The Holy Sync
The Holy Sync
“My
home is within you.” Psalm 87:7
Welcome to my Holy Sync, behind my kitchen sink. This is my open grotto framed
by a banana stand lifting high my little olive wood cross. I have a chunk of
rock from Canada, a little plastic angel, a submarine, a Lego dude with a
Native American Indian Chief’s headdress and a coffee cup, and an old St. Jude
votive that is in long overdue need of a good cleaning and a fresh candle (oh
the irony!).
With a stairway approach to our home that rivals climbing Mount Hood, and many
of you who live multiple states away, it is a great blessing that by
photography, writing, and the internet I can share the Holy Sync, with friends
and family who may never surmount the costly flights and stairway-to-our-slice-of-heaven
to see it. Hopefully, too, this will be a helpful walk down memory lane for my
kids if they ever dig up this essay in years to come. It might give a little
peek on the Jesus freak side of their mother that they may have wondered about.
For the past couple of years, this has been my home altar of good humor and
wisdom.
It begs for explanation and sharing. So, here we go.
I couldn’t get a good picture of the sink AND all the little stuff behind it,
but the sink is of central importance too. It reminds me of the Water of Life,
to go with the flow, the wash of forgiveness, helping all things become clean,
the daily little scrubbing and penance and grunt work that it takes to make
everything else cook right. I’m particularly thankful that I have a dishwasher
these days. The sink reminds me that when we lived on Guam I did all the dishes
by hand - except for the one morning I paid our neighbor’s nanny $5 to do one
load of dishes, because it had been “that kind of morning.” I don’t even
remember the content of the hardship of the morning. Obviously full of the
mundane forgettable, surely overcast with sleeplessness, and wearied from
toddler care, and the brunt of other cleaning housework that just made the rest
of the day look dour and impossible from the start. Having this little Holy
Sync here at the sink reminds me what a high price I was willing to pay on a
day like that for mercy and relief even from my (in retrospect) small
suffering.
My Canadian rock came from a family reunion camping trip near Thessalon,
Ontario, close to 19 years ago now. It is my visual reminder of the importance
of nature and family, of Jesus as my rock, of holy ground, of dear Canadian
friends, and holy mountains, of jagged and pebbly and pockmarked faith. It is
not really a pretty rock. Definitely a stone builders would reject. It is sort
of a chunk of concrete with a bunch of other pebbles stuck in it. Largely grey
with thousands of tiny pieces of blue, pink, and white granite. It provides a
deep, sentimental, visual meditation all on its own.
The little angel belongs to Grace and is on indefinite loan to the Holy Sync.
She reminds me to have faith in angels, miracles, spirits, goodness, light,
mercy, grace, hope, sacred help, Divinity, sublimity, mysteries beyond my
seeing, possibilities beyond my understanding, Beings in the folds and the
fabric of time and space that only Heaven knows fully. Arms outstretched, she
keeps me open to the widest possible breadth of the Holy Embrace.
With a little baking soda in the conning tower, Christopher’s little submarine
(also on generous indefinite loan) will dive and rise over and over again in a
tub full of water - another good meditation. My soul’s constant work is diving
and rising, diving and rising, diving and rising in waters of life and mercy
that may be shallow or deep, murky or clear, fresh or salty or brackish, soapy
or grimy. The chemical reaction that makes that diving and rising happen, the
movement and reactivity of infinitely small molecules creating large visible
change and movement – what a fascination, what a meditation!
My little Chief with his sunglasses and coffee mug looks a little like a blind
beggar. How often as co-Chief of our home, have I been blind or a beggar?! How
wise it is to panhandle to God in prayer for help, wisdom, guidance, faith,
grace, mercy?! He reminds me.
St. Jude, Oh St. Jude, my dear saint of “impossible cases.” Let’s suffice to
say I am so very glad he’s in my Holy Sync corner. He reminds me to trust that
God allows the impossible to be possible, that life’s paradoxes are God’s
finite-infinite-definite territory! I need that reassurance and reminder in no
small measure.
Finally, the olive wood cross on the banana stand, I wonder sometimes if there
is any better place for it. And then I realize – no. The cross drives me
bananas. Being prayerful, religious, devout, odd, whacky, however you would
like to slice that banana, helps me deal with the bonkers and bananas nature
that is our nature. It helps me be more fruitful. That beautiful wavy, burled,
dark-grained olive wood comes from a formidable tree – a tree that can live thousands of years in torturously dry,
rocky conditions, and still bear fruit. It reminds me how little of this world
God tells us we need to live on. How enduring life can be even in the hardest
of conditions.
