NEW YEAR'S REFLECTION
January 4, 2010
We
enter this new year of 2010 out of our shared celebration of
Christmas, of the startling belief that God’s desire for
intimacy with humanity is greater than we could ever imagine.
“To all who received him, he gave the power to become children
of God.” (John 1, 12) In his Christmas sermon, Rowan Williams,
the Archbishop of Canterbury, describes this Mystery as follows:
God’s gift at Christmas is relationship, not just another
human relationship but relation to God the Father by standing
where Jesus stands, standing in the full torrent of his love and
creativity, giving and receiving. To come into that place and
to be rooted and grounded there means letting go of our fear of
dependence and opening our hearts to be fed and enlarged and
transformed. And that in turn means looking at how we handle
dependence in ourselves and others, how we accept the positive
dependence involved in lifelong learning and growing, and help
one another deal with it positively.
As we begin the New Year by
celebrating the feast of the Epiphany, we remember and long to
participate in the radiance of the light and love and beauty of
God that emanated from Jesus and that remains the light in our
darkness. Rowan Williams reminds us that we participate in the
Mystery of the Incarnation of Jesus when we stand where Jesus
stands in relation to God: “in the full torrent of his love and
creativity, giving and receiving” we become transparent and thus
manifest the same light and love and beauty of God that Jesus
does. The graced potential of the human person to radiate such
transcendence became, in our own small corner of the world,
unforgettably present this Christmas.
The experience revolves around a young
man of twenty-four years named Keith. For the past five years
of his life Keith suffered the effects of brain damage caused by
a brain tumor in 2004, the year he was to enter college.
Although up to the time of developing the tumor Keith was a very
intelligent, energetic, and athletic young man, after his tumor
and brain surgery he became not only frequently ill and at times
somewhat feeble but he also developed severe short term memory
loss that made him pretty much totally dependent on his parents,
sisters, and other caregivers. Yet, as his Father has pointed
out, this experience of suffering and dependence became for
Keith a source of profound transformation and fulfillment of
personality. As his life became a continual living in the
present, Keith’s dependence developed into deep openness and
receptivity to the reality and call of the moment. Those who
were gifted by his presence know that he never withheld
expression of love and gratitude, and recognition of the
significance of the other. “Thank you for taking such good care
of me” he would frequently tell his parents and family. Each
relative or friend (whom he never forgot), even new
acquaintances, would be embraced and experience a sense of being
received, welcomed, and appreciated. The quality of his
presence to others is captured well by the teacher of grade
school students whom Keith would spend a day a week with
listening to their reading. “He would not praise them. He
would not criticize them. He would just listen to them. Each
student would experience his total attention and presence, and
would not want to stop reading with him.”
On Christmas Eve Keith experienced a
seizure with a resultant paralysis of his left side. He was
taken by ambulance to a metropolitan medical center where he was
placed in intensive care. When he was finally settled in a room
in the unit, a nurse asked him if he knew what day it was. He
said “No,” so she told him: “It’s Christmas.” True to form,
without a moment’s hesitation, Keith replied: “Merry Christmas.”
The day after Christmas the doctors
determined that his kidneys had ceased to function and they
proposed what they hoped would be temporary dialysis treatment,
with about a fifty percent chance of success. Keith and his
parents had often reflected together on his life and illness and
had agreed that the decision would be his to determine when it
was time to stop the medical interventions and treatments. Keith
understood that although it would cause his parents great pain,
they accepted that he was the one who really knew what he was
going through and would respect his decision.
Throughout the years of his illness,
Keith had always done whatever the doctors had suggested. But,
as they began to prepare him for the dialysis treatment, Keith
resisted. When his Mother questioned him he said to her: “This
doesn’t feel right. I’m very tired. I just want to do home.”
For the next few hours countless doctors spoke with him, telling
him that the treatment was necessary and asking him if he knew
that without it he would die. Yet, despite his memory loss,
each time he was questioned his response was firmly the same.
“I’m tired. I just want to go home. I know I can die. I want
to live. But I’m not afraid to die.” He spoke of how difficult
this decision was. At one point, his ever present sense of
humor intact, he said: “You know what a win/win situation is.
This is a lose/lose situation.” He apologized for the pain
this caused his parents; he thanked them again for all they had
always done for him. He spoke of sadness at leaving them, but
he also spoke of and radiated being at peace.
The next day as he was being
transferred by ambulance to a hospice house near his home where
he would spend his last days he sang a song he had learned: “We
are all one. In the end there is peace.” His last words were:
“I love you.” He then fell into unconsciousness until his very
peaceful death three days later. As his Father said, “He died
as he lived, peacefully.”
On the day he refused treatment, his
loved ones thanked Keith for all he had been for them, given to
them, and taught them about living and dying. He replied:
“I’ve learned a lot from this illness.” Among the many things
he learned, it seems, was that the dependence which so overcame
him was not a curse but a blessing. It was, as Rowan Williams
says, “a standing where Jesus stands, standing in the full
torrent of his love and creativity, giving and receiving.” In
this place Keith’s heart was “fed and enlarged and transformed.”
This celebration of the Epiphany has a
special significance in 2010 in our small corner of the world.
For in the life and death of an ordinary but beautiful human
being, we have seen the glory and the radiance of Divine Love
and been invited to enter the place of a dependence that can
open our hearts to be fed and enlarged and transformed. And, as
Keith’s Mother said on the day of his funeral: “If my Son can
say Merry Christmas on the day he is admitted into the intensive
care unit, I can say Happy New Year with meaning on the day of
his burial.”
Presence in simplicity or poverty of spirit prepares
us to heed the mystery in a single snowflake, ceramic, symphony,
or flower. Food and drink are savored, not merely consumed. Our
mind becomes like a motionless mountain lake, pure and clear.
We are ready to reflect all things as they are without exalting
them positively or negatively, without distorting them by
manipulation.
Simplicity directs our attention with tranquility of
mind to whatever appears in our formation field. At the moment
of simple appreciation, we do not ask ourselves whether
something is better than something else in our field. We simply
enjoy that it is. We sense an inner completeness, infused by
the formation mystery, in each thing we encounter. We grasp the
special indwelling of the mystery in the particular and we stand
in awe of its myriad ways. Our emptied mind comes to rest in
the specifics of the formation mystery in each of its
appearances. When the moment of simple presence is upon us, we
leave behind categories and projects and want to savor
transcendent meanings.
Simplicity is like a song: let everything simply be;
let it announce wordlessly the mystery of its own form, its
wondrous particularity. In simple appreciation, time is
experienced moment by moment as the treasure it is. Things do
not become an occasion for contest but an opportunity for
disclosure. We begin to experience the unity at the basis of
the formation field, a fusion of time and space. One thing
mirrors the other, yet remains distinct. We experience each
form in its particularity as well as in its connection with
every other form, with the cosmic, human, and transhuman
epiphanies of the mystery.
Adrian van Kaam, Formation of the Human Heart, pp
41-42.
To read a poem written by Keith's sister, inspired
by the last week of his life,
click this link.
