Jan 18., 2012   /   Soul Food

Solid Places

Wisdom, it is often said, means remembering what we have always known as children and have forgotten as adults.  We forget, unfortunately, because the “slings and arrows of outrageous fortune” have made us acquire a crustiness about life which we mistake for “worldly wisdom”. No wonder the Lord told us that we have to become like little children to enter the Kingdom. It is not permission to regress to immaturity, but a call to see the world anew. Like children, we must re-learn to go off on adventures to look for hidden treasures, the kind that takes us inwards into our hearts. Then we shall find — in the midst of all that is elusive and fleeting in this world — some real, solid places.

Of course, we need guides on the journey: a spiritual director, a trusted spouse or friend, a mentor, wise people who have taken the same path before us and can show us the way. Children, too, can teach us if we only know how to truly listen and observe. They show us, above all, that wisdom comes with vulnerability.

My niece Maggie taught us a valuable lesson during an especially bleak Christmas. Our family was about to move houses. Maggie, who was six years old at that time, told her mother what everyone else felt: “I’m sad, Mommy. I don’t want to leave our house!” She had articulated the silent grief of the family, for the move was not a mark of upward mobility. Rather, it signified a radical, heartbreaking loss. And while the world gently glowed with a million lights of Christmas, my mother slowly turned off the lights in our childhood home, and closed the door for the last time. The new house, unfortunately, furthered this loss. In spite of my sister’s near-obsessive efforts to make it beautiful, it was undeniably smaller. Worse, it was not yet finished by the time the family had to move in. The walls were unpainted, there were no window screens, and dirt was everywhere. The next days and weeks of unpacking and cleaning proved extremely stressful to all. Tempers were short and nerves frayed as people stumbled into boxes just looking for the “invisible” floor. Even our dogs lost weight, the bird lost its feathers, the plants wilted and the fish died.

Into such bleak landscape came God’s little sunshine. In the midst of the frenetic moving, Maggie dragged her parents, her aunts, her lola and lolo, into the room she shared with her mother, father and baby sister, excitedly saying: “I want to show you my room!” Once inside, she made a grand, sweeping gesture around the room and happily demanded: “See? Isn’t it great? I just don’t like it, I LOVE it!” The adults were stunned into silence. We couldn’t see beyond the mess of still-unsorted things and overflowing clutter, nor deeper than the loss of our former house. We couldn’t see it, until Maggie, like a proud art collector showing off her priceless collection, pointed it out. Sure, she was sad to move. But she soon saw and understood — before all the grown-ups around her — that unpainted walls and smaller, dirtier houses do not really matter in the end. Here love, often flustered and tragically fallible, was nonetheless real. She was with family, and therefore she was Home. However it looked, it was a palace. She had found her solid place.

In the inward journey of a retreat, no matter how we find ourselves at the beginning, ultimately we celebrate our stories about solid places. Not just the seeking and discovery, but also the struggles, wrong turns and the joyous, poignant return. For these are necessary to our journey. Then we shall find our solid places where God heals us with prodigal love. Henri Nouwen reminds us to return to these solid places, especially when we are hurting: “You have to trust the place that is solid, the place where you can say yes to God’s love even when you do not feel it.” Christmas is only the joyous overture of a life-long symphony of God’s loving presence in our life.

Things slowly settled down, grew calmer and kinder, after Maggie gave her now-famous tour. Since there was no floor space anywhere inside for the dining table, the family spent its first few weeks eating al fresco, and the canopy of stars made the evening meals truly lovely and memorable. It’s been over a year now. The walls are still unpainted, but we have found the floor. The dogs have grown fat, the bird has regained its plumage (or is it a new one?), and the plants are abloom. The fish have not been replaced, but no one is complaining. It is now home.

Love is the most solid place of all.

 This piece, now modified for this space, originally appeared as the debut article of the author’s column “Solid Places” which appeared in the Sunday Inquirer Magazine.

Sr. Cecille studied Humanities and Art History at the University of the Philippines in Diliman.  After graduation, she taught the same subjects in her alma mater.  She entered the Cenacle in 1996, and is now assigned in the Cenacle Retreat House in Quezon City.  She loves chocolate, dogs and, of course, art. [/author_info] [/author]