A Time To Pack Our Bags

Good morning…

Many of you resonated with my recent post My Ministry As A Mermaid. I am grateful for your encouragement, and I have received so much more than your kind affirmation. God drew me into intimacy in surround sound, though a child’s voice, through a journal, through a necklace, through a wine label, and eventually through my friend’s recommendation of a book. I surprised myself over the summer, laced with dyslexic and ADD tendencies, as I read The Mermaid Chair cover to cover. The book’s wisdom touched me deeply, so deeply, waking up my awareness.

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Excerpt from The Mermaid Chair by Sue Monk Kidd

My last visit, on the the occasion of my mother’s seventieth birthday, had been a disaster of biblical proportions.

I’d taken Dee (our daughter) who was twelve, and we’d presented Mother with a pair of gorgeous silk pajamas from Saks, very Oriental, with a Chinese dragon embroidered on the top. She’s refused to accept them. And for the dumbest reason. It was because of the dragon, which she referred to alternately as “a beast,” “a demon,” and “a figure of mortal turpitude.” St. Margaret of Antioch had been swallowed by Satan in the form of a dragon, she said. Did I really expect her to sleep in such a thing?

When she got like that, no one could reason with her. She’d hurled the pajamas into the trash can, and I’d packed our bags.

The last time I’d seen my mother, she was standing on the porch, shouting, “If you leave, don’t come back!” And Dee, poor Dee, who only wanted a semi-normal grandmother, crying. (14-15)

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There are moments in life when symbolically our heartfelt gift of “a pair of gorgeous silk pajamas” is refused acceptance, a gift from our true self is thrown into the trash. When a valued person “gets like that,” reason is defied and emotionally we pack our bags. All we want is semi-normal love from a cherished human being. As we walk away, crying, we do well to remember the words our First Love.

…Sue…