Looking Through The Glass

A number of years ago, my work place hired a school bus that transported the entire medical office staff to the Body Worlds exhibit at OMSI. All those donated human bodies displayed for observers to marvel at, to discover different parts of ourselves that remain hidden to the human eye. All those tendons, bones, ligaments, organs and veins painstakingly preserved by Plastination. We are fragile humans, prone to sickness, worry, addictions, obsessions and right hard living. Now there is a current exhibit in Germany, devoted to the Anatomy of Happiness, aiming to show us the amazing effects happiness has on our bodies.

I sometimes think about that day at OMSI, much like jotting down a note on a slip of paper, tucking it in a desk drawer, finding it months later, joyfully, mainly because you don't want to forget what you hoped to remember in the first place. I think about the flesh that covers our bodies, how our choices either help or hurt our bodies. And the ribbons of red under all that skin, this life-pumping vital part of us? No matter what your lifestyle, habits, illnesses, or massive doses of daily happiness are, the living truth is the same for all of us. We all bleed the same color.

So when I flip on the radio in the car, on this wet and soggy November morning, desperately searching for a break from the pounding news, guns, unfathomable hate, Twitter and ridiculous division, I hear it for the first time. Immediately, like flowing water through a quiet forest, this rejuvenated spring of hope began to spread its colors, softening the anxiety, riddling the veins with a fragile memory.

Hope is the arrow that pierces the darkness.

The song plays on repeat at home, reminding me all over again of what I never saw that day at OMSI. Through the pristine glass, looking at the bodies on display, I stood in awe of how marvelously, intricately, the human body is created. Nowhere could I see the color of their skin.

This is my command: Love each other

John 15:17

A Rainbow In The Sky

Little children have a way of seeing life through a pristine lens, untarnished, unabashed words and actions expel from their elfin beings, often spilling opaque bubbles of joy along their innocent paths. Maybe that's why Jesus says to come to him like little children, to have faith like a child. Not an easy task when you are an adult and the world and life has left its painful scars, when the news events dim the hope you cling right hard to and maybe sometimes the sanctuary you really need in that tough moment is the presence of a tender, blameless child. It worked pure grace for me on that day.

We sat in the hallway, this little first-grade boy and me. I flipped up a flash card, eager to hear his response. It appeared he had been practicing since we met last week. We continued on in this fashion, me holding the flashcards up, and him giving all his best answers. I told him how great he was doing, and his beatific smile sparkled all the way down the hallway, leaving a trail of shiny bits of joy.

 "I'm glad you're alive," he said, his tender brown eyes gleaming bright and my mind raced to the recent church shooting, miles away from all this innocence nestled between us. I told him thank you and that I was glad he was alive also. He must have registered my distant expression, my bleeding heart for the mourners in Texas, for he continued on uttering veritable truth as only an angelic child can do.

"Because," he stated matter-of-factly, "you look old." Throngs of youthful feet shuffling on the cool linoleum. A nearby fountain spilling clean water. A cough from across the hallway. And like a magnificent  rainbow arcing across the sky on a gray rainy day, my previous sadness was washed away by this blessed, unexpected gift.

Yes, I watched movies at the Drive-in theater from the rear of our station wagon. I recall exactly where I was when President Kennedy was assassinated. I watched the Beatles debut on the Ed Sullivan Show. In black and white. I shopped at Newberry's and Lipman's and watched as black children were bused to our grade school. Vietnam and Watergate happened, Neil Armstrong walked on the moon and  I remember all of these too. And those awful eighties hairdos!

Once the remnants of laughter inside of me quelled, I took a grateful breath and held up the last card for the day. He answered correctly and I smiled wide, showing all my best, treasured, hard-won wrinkles.