Heartsick and hunkered under a lap quilt, I light my prayer candle. The votive flickers within its chunky glass holder, a treasured, fire-in-ice gift from my lifelong friend. Yesterday, she was diagnosed with cancer.
Oh, friend. Oh shit. Merciful God, please intervene!
I yearn to help. And I want to bolt, escape to the woods, outrun heartbreak.
Beyond my window Indian Summer burnishes the aspen’s heart-shaped leaves to quavering gold.
Hold on. Those movements exceed a passing breeze. Branches thrash.
Camera in hand, I edge onto our deck: grunts … rustles … CRACK! — massive jaws are tearing off limbs.
I inch nearer. A dark, unblinking eye slues in its socket, meeting mine. Abashed, I shift my gaze. Behold, 800 swayback pounds of fur quixotically arranged atop legs like stilts: a moose.
AND her twins.
I study their commandeered buffet — this time, the crab apple.
Does the cow scent human? Have her calves ever seen one?
Stilling breath / bones / muscles … I try to communicate: No threat here and No greens for me today, thanks. After all, a mature moose weighs as much as a car, can charge at 35 miles per hour, and possesses front hooves designed to lash out in any direction.
So, I stay put, snapping breathless photos.
Then … simply watch, rapt. Only God could imagine into bone / joint / sinew-and-hide these stoic, browsing eccentrics. How effortlessly they radiate wildness.
Moose are focused. Adept. Insouciantly unafraid.
Moose: literally, “Eater of Twigs.” De-nuder of trees. And these three are thorough. The ornamentals will soon be whittled to nubs!
Stamping my feet, I shout. Flail. Make noises, mostly unintelligible.
It’s a lot like praying for someone with cancer.
Are such cries disrespectful? Do they communicate? Are they vacant gestures against a disease all-consuming in its hunger?
I mutter prayers anyway, writes author Brian Doyle.
Did they have any weight as they flew?
I don’t know.
But I believe with all my heart that they mattered because I was moved to make them. … believe that the impulse to pray is the prayer, and that the words we use are only envelopes in which to mail pain and joy …
It’s the urge that matters — the sudden Save us that rises against horror, the silent Thank you for joy.
Even the wrenched-out gutterals — ?!#%?&?! — all that is ornamental pared back to the raw shoot.
So, I pray for my friend with cancer. And for others I know, also gravely afflicted with different versions.
I pray for all of us. That we remain focused. Adept in grace. Insouciantly unafraid.
What’s staring you down, eyeball-to-eyeball? I’d gladly add my prayers to yours.
Brian Doyle, Leaping: Revelations and Epiphanies
Jenell says
Oh Laurie, once again- the timing!!!
Stamping, flailing, and groaning for my own dear friend’s diagnosis of breast cancer today. Just on the heels of an unexpected, heartbreaking end to their ministry in Tanzania.
Thank you sister, thank You Lord, for these envelopes to borrow today when I had none.
Laurie Klein says
Dear Jenell, I too am startled and amazed by God’s timing. And I’m vicariously aching for the two of you. O what hard, hard news. May God’s presence and hourly healing mercies enfold you both, each step of the way. Amen.
Jenell says
Thank you Laurie, thank you!
Laurie Klein says
Sending love, sending prayers, standing by, in hope.
Lynn says
Thanks Laurie. I’ve met my moose. (I watched for one constantly with anticipation when we were fishing in Canada.) I’ll eat my twigs and be glad they’re not branches. I move forward calmly blessed by the love and support of those who hold me.
Laurie Klein says
Lynn, I’m rejoicing with you in your sighting. The gift of standing near a being so majestic yet droll and completely OTHER re-burnished some childlike part of me. I can still sense a thrum and glow.
I am deeply glad to read your words. Your sense of proportion and wit and abiding calm remind me of so many times spent together over 67 years! So many times you fathomed and steadied and redirected me toward peace. And they remind me too of that verse in Isaiah (did we use it in the print show we slaved over at St. O?) “In quietness and confidence will be your strength.” Amen. So be it, day by day. I love you.
Carol Wilson says
Your Creator’s gift of awareness in the midst of your words lifting up in agonized expression. Agony meets Living Hope. Agony fully understood.
