There is nothing more whole than a broken heart.
~ Rabbi Menachem Mendel of Kotzk

Mother Teresa, the Albanian nun who took into her heart and home the destitute and dying in Calcutta, popularized for many Christians the Indian greeting “Namaste” which is often accompanied by a reverent bow toward the other, arms bent at the elbow, hands held close to the chest folded palm to palm, fingers pointing upward.[i] No doubt it did not escape Mother Teresa that when she bowed and said, “Namaste” to another sister, neighbor, or dying man, that she was enacting the same reverent gesture observed in her Catholic tradition when crossing in front of or standing before the tabernacle which contains the Blessed Sacrament, the real presence of Christ in the reserved Eucharist. In each case, the reverential bowing of the head and the quiet joining of the hands palm to palm, bespeak the reverent recognition of the divine presence that dwells within its receptacle whether veiled by flesh, feathers, metal, leaf, light, wood, wind, water, or stone.

Sometimes the human encounter that evokes reverent awe passes by unknown to one of the parties and the consequent epiphany is only felt by one of the participants. When my oldest son Jackson was in the 3^rd grade, such an experience happened to me one day when I went to pick him up after school. If you are a parent or grandparent, you may have had a moment or two like this yourself. And if you are not a parent or grandparent you may have had a moment or two like this as well.

Because I was early, I was able to get a parking spot nearer to his classroom than usual. Pulling up to the curb, I secured the choicest spot. Looking out the front passenger window I could see through the open gate in the high chain-link fence down the cement walkway that was immediately outside my son’s classroom, a mere 50 feet from where I was parked. If Jackson took a sharp left turn as soon as he exited the classroom he’d be able to walk the path straight to the car door. Voila!

As time approached the end of school, I waited for the closing bell. I rolled down my front right window so that I could yell to Jackson as soon as he came out of the classroom and before he took his usual right turn to meet me at our normal pick up spot on the other side of the school.

The bell rang and the children began to pour out of Ms. Davis’ 3^rd grade classroom. I leaned toward the passenger window ready to yell my son’s name. But no Jackson. After the immediate rush in the first seconds after the sound of the bell, the chaotic outpouring of students slowed until students trickled out intermittently, one by one, but still no Jackson. Then, finally, out he walked.

Somehow, after all that waiting, he surprised me. Taking two steps outside the classroom, he took a sharp right turn and headed in his usual direction. I went to call his name but something stopped me. Somewhere in my gut a lump got on the elevator that ran up the shaft of my body past my heart and rode up a few more floors until the elevator suddenly stopped at my throat as I watched Jackson walk down the path with his back to me. No words came, no name, no shout. When the lump is made of love, the words often don’t make it out. I think poet and essayist Kathleen Norris is right when she says, “Silence is the best response to mystery,” although tears are befitting as well.

He was the only one on the walking path. He was wearing his navy blue hi-top Converse, turquoise gym shorts that fell to his knees and matched the color of his lunch box. He was toting the proverbial too-heavy backpack. My sudden aphasia had something to do with the way he was walking, how he carried himself despite his heavy load—with purpose but without a care in the world, utterly unselfconscious, self-assured yet somewhere lost in his own thoughts, and though subtle, he moved with so much personality. He was all there in that extended moment.

Suddenly it hit me, overwhelmed me in a flash of recognition that detoured around the orange cones in my mind and went straight to my heart so that even now I struggle to put it into words. It was the realization that this little fella who was bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh was his own person, an unrepeatable miracle, an 8 year old mystery conceived in the mind of God light years before he was conceived in the joining of his parent’s bodies, made in love, born as pure gift, an inviolable image of the divine, mine but no longer mine, not my possession, my son but somehow not even my son, but this singularly precious being who belonged to the universe and was already walking the path of his own unique life, with his own unique identity, toward his own unique destiny—a holy pilgrim in size 4 ½ blue hi-top Converse.

Everything changed in those few ticks of the silent clock. When the heart is full, it cracks like ice. Looking back, I realize the lump in my throat consisted of a profound sense of loss, a profound sense of awe, and a profound sense of gratefulness.  My eyes teared up. The sweet and sour taste of relinquishment. All this in a matter of seconds. It was the simplest, saddest, most beautiful and sacred of moments. And from inside my body sitting inside my car, I felt my heart bow as my son walked further and further away from me.

♦ Please send this on to a friend or to someone who is a mom or dad or has a heart or likes hi-top Converse. Thanks, Dan

NOTES

[i] Namaste is a Sanskrit word that literally means “I bow to you.” Although a common form of greeting in India, some teachers suggest that “Namaste” can be infused with a deeper spiritual meaning, something along the lines of “The Divine in me recognizes and salutes the divine in you.”

ARTWORK: A Father’s Embrace, Sister Francis Robles, OSA

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