, and a black bag whose depth is endless.

There is no badge in the world that can be granted for this experience and the understanding of what it means. But if there was, it would be much like the badge we call faith. For such times make one more fully aware of just how precious this humanity is we bear, and how easily lost, and not just by outside forces. You become aware, and you grow stronger; lotuses blooming in fire.

When such a day is over, it's hard to turn the mind off, the visuals imprinted on the brain, a sudden wheel running downhill, a lantern dashed against the wall, the rending of a sheet of paper. It's hard to get to that quiet place, and when you do, invariable someone asks how your day was.  You don't even want to make eye contact, as you have no words for what what day was, what you have witnessed being to sacred to Tweet, to talk, to offer up by way of comparison to any other act of man, God, or fate.

"So, how was your day?"

So, I remain silent. And if, there in my silence, someone wants to go on about their day, their illness, or money issues, fears, or whatever, I will resist the urge to speak.  For to them, in their world, that day, what they are dealing with is as important to them as anything that fate and earth can proffer elsewhere.  Their fear is not unfounded, for it is their fear, and by their telling, they are seeking hope as well as safety.

Let them have the last word, for there is never enough time to say last words, of our love and desire, of our faith and regret, of our submission or our revolt. To speak them is to shake both Heaven and earth.

I look outside, to a man in tattered clothing standing at the corner with a cardboard sign under a sky that's lost its vivid hue, fading from blue to a grayish green, the color of old glass. I look at the crucifix worn around the neck of the waitress, standing black and sharp against her skin as she moves, leaving in her wake the scent of spent flowers. I look to the people around me, all carrying their own joys and burdens which to them are as real as the bruises there upon my hands.

I raise my head to listen. On this day, perhaps, I can give that to them.
 - Brigid