Summer

Held Aloft

I was at Mass and, looking at the crucifix, told the Lord that I was sorry for my lack of gratitude and focus. My body hurt, my depression was picking up speed, and hopelessness was circling like a vulture.

I was not the only one dealing with extended unemployment. I was older, educated and with far too much experience for most businesses during these times of economic uncertainty. No one wanted to hire me and I had tried to not take it personally, but it was getting hard not to.

As I searched for work, I’d exhausted all the benefits I could acquire as a healthy single woman without children, too young for Medicare. I was humiliated to be a charity case relying on friends to support me. I was also humbled by their willingness to share what little they had. I tried to remember that it is just as Christian to allow others to give a gift as it is to give one.

Still, I was tired of trying and tired of hoping. I didn’t care how far I fell; I simply knew I was falling into darkness.



iPhone, screen image

 Sitting there surrounded by others in the congregation, I had an image of a leaf falling from the branch of a very tall tree. Initially I thought of falling away from the tree of my life, tumbling hopelessly detached from all that I knew.

But as I sat there in the quite, I remembered how a leaf falls; swishing back and forth upon the breeze. It is lifted and carried aloft by the wind, as I too am carried aloft by the breath of God…to eventually be gently grounded.