It’s a Miracle
August 27, 1986*
The picture of Jesus on the wall was the largest I had even seen in my entire Jewish life. Jesus was looking tall and benevolent, wearing, of course, his usual robe and slippers, while holding an innocent-looking, nonchalant lamb. It took up most of the wall, appearing practically-larger-than-life-sized. Or perhaps it was me. Perhaps my perception was off—I wasn’t feeling very well. We were facing each other, Jesus and I, assessing each other, sizing each other up.
I wasn’t sure of him at all.
We were all sitting on rickety, uncomfortable metal folding chairs which had seen better days. Mine was uneven and when I moved, which seemed often, the chair responded with a cacophony of squeaks. My already out-of-the-box-galloping-self-consciousness was magnified by this damn chair that had to call attention to my every nervous readjustment. There were about twenty people sitting in a makeshift circle. I could hardly bear to look at anyone but Jesus.
We were in what seemed to be a depressingly tan rec-room, off the main church, with faded paint, an old ping pong table off to the side, and a battered floral couch that had indeed seen better days. There was a tired-looking coffee maker on a card table with Styrofoam cups, a few disorganized, scattered napkins stained with coffee, unappetizing cookies scattered in an open box, and a plastic bowl holding hard candies. I shuttered at the obvious lack of nutritional sophistication of these people, whoever they were. I would never eat any of that. My commitment to my raw foods diet was impeccable.
People were talking. It seemed impossible to focus my hearing to make the words individuated. They made no sense to me. The sounds of the words assaulted me all at once and poured endlessly over me. I couldn’t seem to slow them down, to divide them out. What the heck was happening to me? That thought terrified me anew, and I took a bit of a breath, which seemed to slow everything down a little.
“And I realize that I wasn’t the only person who felt like that,” a voice said.
I searched around the circle to find the owner of the voice. I couldn’t believe my eyes. It was The Leather Woman. She was dressed in a black leather vest, despite the intolerable heat. She wore skin-tight jeans, knee-length laced boots with spiked heels, and a bikers’ cap on her dyed inky black hair.
But it was the piercing—the piercing!—that mesmerized me. This was well before piercing was in vogue. She had a dozen tiny metal balls streaming down the length of each ear, larger yet piercings in each of her nostrils, and series of odd and metallic things adorning her right eyebrow. Looking at her made me physically shutter again. Although I had lived in the East Village for years and had been accustomed to everybody, every shape, race, color, size, gender combo-blend of personal expression, this was over the top for me. I was both fascinated and repulsed by the elaborate display. Surely this woman and I existed in different universes. I was a radical Jewish lesbian-separatist. I was Nachama, having taken the name of my grandmother’s mother.** She was—The Pierced Lady.
I believed in and lived for the matriarchy, freed from the symbols of male power and oppression. I saw her as a walking embodiment of exactly that.
What the fuck was I doing here with these people? The intensity of my discomfort continued to rise. I felt downright squirmy but stayed seated. There seemed no alternative but to sit, to allow this strange, foreign meeting with its own cast of characters to play out. I certainly didn’t have the capacity to move yet alone stand and leave.
Jesus met my eye again, offering me a touchstone of presence. I squirmed beneath his gaze and found a tiny glimmer of comfort from the lamb in his arms.
I pulled my eyes away.
I tried to take another breath, attempting to discern the words floating around me.
The Pierced Lady continued:
“I get really scared when I don’t know how to do something.”
Those twelve words woke me up. Literally, woke me up. I heard them; they seemed to permeate, penetrate the fog that clung to me. They shook me deeply, deeply and fully.
ME, TOO, I thought.
My thoughts continued:
I GET REALLY SCARED WHEN I DON’T KNOW WHAT PEOPLE ARE TALKING ABOUT.
ESPECIALLY IN MY POLITICAL GROUP.
I TRY TO REPEAT SOMETHING SOMEONE SAID TO MAKE IT MINE.
I GET—TERRIFIED.
