Digging Down to the Rainbow Tree

After the death of George Floyd, racial tension, righteous anger, civil unrest, and division have spread across our country.  For me, my 5-year-old neighbor, Amy, C.T. Fletcher, and Louis Armstrong remind me of how things are supposed to be.

Amy painted this picture several weeks ago and told her grandparents, “This is a rainbow tree.  If you touch the rainbow tree, you love everyone.  A long, long time ago, before you, Grammy and Granddad, when I was a baby, I dug down to the rainbow tree and touched it.  That’s why I love everyone.  I touched the blue.  That’s why I have blue eyes.”

Amy’s story reminds me of a book by Betty Eadie, entitled Embraced by the Light, which recounts her near-death experience.  In it, she talks about our existence as souls before we’re given earthly bodies and missions.  Maybe it was during that time when Amy dug down to the rainbow tree?  And maybe when I touched the blue, too?  Since my eyes are blue?  Thank you, Amy.  Your rainbow tree is my favorite.

C.T. Fletcher is a famous 60-year-old weightlifter, world record holder for bench press, actor, personal trainer, and so on.  His nickname is Superman and he looks like this…

Last year, at age 59, Mr. Fletcher required a heart transplant due to an inherited heart condition.  He learned after surgery that he was given a woman’s heart.  An “old woman’s” heart.  She was the same age he was.  Not only that, but it was too small.  When he questioned the doctors about why they did that to him, they simply replied that they wanted him to live.

Well, that “too small” heart grew into the right size in a week’s time.  Unsure of what’s normal, he considers it a miracle and credits God with that…

He says he has “no idea of the nationality or race of the donor of his heart”, but he has feelings and would really like to know if his feelings are right…He believes she is an Asian lady and says, “I feel like I can see this woman with her husband and kids.  It’s like I can look into her existence, her life.”

He notices he has lost his ability to hate and often talks to his “lady” friend and asks her for help.  “I talk to her a lot... “Come on lady, I need your help.”

So, Mr. C.T. Fletcher, “Superman from Compton with a lady’s heart”,  reminds us that even our hearts are interchangeable, and God can grow them into the right size.

As the Vietnam War wore on and race riots were spreading through our country in the late 1960’s, What a Wonderful World was released.  In response to the question, “What do you mean, what a wonderful world?”  Louis Armstrong said, “Seems to me, it ain’t the world that’s so bad, but what we’re doing to it, and all I’m saying is:  see what a wonderful world it would be, if only we’d give it a chance.  Love, baby – love.  That’s the secret.”

May God grant us the love and wisdom of a certain 5-year-old, an increase of faith, the perspective of C.T. Fletcher and anyone living with another’s heart, unwavering hope, and lots and lots of rainbow trees.  Amen.  

Fruit, Death, and Reason

My little neighbor brought me a bowl of fruit yesterday.

A wonderful thing to receive from a 5-year-old, anytime. Only it was completely her idea and inspired by a dream that she gave me a bowl of fruit.  With lemons.

I can’t help but wonder about the timing of the delivery and the dream that inspired it.

Sometimes, children are placed on hospice.  I’ve known this, but I got to know it in a new way last week.  She was 6-years-old and died on the same day my little neighbor dreamed she brought me a bowl of fruit.

I told my neighbor’s Grammy about my emotional week and how a fruit delivery from a little one couldn’t have come at a better time.

I explained that I couldn’t sleep during the wee hours of the previous morning, so I got up and prayed.  I prayed most especially for our newest and youngest patient and learned later it was at that time when “our” earthly angel became a heavenly one.

She thought that was interesting because my little neighbor had the same trouble sleeping and called for her, at the same time.  Grammy mentioned something about us being “connected”.

Are we connected beyond living next door and having a mutual love for one another?  Are we connected in ways that sometimes wake us up or we can sometimes feel, but never see or comprehend?

During that couple of hours of way-too-early, I was searching for God’s presence.  I needed to know He was aware and at work amidst the upside-downness of a child dying.  I needed to know that I wasn’t showing up without Him.

He is used to hearing from me on my way to situations that are too hard for me.  “If You aren’t coming, I ain’t going!”  He hasn’t let me down, yet.

And this is what He gave me that morning when I was looking for Him...

“Who has ever said that the presence of God - in his actions and his words - has to be felt?  Sometimes God grants that sensation.  At other times, he doesn’t.”

This, from Blessed Conchita.   A wife, mother, and laywoman who just happened to be beatified when we were in Mexico this past May.  We sat in folding chairs outside the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe in the blazing sun, and we watched the man who was healed through her intercession, walk into the Mass of her Beatification.

Attending a Beatification Mass because we were “in the area”, two people not sleeping at the same time, a timely quote from the beatified, the death of a child, a child’s dream and conviction to act, and a bowl of fruit, hand-delivered.

Maybe they are only connected because I put them together in the same sentence.  But, maybe not.  

I don’t know what to make of it, but I’m okay with that.  I am enjoying the possibilities. 

“For they reasoned unsoundly, saying to themselves, 

‘Short and sorrowful is our life, and there is no remedy when a man comes to his end...

Because we were born by mere chance, and hereafter we shall be as though we had never been; because the breath in our nostrils is smoke, and reason is a spark kindled by the beating of our hearts...

The Wisdom of Solomon 2:1-2

Untouchable Superpowers

My little neighbor came over yesterday to pay me a visit.  We pulled up a stool so she could help me peel potatoes, but that was pretty hard and boring.  So, she waited as patiently as she could until we could go outside and jump on the trampoline.  In the meantime, she played the piano, and fed the dog, the fish, and the cat.

She jumped to her heart's content and I mostly chased her per the "You can't catch me!" invitation she offered.  I learned she was going to be Wonder Woman for Halloween.  At one point, I picked up a handful of dead leaves and threw them in the air.  When they landed on her, I told her they would take her super powers away.

As she held one, she looked me in the eye and said, "These kind of leaves can't take my superpowers away.  My superpowers are in my heart, and only green leaves can take my superpowers away!"  Then, she threw the leaf with a look of royal dismissal and promptly took my superpowers away with the flick of a magic strand of trampoline skirt.  Not only that, but she sent my superpowers to land in the branches of a neighboring tree.

Naturally, the next thing she did was give herself flying powers, and left me cross-legged on the trampoline.  Proud, powerless, and highly-entertained.

Her grammy came back for her and my soup needed tending, so we called it a day.  And I've been thinking about my little-superhero-neighbor ever since.  Mostly, I'm amazed at how wise she is to know that her superpowers are in her heart, and that whatever you happen to be holding or might say cannot take them away.

Interesting how little bodies can hold such big truths!  Makes me wonder how different things might be if the truth only grew with us, instead of shrink or disappear altogether, as it seems to do.

Thanks for the reminder, little one.  You should come over more often.