Holding On

         Recently I have found trees and plants enticing me to behold them.  First it was an oak tree in my backyard … then a nasturtium on a golf course.  It happened again this week.

I was taking a stroll in Los Osos near Morro Bay and noticed these plants. I stopped to look.  What struck me is how they have had to adapt to what must be frequent, strong winds off the bay.  They have had to grow off-center, leaning inland; but they have endured.

         As I stood there, a memory arose.  More than thirty years ago I was in the living room of a parishioner in rural Washington.  She and her husband had come from Germany after World War 2 to make a new life in America.  They had purchased a farm and worked hard to make it productive.  Then tragedy struck – at age 12, their only son died in a tractor accident on their farm. This happened several years before I came to town.

         On the day I came for a routine visit, the Desert Storm campaign had begun in Iraq.  People across town were transfixed by news coverage which showed constant flashes of light and explosions over Bagdhad.  As I sat down in the living room and began to make conversation, I asked, “So what do you think about what’s going on in Iraq?”

         “Oh, Pastor Steve, when I tried to watch the news, I began to cry,” she said. “I was five years old in Germany when the bombing of our city began.  I remember the ground shaking and buildings falling and running through the streets holding my mother’s hand and crying… I know people are cheering…but…Pastor Steve…they don’t know what it’s like to be a child and have your city bombed.”

         I think this story came to me as a reminder that some people endure great hardship –  far beyond anything I’ve known; their life has been shaped by constant forces pushing them away from what they hoped their life would be.  But somehow they survive —  they hang on. 

Father Gregory Boyle, who has become a legend working in the barrios of East Los Angeles, has said, “I choose to stand in awe at the burdens carried by the poor rather than standing in judgment about how they carry them.”

         We never know what hardships people may be bearing.

Prior Posts:

Seeing People Like Trees

The Intrinsic Power of Veriditas

Learning from the Redwoods