Last July, as you recall, I was dying. I was in a soulless corporate hospital, trying and failing to recover from emergency surgery. Some of my vital organs had become ‘septic’; raging with infection. I was fading.
I had been denied food and water for five days; I had been told by a plethora of oddly detached nurses, who spoke without expression, that I would soon be on a respirator. Unable to muster the will to fight much longer, I asked God to please give me more time.
My doctor, spurred to intervene by my husband who urged him in that inimitable way that Brian has that has been honed in so many conflict areas, drove nearly an hour to secure for me the long-delayed procedure that ultimately did retrieve my life from the very maw of death.
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And then I was able to go home; able slowly to mend; to look at the sun; to put my bare feet every day on soft green moss at the base of an old tree; to sleep and wake and sleep again, and to thank God that I would receive — more life.
But I did make a promise then that I have not kept. Every day I don’t keep it, and I know that I haven’t kept it. That promise was to write down and share with you the things that I know are my task to write, but about which I do not wish to write.
*****
Two weeks ago, I walked into a nineteenth-century church in Taos, New Mexico: San Geronimo de Pueblo. The church is in the heart of the Taos Pueblo, a Native American village in high desert that is peacefully surrounded by a time that is not our time.
Three-story adobe structures, connected by ladders, shelter the inhabitants and visitors in the green-gold valley. A little singing stream runs at the foot of the sacred mountain.
The adobe structures in that valley had been there since the 12th century. The Pueblo, or Anasazi, people had been there for a millennium; so had their language, Tiwa; and the stories of their Red Willow culture, and the culture itself.
The Pueblo view of God and of surrounding “kachin” or “katina” — the hundreds of lesser animated spirits who intervene between God and humans — is a knowledge system older than the printed books of the West.
In the San Geronimo de Pueblo church, one could see the newer narratives, brought to the region, often by force, by Spanish missionaries from the 16th century on. Jesus, Mary and Joseph are now entwined with ancient Pueblo beliefs and mythologies. Though indigenous Pueblo and Spanish Catholic civilizations have battled here for centuries — the Pueblo actually drove the Spanish out of this region for twelve years, from 1680-1692, in the only successful Native uprising against a colonial power in North America — the two cultures had now intertwined in some ways, like parallel vines.
In the church, photos are not permitted. Almost two centuries of sanctity accrued in the dark, cool interior like clear water in an icy stream.
And there was Mary. She stood at the forefront of the altar, recreated in Indian guise; figured as a Red Willow woman. Her image was simply but lovingly hewn from wood that was painted and dressed in clothing. Mary wore a serape-type garment, and she had rose-hued skirts.
A guide blog notes: “[e]ven the church, built in 1850, is a mixture of Catholicism and native religious beliefs. If you look closely at the photo of the inside of the San Geronimo Church, you will notice the statue over the altar is not Jesus Christ but the Corn Maiden, to some, or the Virgin Mary whom the Puebloans equate with Mother Earth. Corn is central to the Puebloan religion and culture and symbolizes life and fertility. The Corn maiden/Virgin Mary takes central stage and you will find Jesus Christ over to the side.”
On the plaster walls behind her — you can just make these out in the image above – are painted depictions of baskets overflowing with “the three sisters”: ears of corn; generous orange pumpkins and green squash; and heart-leaved trellises bearing beans. Standing ears of corn, and bean trellises, also adorn the niches in which she and the other sacred figures appear.
This was the eternal mother, both sublime and down-to-earth, gazing calmly back at the worshippers.
I sat quietly on a rough wooden pew; as always, I expected, just an observer — Jewish me, simply taking it all in. Me, no dog in this fight, being a tourist; contemplating a beautiful, protected historical site.
And yet, unmistakably, into the depth of my resting awareness came her voice.
She asked me, in a bell-like tone, but unrelentingly, and without equivocation:
“Why aren’t you helping me?”
I didn’t have an answer for her, because I knew that have been evading my task.
*****
Today, back in Brooklyn, I decided on the spur of the moment to stop into a neighborhood church. (For the record, I am not ‘a Christian’, which I will explain in subsequent essays. I’ll go hang out with God anywhere).
I had entered late; the service was about to conclude.
I was in a modern, well-lit, spacious mauve-painted auditorium, filled almost entirely with worshippers from the Caribbean. There was a live band onstage to the left of the pastor, and flower arrangements at the food of her podium. The energy in the crowd was uplifted and electric.
At the front of the altar, to my delight, were eight or nine families, dressed formally, that had all brought their babies to be blessed, or perhaps to be baptized. The female pastor held up each beautifully dressed baby in turn, and then held the baby close to her face. She spoke some words of hope for that baby’s future. As she spoke of God’s plans for each baby, the infants looked surprised, being raised up high by a stranger, above a populous congregation; but they remained very peaceful and still; they did not squirm or cry.
The pastor expressed wishes that the baby — she called each one by name — would be a blessing to others, and would walk with God; and that the parents would have divine guidance in raising the child. As I watched this, I thought: Satan had not yet won. The babies were still being born, and they and their families were still being blessed.
As I began to think about what was next to do in my day — none of the items of which including writing this essay — the pastor gave each baby back to his or her family group, and then went into her sermon.
I was taken aback.
“It does not matter if you feel you are up to the task. You have an assignment,” she declared.
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“You have an assignment. You must do it. You do not have to be perfect. God knows you are im-perfect.” She drew the word out with relish, almost enjoying the humor in her message. “Just begin the task. Don’t worry about being perfect.” She added: “God knows how the project is supposed to unfold.”
What the pastor was describing was literally how I had been procrastinating: being afraid of making mistakes in writing these essays; being afraid of offending people, both Christian and Jewish; maybe others too; losing credibility and (human) support. I had been delaying my start day after day until I had figured it all out — a subject, or set of subjects, that was ineffable and inexplicable — perfectly.
My eyes started to fill. I felt thoroughly called out, but with love.
An elderly woman was seated next to me. Her smile had been radiant as she had listened to the sermon. Now she turned to me. “You are very welcome,” she said. She no doubt saw that I was tearing up. She opened her arms and hugged me.
So — I get it. Duly noted.
I am showing up for my assignment, and I am sorry for the delay.
I will try to write, in the next few essays, what I have long dreaded writing.
