My neighbor Mary doesn't know this, but she is one of my saints.
One day last year when I was ill, I set off walking to my doctor's office. It's three miles from my home, but, as I don't drive, I always walk. No bus follows that route. And yes, I could have taken Uber, but I was too sick to think straight. Yes, I could in theory have called a friend, but I have few. None live nearby. And lifelong self-loathing says: Never ask for help. So I went staggering along, pelted by rain.
Mary—we'd only ever spoken once or twice, about neighborhood trivia; we were not pals—pulled up, rolled down the window of her minivan and said, Get in.
She drove me to the office even though it was out of her way. She watched me walk inside before she drove away. She is one of my saints.
And who are yours? Identify your saints. Collect your saints.
I grew up in a Jewish household. Judaism has no saints. I envied Catholics for being allowed to love these superpowered healers, rescuers, good listeners: holy imaginary pals.
As an adult, albeit still not Catholic, I call—with secular reverence —the kindest, most illuminating people I've ever met "saints." These are the ones who, expecting no payback, saved me. Taught me. Showed, told, and/or gave me precious things.
Kenzo, riflery master at my YMCA day camp, told ten-year-old me my aim was true.
Our school nurse, Mrs. Holcomb, told twelve-year-old me that adults sometimes have "accidents" too.
Two DJs at two stations—one AM, one FM—made me love music besides those silly songs we sang at school.
Mike, a garden-art sculptor whom I interviewed for our local paper, urged me Please take a little frog! A bird! because, before that day, no one had ever called his art amazing.
Knowing whom my saints are, knowing I have saints, sustains my often-shaky faith in humankind. Because I am the fearful type, my saints tend to be rescuers. Yours might embody other qualities, such as passion, devotion, mercy, grace. Your saints might include the funniest person you have ever loved, or heroes yet-unmet.
After my best friend moved halfway across the country when we were eighteen, I bought a bus ticket, aiming to visit her. Mom raged: You want to ride that far, alone? I should commit you to a mental hospital! But I was an adult.
The first six hours went fine. Then around midnight, a guy my age boarded, sat beside me, swallowed pills and started touching me. I was too terrified to move. A gray-haired man across the aisle caught my eye, patted the empty seat beside him and boomed Sit here NOW. I did, then he described his grandchildren, and fishing, all the way to Tillamook. Yes: Printed on his baseball cap was Firemen Have Longer Hoses, but he was my savior and my saint.
One night my boyfriend and I cut across a college campus enroute home. Out of the bushes sprang three men in ski masks, waving what looked in the faint moonlight like guns. My boyfriend squeezed my hand as if to say Sorry, we're doomed. Suddenly, seven women poured out of a dorm in party clothes. Rollicking arm-in-arm, they were oblivious to us and our would-be assailants, who—feeling outnumbered—fled. Those seven women were our saints.
My old pals are saints, sure, but so are certain instant friends I knew only for hours, days or weeks—strangers who reached across that vile fog I always imagined I exuded and said Hi! My name is....
Neil, who extolled agates in a Palm Springs swimming pool. Debby, who taught me the grapevine step at a folk dance fest. Mary and Frances: twins, playing a harpsichord in a Danish department store. Steve, also at that day camp, mocking Twinkies: I wish I still knew you all.
And yes, sainthood can be revoked. Looking at you, my friend who failed to celebrate a milestone which clearly meant everything to me. Such revocations might make me look like an A-hole, but saint-making is subjective.
Knowing whom our saints are, knowing why, helps us remember what matters to us. However trivial others might judge this, however bizarre, each of us can say what is sacred.
from Spirituality & Health Magazine blogs
http://ift.tt/25JqYQN
from http://ift.tt/1YWCQaF
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