He forgot the shoes. I watched the blood drain from Eric’s
face as the cold reality dawned on him. He had promised to pick them up on
Thursday. It was now Sunday, his wedding day, and the shoes his bride-to-be was
supposed to wear for their wedding ceremony were in
90 miles away, at a clothing store that was now closed.
He was having what an old friend of mine used to call a lerghy, defined as “a sudden rush of
shit to the heart.”
He made some frantic calls, first to a friend who was
driving out for the wedding from
to see if she could pick the shoes up, that is if he could find someone to open
the store. Next come the calls to the store itself, the caretaker, the
emergency number on the door. No luck. It was, after all, Fourth of July
weekend, and everybody was elsewhere today. The store would remain closed, the
freshly dyed wedding shoes resting safely behind its doors until Monday at
least, a day too late.
Just one more call to make. To her. To the woman he wanted
to spend the rest of his life with, the one he was intended from birth to
marry, the other half of his soul, the one who waited for him now, the bride.
The shoeless bride.
“Uh hi, Felicia, uh, yes, everything is set. Yes, I love you
too. There’s just one little thing. Those shoes I was supposed to pick up?
Well, I forgot to get them Thursday. They’re still in
how I could have forgotten either, maybe we can get some other shoes somewhere out
here, now don’t worry, I…”
He turned to me. “I think she kind of hung up on me. She’s a
little upset.” As many husbands to be to attest, a bride can be a little touchy
on the big day, when every detail is set and those that aren’t seem like the
approach of Armageddon. To be fair, not
just brides, either. My own son had recently married and seemed so tightly
wound that weekend that piano strings would snap and shop windows shatter when
he passed too close to them. He’s a former football player and aspiring coach, and
he had the wedding weekend scheduled as tightly as a training camp leading up
to the Big Game, and if any of us messed up, dropped the ball or failed to pay
close attention, I thought he might make us drop and give him 50 push ups and
run 100 laps around the wedding hall.
Eric, now officially a “bad husband”, was “majorly bummed”
as my wife would put it. He’s let down the woman of his dreams on their wedding
day, reinforcing every stereotype from the beginning of time about thoughtless,
forgetful men. The litanies of “How could you forget……” followed by the words
“my birthday”, “our anniversary”, the groceries, the dog, the kids, etc.” were
etched in everyman’s DNA, if not at birth, then shortly thereafter.
Oh, well. There was nothing left to do now but finish
getting himself ready. Clothes, musical instruments, other paraphernalia to pack
into the little champagne colored
for the 40 minute drive to the wedding and reception site. A ritual mikveh at
the swimming hole that punctuates the mountain stream running behind our home
was the last personal preparation. The mikveh is the ritual immersion of body
and renewal of soul that we Jews undertake on the spiritually significant
occasions when we are marking a new phase of our lives. It is the ceremony that
Christianity morphed into baptism, it’s what John the Baptist was doing with
Jesus of Nazareth and hundreds of other Jews in the Jordan River 2000 years
back. Now, one somewhat chastised Jew was going to immerse himself again, wash
away the old life of shoe forgetting and embrace a new one of marriage.
“Shema
Adonai Elohaynu, Adonai Echad” Eric’s final utterance at the close of his
immersion in the cold trout stream rings through the summer woods. Then he’s
off to get dressed and drive to the wedding site, where in a few hours he will
lift her veil to make sure no one has slipped in a substitute bride, check her
eyes for any remnants of shoeless anger, and embrace her for the rest of his
life.
Sara, the twins and I get ready to serve as guests and
official witnesses of this blessed event. 40 minutes or so after Eric has left,
we pack the kids into the Honda and head toward the wedding site ourselves, an
old barn that a local college has transformed into a rustic, warm event center.
This will be the third wedding we’ve attended at this site, along with bar and
bat mitzvahs and a 50th birthday party.
The drive to the barn is mostly uneventful, though we do
pass what looks like an auto mishap; a little champagne colored sedan has
wrapped itself around a telephone pole. No ambulance on site, that’s a good
sign. We say a little prayer that no one is hurt from the wreck and hurry on to
a happier venue. The twins fall asleep in the car enroute, adding to the peace
of the tranquil sunny afternoon. It’s perfect wedding weather.
We arrive at the barn, let the kids continue their nap, and
check in with some of the wedding helpers. One friend, Rosalie, a rabbi’s wife,
approaches me with a look of concern in her eyes. “I have a spiritual task for
you” she says. “Are you up to it?”
“Sure”, I say, for at a wedding I usually feel such buoyant happiness
that I can take on anything. “What can I do to help?” She looks deep into my
eyes. “There’s been an accident,” she says. “Eric ran his car into a telephone
pole to avoid a collision with a truck that cut him off.” Suddenly the
champagne colored sedan we passed on the way to the weeding come sharply into
focus- it was Eric’s
we passed, and focused on making the wedding on time, we did not recognize it.
Rosalie continues quickly.” He’s alright, thank God- but the
car’s totaled. Eric’s at the hospital for x-rays and precautionary tests. He’s
going to be late. Only a few people know, Felicia’s not one of them. There’s no
point in upsetting or needlessly worrying her and everybody else. We’re just
telling people he’s had car trouble and is on his way. But until he gets here,
can you help with the men’s circle, help hold the space until Eric arrives?”
