Thought I'd resurface these old posts for you. What Michael taught me diligently over the last many years is serving me very, very well. My hope is that there may be some insights in these posts that will help those who suffer so greatly in his absence.
Michael just put up a post on meditation and I wanted to tag team with him on this because the reading he shares there is meaningful to me.
He read it to me last Friday while we were at the cemetary visiting his gravesite.
Boy, those two know how to have a good time...
I will admit we have quite a multi-faceted relationship. Last week Scott and I were watching the Blackhawks with this hotdog-stuffed joker...
And the next week, he and I were visiting his grave.
And somehow even that ended up being funny. We went to a fish fry after and I was waiting for him to close up the ramp on his van, "The Starship", a super fine machine whose bumper is being held on with a bungee cord and whose ramp folds with a sound that makes one think of crickets being tortured in unspeakable ways.
(One of my favorite memories of the Blackhawk game was pulling into the player's lot in that contraption. It was just like being Ellie May Clampett.)
As I was laughing, he fidgeted with the control, trying to hold it steady until the ramp was completely folded.
Then I heard him "mumble", "Clearly, I have to do everything in this relationship."
"Oh, Jesus Christ, give me the f%*king keys." I grabbed them and held the button down.
"Hey, look, I can go back over there right now!" he indicated the cemetary down the street.
Not missing I beat, I lobbed back, "I'll drive!"
Needless to say, we've come a long way since my first visit.
But how did we get here? How do you sit with your best friend on his grave and then go get a fish fry and play?
Denial would be one way. People joke when they are uncomfortable as a matter of course.
But that isn't it. Trust me, there is no denial or avoidance here.
It's the readings. Head over to his post and imagine yourself sitting in a cemetary with a 33-year quadriplegic, listing to him read it out loud to you and tell me those words don't carry some extra weight.
Michael breathes life into prayers for me. I see who he is. How he is. The effect he has on people. The way he is such a magnet for those who get to be near him physically. Read the Prayer of St. Francis, outloud imagining yourself saying it from his perspective and tell me you don't start to understand it on a deeper level. I am thankful for my good fortune that so often he shares readings with me. It's the closest thing to Church I have. And if I got what I get from those readings and prayers when I was a young adult I never would have fallen away from the Church. In fact, I'd go every day.
And that leads me to his post. I do go there every day, very nearly. I, too, am very deliberate about including inspirational readings into my life. It's non-negotiable in my life. Call it prayer, meditation, reflection, contemplation...it's THE tool the Dragonslayer refuses to be without. It takes away my every fear and I have faced down many as you can surely see the deeper you dive into this blog.
So, pay attention because this stuff works.
I don't care what your beliefs are or your spiritual inclinations. It isn't about that. But stories of how people bear suffering with grace and dignity and how pain is transformed and transcended have so much to offer each of us. I was raised Catholic and had essentially spent my whole adult life recovering from it and rejecting it until I started to shut up, pay attention and listen to what Michael was saying. And since even spiritual talk is cheap, I spent even more time watching his actions.
These aren't mumbled over-rehearsed prayers and platitudes that he shares with me. This is a way of living.
And a way of dying.
And a way of embracing both at the very same time.
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