Letting Go

I sit far away from St. Luke's looking out the patio view from what used to be my parents' home. Now it is no more; my father died three years ago, and my mother moved to an assisted living apartment in the next town over.

My parents loved this view. They picked out their lot because of the view. You gaze out over the Santa Clara Valley, where I was raised - out across the orchards of lemon, and orange, and avocado. My memories of this place are forever linked with the fragrance of orange blossoms, and I smell them on the wind now.

God brings us so much on the wind. Sometimes the Spirit moves over this land in a hot restless wind called the Santa Ana (Here in Santa Paula, we call it "the East Wind", because that's where it comes from, dragging the hot gritty feel of the desert with it.) But this morning there is very little wind - it is cool and the view of the mountains is shrouded in a haze of mist and L.A.'s smog traveling up various valleys to affect us as well.

My sister, my oldest brother, and I are gathering the last items from my parents' sixty years together (along with items stretching back through my mother's 90 years). There will be a yard sale tomorrow, and people will come and suggest that these things have much less value than we think they do.

I was reading the Confession of Sin [in the Episcopal Book of Common Prayer, or BCP] during morning prayer and realized for the first time a very old truth; something my faith has tried to get me to believe for fifty-two years: that God, like parents, lets us start over continuously. At least I hope you have or had parents like that. And if you don't or didn't - - try to know that you do have this truth in God.

Listen:

"We are truly sorry and we humbly repent.
For the sake of your Son Jesus Christ,
have mercy on us and forgive us;
that we might delight in your will,
and walk in your ways..."
(BCP p. 79)

How many times have I said that prayer in my life, but thought more about my lapses than about God's power? If I believe in God's forgiveness, then I must believe that every day, every minute, is a fresh start. God constantly sets us free from ourselves, to delight in God's will.

I am thinking about so many prayers today, while my sister sleeps and my brother has not yet arrived, and the work of the day is not yet upon us. I look at the outline of the mountains my father so loved, and recite the psalm from his funeral; his protective steadfastness surrounds me:

"I lift up my eyes to the hills; from where is my help to come?
My help comes from the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth.
He will not let your foot be moved
and he who watched over you will not fall asleep." (Psalm 121:1-3)

I look out at my mother's garden after spending the night beneath one of her quilts; her earthy creativity surrounds me:

"For you yourself created my inmost parts,
you knit me together in my mother's womb.
I will thank you because I am marvelously made;
your works are wonderful, and I know it well." (Psalm 139:12-13)

I think of the physical imperfections and blemishes which mark each one of us as the special one we are. A dropped stitch, a different color thread; the garment becomes distinguishable from all the others.

The sun rises, the smoggy haze almost obscures the mountains, the work will soon start, and my back has anticipatory tiredness. We will sift through the grain of my parents' life, trying to let the chaff be taken off by the wind. Some of it will land in other hands; some of it will be gone. We will take some to our own homes, and tell stories about it until the next sifting and winnowing.

The air is full of letting go. It's what the Spirit moves over, creating and groaning, forgiving and releasing. It's the wind that strips us down to who we really are. Little by little, the Spirit erodes us, sculpting our truest self. Just look at the increased definition of the oldest faces among us.

The air is full of memories and letting go; they float upon it like balloons released from one's hand, full of color and glee and incredible lightness. Lift your face and feel the soft stories of ages of people. Know that some of the stories are your own.