Saturday, June 18, 2011

Tribes

I sit silently in the peaceful sunlit sanctuary. It is Sunday morning, and I've come early to place a bouquet of flowers in the church for the Sunday service. Nobody else has arrived yet. It is the first time I've been alone in this space since I joined the Presbyterian church. I slip off my Birkenstocks, cross my legs half-lotus style, and settle down on the padded pew, relaxing in the solitude. I've brought a book with me today, in anticipation of having a few quiet moments alone before the service. I'm reading Thich Nhat Hahn's "Going Home: Jesus and Buddha as Brothers". I open my book and begin reading. A passage from the page I'm reading speaks to me.

Thich Nhat Hahn writes that our ancestors are alive within us and they have never died. They are still in us. He says that we need only to come back to ourselves by practicing mindful breathing to touch them.

I thought of a synchronous event that happened just the day before. During my weekend errands, I had stopped by Lily's Alteration Shop to have a new blouse hemmed. While I stood on a platform in the shop waiting for the little Chinese seamstress to pin up my hem, I caught a glimpse of my face in the full length mirror. Just for a moment I saw myself as a part of a clan, a beloved drop of the sacred pool of my family. I noticed my fair creamy Scots-Irish skin with bronze undertones, freckled from the Florida sun. I saw my maternal grandmother Sadie's small nose and my mother Iris' copper hair. I saw the people from whom I came reflected back at me in the mirror. I smiled to them. I felt disconnected from my mother's family for much of my childhood and well into my adult years. I realize now that whether or not I knew those people well or was close to them, I still belong to them and have always been a part of their tribe.

I take a deep breath and in my mind's eye, I visualize my mother and her mother, as I've seen them so many times in our family photos, and I feel just a little less detached from them than I have in the past. Although they are strangers and ghosts to me in many ways, I realize that they lived their lives the best way they could, and they would have been more connected to me if only they could have found a way. I know that there will always be times when I feel insecure, frightened, and alone, but I am part of a spiritual community of people where I am valued and loved. I open my eyes and gaze around the sanctuary as the members of our beloved community begin to gather for today's service, and I smile to this tribe as well.