I sat up straighter. The Pierced Lady continued:
“I want people to like me. I want everybody to think I’m good and that I do good things. I just don’t know how to be myself, to have my feelings, to show up. When I get scared, all I want to do—all I do—is drink and drug. When I do that, then I can show up. It kind of works for a while, and then, it gets messy and doesn’t. Everything just gets worse. The problems get bigger and I feel like shit about myself, even more. I feel like shit about me, EVEN MORE.”
I was stunned, now at the edge of my chair. She, The Pierced Lady from the Galaxy of Biker-Land, was speaking the words of my inner, most secret self. She was saying things about me that I hadn’t quite said to myself, about myself, but I knew them, deeply, truly inside. They were the words that I tried forever and always to push away. In her speaking them aloud, something inside of me shifted and settled.
She went on, describing her attempts to stay sober and clean, about how her life was improving slowly, one day at a time, I have never had the experience of being so impacted by somebody’s words. It was almost as if they missed my brain and entered directly into my body, into my heart. My head calmed. I sat alert, in awe.
“Just don’t use. Just don’t pick up. We can outlive those feelings. Keep coming back here. Just keep coming. Thanks.” The Pierced Lady ended to a round of applause.
I sat, dumbfounded. She understood me, this be-leathered, odd being. Despite the differences in our costumes, despite our obvious contrary political perspectives, she spoke my world into being. She put words to my reality. Everything seemed very still in the room.
The leader, a lanky jock-looking guy in cut-offs and dirty white high-top sneakers, thanked her and said, “Let’s continue the discussion with Jason,” and looked to a pimply kid on his left. Jason opened his mouth and started talking.
I couldn’t take in all of the words, as the discussion passed organically around the circle. Although I don’t remember the content, these people, these men, these strange women, each spoke of things that touched me, things that somehow held a mirror up to my own self. I had never in my thirty-eight years felt so joined by other people, people I had never seen before.
Somehow the discussion floated around the circle. Somehow the words spoken continued to be my words, wanting to be said, wanting to be released. Somehow, eventually, when the circle’s attention focused on me, without thought, with chattering teeth and sweaty hands, I was able to say:
“My name is Nachama. I’m an addict.”
Without thought, without planning, my wounded self was revealed.
My gravest secret, kept so far from me, was now bathed in the light of acceptance.
I had landed.
~~~
According to our friends at Webster, a miracle is:
“A surprising and welcomed event that is not explicable by natural or scientific law and is therefore considered to be the work of a divine agency;
An Improbable or extraordinary event or development that brings positive results”
~~
And you, dear friends? What are the miracles surrounding you, the synchronistic events that happen, that continue to happen?
They may change your awareness, they may open you up to the moment,
They may soften your heart,
They may even switch your direction.
What do you notice?
Big moments or little, no matter what is happening,
There are miracles.
There is grace
Around us.
~~~
Friends,
Last week I shared the song Hallelujah covered by Pentatonix.
I declared it was the absolute most perfect cover of that amazing song.
I was wrong.
Thanks to our Canadian friends, here is the version of Hallelujah which Leonard Cohen claimed was his favorite.
Cohen said, after hearing this K.D. Lang’s version, there should be a moratorium placed on the song. Hers should be the only one allowed to be played.
Sounds like something he would say.
Without being redundant, I offer this version to you.
YOU MUST LISTEN TO THIS—AND WATCH THIS—K.D. Lang, opening the Olympics in Vancouver.
~~~
Dear Friends,
Let’s together request
Willingness and courage—
For the continued healing
Of our bodies,
For the continued quieting
Of our minds,
For the continued opening
Of our hearts.
May all beings benefit from our time together.
Stay blessed,
Aruni
~~~
Reminder:
You can read my past blogs at any time.
Choose a category from the list. All the blogs from the past year+ will appear.
Enjoy yourself!!
~~~
* This story, written in 2008, describes a turning point in my life that happened in 1986. It’s taken from my first book, Recovering My Voice—A Memoir of Chaos, Spirituality and Hope.
** Little did I know this would be a lifetime of name-changings.