“Of course”, I say. “We’ll just tell the men the same story,
car trouble, and we’ll sit quietly in the circle for Eric until he arrives.” I
do tell Natan, the presiding rabbi the truth. He agrees that we not tell the
men, quietly thanks God that Eric is ok, and convenes the circle.
About 20 minutes later Eric arrives, walking slowly,
deliberately, almost meditatively. His ribs are bruised and hurt like hell, but
he’s unbroken, though understandably shaken.
He sits between Natan and I and we each put a hand on his back.
“Thank God you’re ok” I whisper. “The shoes don’t seem so important
now, do they?” A thin rueful smile creases his face. “No, the shoes don’t
matter” he says. The circle of men proceed to welcome, advise and bless the man
on this wedding day. I am reminded once again how priceless today is, and the
gift that each tomorrow represents.
Later during the ceremony, Felicia recites a poem she’s
written for Eric. Still blissfully unaware of what has transpired earlier, she
refers repeatedly in her poem to the “train wrecks” that all couples must
face, live through, and grow from. The blessed irony is not lost on those of us
who know the rest of the story. The couple exchanges rings and blessings, and prepares
to conclude the ceremony with the traditional breaking of the glass. I remember
the teaching of a Zen master, who was asked by a student how anyone can be serene
when constantly faced with the impermanence of life. The master held up his
water goblet and replied “Do you see this drinking glass? It holds my water
well, the light sparkles off its surface and when I strike it with my finger,
it has a lovely ring. But for me this glass is already broken. One day it will
fall from the shelf or my sleeve will brush it from the table, and it will
shatter to bits. And I will say ‘Of course’. So it is with life. Living in the
knowledge that each of our glasses are already broken makes every moment we
spend together that much more precious and beautiful. Bless each moment we have
together, For the glass is already broken”. Eric steps and the glass shatters with a pop.
The wedding concludes, and we move indoors to celebrate. Felicia
is the most gorgeous woman alive today, as all brides should be, and Eric is
the luckiest man in the world, in ways he knows more deeply now than ever. The
community, laughs, eats and drinks, is deliciously happy and deeply satisfied.
Life is good, and the Source of Life has blessed it once again.
Shoes, cars, what do they matter? Beholding the face of the
beloved for one more day is what living is about. The Persian poet Rumi exhorts
us: “Come to the garden in springtime. There is light and music, and lovers in
the pomegranate flowers. If you do not come, these do not matter. If you do
come, these do not matter.”
Eric and Felicia have come to the garden together, the
inevitable breaking of the glass has been postponed for another glorious day,
and for the moment, this moment, and this moment and the next, all is happy,
whole, and holy. For one more day, the bride kicks off her shoes, and all the
people dance.
|
I also cut them down with my chainsaw. Lots of them. It’s the only power tool I own that I really like. I cut wood to heat my home with it, make log structures and furniture with it, clear limbs and brush with it. I’d give up my computer long before my chainsaw. Paint another picture of me in your head. Which picture is right? Why, both of course, and all the other things that I am added to the mix as well. Men’s work leader, and supporter of powerful women. Devout Jew and ardent hunter. A revolutionary at heart who works in Fortune 500 companies. Life is a paradox. It seems to me that the more fully I live it; the greater the paradox becomes. I like to describe my self as a deer hunting, gun owning, tractor driving, chainsaw wielding deeply religious…. Massachusetts liberal. I’m also a spiritual omnivore, eating a little of everything, a lot of some. Jewish mystics say that God is Yesh and Ayin, all things and no thing, Taoists talk of the one way and the 10,000 things, physicists tell us that light is particles and waves. Humans are more plentiful and longer lived than ever, and all the living systems we depend on are in decline. Paradoxes. I got a million of ‘em. While walking through the woods this morning, I began to feel a great sense of love and support from everything around me. Each rock that supported my footstep, every tree I brushed against, the breeze that caressed my hair, all of it was alive and loving me. I nearly wept. This state of mindfulness I rarely achieve. But thankfully the world loves me even when I’m not paying attention. My good friend and constant thinker Cliff Barry teaches that when we look out of one eye, we see the world a certain way and that vision is true. When we look out of the other eye, we see a different world, and that world is true too. When we see out of both eyes, we see both truths simultaneously, and embracing both gives us depth perception. This and that. Them and us. My wife Sara calls it “the genius of and”. There’s an old Sufi saying: “We think that because we know one, we know two, because one and one is two. But what we fail to understand is and.” Every moment we have a choice; to act, feel, learn and be in a living way, or act, feel, learn and be in a dying way. In a way that says yes to life. In a way that thinks about the downstream ripples of my actions. In a way that lives the mundane in the context of the divine. In a way that, as architect/environmentalist Bill McDonough puts it,” loves all the children”. Or I can slide into living in a way that looks only a few feet ahead, that sees only my own need in the present moment, a way that sees few and accepts fewer consequences of my actions. Going through the world in a way that closes the possibility of life rather than opening it. And most of us are doing both much of the time. Living and dying. Welcome to the world. Helen Keller said that “life is either a great adventure, or nothing.” The great adventure in life is to explore the paradoxes and dilemmas of being fully awake, fully engaged, fully conscious, and fully alive here on Planet Earth. Moving from healing the wounds from our family of origin to building the promise of our family of destination. Full Time Living. It’s the only game in town. |
I have a confession to make. I hug trees. Lots of them. Big ones, little ones, evergreens, deciduous, pine, oak, maple, birch, popple. I love them all. I’ve planted hundreds, admired thousands. Paint a picture of me in your head.