~ ~ ~ I am halfway through reading the same Brian Doyle book you quoted.
“Lord, will you please hold Laurie and her beloved friend with your compassion and comfort today and tomorrow. Please show Laurie stepping stones. Lord, I pray this friend to be healed like Paul’s Epaphroditus in Philippians. I pray that no matter what she will know You have her enclosed behind and before. Thank you, Jesus. Amen.”
Laurie Klein says
“Agony fully understood.” That gives me shivers, Carol.
How delightful that we are both reading Leaping!
And thanks to you, I have been working on a most unexpected, long-armed poem about acorns. Thank you. :>)
Your beautiful prayer enfolds me today with comfort and renewed vision and strength. Thank you.
Bethany Rohde says
Oh, Laurie, my heart goes out to you and your precious lifelong friend! I will pray too.
I’m also struck by your statement: “[I] believe that the impulse to pray is the prayer, and that the words we use are only envelopes in which to mail pain and joy …”
I shared it with my son during homeschool today and am writing it on our big whiteboard in the kitchen. It’s such an encouragement to pray in whatever way our spirits can muster expression.
Laurie Klein says
Bethany, thank you for praying. That quote from Brian Doyle is so freeing for me to contemplate. From what I know of his life and writing, those words would have been forged in the furnace of searing need alongside merry wellsprings of joy. I hope he can peer through the scrim of heaven into your kitchen today, where you and your son work and pray.
I love your phrase: “whatever way our spirits can muster expression.” Amen and amen
Roberta says
A heartfelt thank you to you Laurie, and to each of your friends who have shared. Your words have flown to my heart. Not weighing me down, but freeing my spirit; heart shaped Aspen leaves, quavering gold. Indeed, each word a gift.
Laurie Klein says
Roberta, I’m going to presume to answer on behalf of all who have shared so richly and wisely here and thank you as well. Your words underline for me how much we need one other, need the freeing, healing grace that flows when stories and empathy are shared and prayers are offered, individually and collectively—need one another perhaps more than ever. Blessings on you, friend.
Gena Bradford says
I teared up at the line that our words are only envelopes to mail our pain and joy. Feeling your pain dear sister of my heart.
Laurie Klein says
Such a vivid image. What a gift God gave us in language. And what a gift that our primal groans and growls and wails and whimpers are equally intelligible to our Maker. I feel your empathy, and it is beautiful, friend.
Linda Jo Reed says
Laurie: I am grateful for the majestic gift God gave to you today to remind you that He is definitely hearing your prayers. How wonderful, in spite of the grief you have for your friend. He will be with her and you every step of the way. A Mama Moose and two babies? Wow!
Laurie Klein says
Majestic—what a well-chosen word! And the earthy noises they make . . . not unlike my own occasional “groanings too deep for words.” I am ever startled by the unlikely and memorable sources of encouragement along the way. God knew exactly which day I needed a visitation.
Nancy Ruegg says
Another vacant gesture: saying I’m sorry for the pain you’re experiencing, dear Laurie. The words do nothing to assuage, except to let you know my heart is bruised because yours is. (I mean that sincerely, even though we’ve never met in person. I feel a kinship with you, after these years of reading your blog and hearing your thoughts here.) I pray for an Ephesians 3:20 outcome to your friend’s cancer!
Laurie Klein says
Not vacant, no. Loving. A voice of faith and solidarity amid the often-bruising enterprise of life on this planet, in this age. Your words and prayers today bolster my hopes, thank you. And thank you, too, for being a vibrant voice in this community all these years! And for the verse, my thanks as well. I just looked it up. It reestablishes perspective.
Judy Mandeville says
“outrun heartbreak
Joint/ sinew/hide radiate wildness
a disease all consuming in its hunger
insouciantly unafraid
script lashing out, like the twig eater’s hooves, in all directions.
eyeball to eyeball? Cancer. Hatred. Misinformation. Aging narratives.
and the vastness of what prayer may be:
“But I believe with all my heart that they(my muttered prayers) mattered because I was moved to make them. … believe that the impulse to pray is the prayer, and that the words we use are only envelopes in which to mail pain and joy …”
Thank you for this benediction, dear Laurie
Laurie Klein says
Dear Judy, that is one daunting list of heartbreak and rampant affliction. I can only try to imagine the weight, the sorrow, the frustration.
Except. THIS: your next phrase: “the vastness of what prayer may be.”
Thank you for saying it just that way. I need so many reminders!
And thank you for your phone call, friend.
Susan says
I find it so interesting that I have had people, who claim no faith, stop and pray for me. I love that you quote Doyle, “…the impulse to pray is the prayer, and that the words we use are only envelopes in which to mail pain and joy …” . Think of it–perhaps our first prayer was a response to pain, our first step of faith the handing off of unbearable news.
This does not answer the hard questions about pain we encounter. But for me it lends a purpose beyond me to all the unknowns.
If not for this, you would not have prayed… (and then what happened?)
Laurie Klein says
That supposing gives me shivers, Susan. Perhaps our first cry at the assault of frightening, seemingly unbearable sensations——light and noise, dry air and chill, the chafe of cloth replacing the caress of water——is also both impulse and prayer.
Jody Collins says
Oh goodness, Laurie. A moose???? and her babies?? Worlds are colliding out there and it seems everything is topsy turvy.
It’s clear that your awareness of “the All that is all everywhere” shows that God is speaking continually. Your listening amazes me.
I think the unintelligible response to S.’s cancer diagnosis is the only appropriate way to pray and you expressed it well.
“….the impulse to pray is the prayer, and that the words we use are only envelopes in which to mail pain and joy …
It’s the urge that matters — the sudden Save us that rises against horror, the silent Thank you for joy.
Even the wrenched-out gutturals — ?!#%?&?! — all that is ornamental pared back to the raw shoot.”
You’ve inspired me to “pray” thusly as well, aware that it’s not the non-words that matter but the nod towards Heaven. Dear God, Save us/her.
Laurie Klein says
Jody, I cherish those words from Brian Doyle. Too often I’ve followed a template. Too often I’ve discounted the potential of the most elemental human responses. Perhaps it’s the editor/censor-in-me that always seeks the right combination of words, the closest approximation, when, in truth, giving voice to the impulse is often more than sufficient. We are moved. We give whatever voice we can, in the moment, to the One who moves mountains.
Four of my friends are staring down cancer. And I know you pray for our dear S. and many more appalling needs as well. God save us, indeed.
Pacia Dixon says
Praying, braying (with you), for heartbroken beings around our world and in our own holy orbits. Thank you sharing the ornamental golden hearts of aspen leaves and the light of hope glimmering through glass. Deep breaths this morning, of the fresh, rain-soaked oxygen spiraling between tree limbs into every cell of our beings. ❤️
Laurie Klein says
Chuckling over your pair of gerunds. Your words give me delicious pause, “holy orbits / ornamental golden hearts / hope glimmering through glass. / rain-soaked oxygen spiraling . . . into every cell . . .
Breathing deeply as I re-read them. Signing off with a blown kiss, friend, so I can read them again . .
Pacia dixon says
Well, you never fail to make poetic feelings rise up when I read your radiant thoughts. Thank you.
Laurie Klein says
Oh, that makes me smile and smile.
I read this today in Oswald Chambers, urging his readers to “… be rendered radiant and well-pleasing to God.”
John says
Leave it to you to get mixed up with a moose cow and her young… she obviously had all escape routes identified, because the runaway car would have come into play if she felt threatened. But she knew you. Animals sense fear, smell it really, why one person can walk up to the horse no one can catch and lead it home. Your words, at whatever volume, give you that power.. I count you high on my list , knowing that if a voice will make a difference. Others, maybe not so much, but who am I to judge.
Laurie Klein says
I know, right? Minding my own business and wham-o, the universe sends me a moose. A few days earlier the male passed through the yard with the family, his antlers high as the sill of my 2nd story office window. I’ve always been fascinated by the horse whisperer idea. Gives me chills, actually. Maybe being gobsmacked trumped my fear of something that big, that wild, being that close.
Thanks for your encouragement about the words, at whatever volume, making a difference, John. I take that to heart.