parables in real life

My kids have been playing a super-fun game of "pass the bug" for, oh about two weeks now. They're playing Advanced Level, so there are multiple bugs in play. We've hauled the whole gang to the pediatrician twice, carted dehydrated and listless victims off to the ER both weekends and we've chatted with pediatric nurses almost daily. Some of the bugs have been named by various physicians: ear infections, bronchitis, croup, viral gastroenteritis, norovirus, rotavirus, upper respiratory viruses.... We've had Standard Daily Fevers in the 103 range and our fridge looks like a pharmacy. To those whose phone calls and texts and emails I have not returned - this is why and I am sorry.

We're wiped out.

Today a pediatric nurse (on the phone) was concerned that Bernadette might be showing symptoms of meningitis.  Just for a change of scenery, I decided to bring her in to a different hospital than the one we've been frequenting. There was nothing "wrong" at the original hospital, per se. Well, ok, the floors were filthy, the nurses hit-or-miss and one PA gave my 2 year old son a drug that our pediatrician later said ought never to be used in children due to possible psychiatric side effects. So rather than buzz two miles down the road to our neighborhood ER, I drove over to the next town to give their hospital a go. I'm so glad I did.

We walked in to cleanliness, friendliness and competence. There was an air of order and peace in the Department, our room was immaculate, the staff were remarkably kind, and Bernadette did not have meningitis. All very good things! And the last two are almost on par with one another.

Every person employed in the department was strikingly attentive, gentle and loving. Really, there is no other word I can use to describe the way they treated the two of us. Two receptionists, the triage nurse, the follow-up nurse and the doctor - all, stunningly, loving. The grand finale, though, awaited us when we "checked out". A sweet, gentle grandmotherly woman double checked all our insurance and billing information. Then she said, "Your insurance copay for today is $150, but we realize that not everybody has pots of money laying around, so you can just pay whatever you feel able to, or nothing at all."

I thought I had misunderstood her.

"Oh, so whatever I don't pay right now, you'll just send me a bill in the mail?"

No. That was not what she meant. What she meant was that I would pay what I felt able to pay and there would be no further responsibility towards my copayment.

I'm still not really sure that I am properly understanding her meaning. I have no idea if this policy is a reflection of the hospital's mission statement to treat patients in a way "rooted in our understanding of all people as created in the image of God." Maybe it has something to do with Obamacare. Maybe it's some kind of battle that hospitals and insurance companies wage between themselves. Or perhaps I'm just "not getting it" and missing something really obvious here. I do that. Often. But the minute I understood that she was apparently freeing me from any obligation to pay for the outstanding care my sick child had just received, I wanted to pay every blessed cent. 

I could have satisfied my conscience with paying far less. I had neither cash nor check on me. I did have my debit card, but I knew that there was only $25 in our checking account, with no more funds imminently available. So I dug my one credit card out of the depths of my wallet and handed it over. She looked at it for a moment and then handed it back, asking gently, "Am I reading this small print right? Does it say this card expired in August?"

It did say that. Alas. I was humiliated. I admitted as much and explained that I hadn't used it or even looked at since long before it expired. In the softest, most motherly tone possible, she sweetly said that she was glad I never used credit cards and she was doubly glad this event had not occurred when I was trying to pay for a cart full of groceries. Oh my gosh. So was I!

As the direct result of her efforts to smooth over my mortification and brush it all away as unimportant, I suddenly found myself now wanting to pay double. I felt so grateful to this tender old soul, to all the other staff we had seen during our visit, and to the hospital philosophy that had so clearly imparted this priceless charity into the attitudes of its employees. I wanted to make that gratitude abundantly clear. I wanted to repay it. I told her to send me the bill. I almost begged her to.

And then a truth I have long held came rushing into my heart once more:
That which is demanded can never be freely given.

I know that the hospital has a right to demand money for its services. This is about something bigger and deeper than the hospital. This is about the human heart being free to respond to goodness with goodness - this is about the soul's natural (if sometimes slow) desire to repay generosity with generosity. So often it does not get the chance. So often repayment is demanded. Immediately. Before the natural impulse can arise, take shape and act.

The demand kills the natural instinct.  Do it enough in a relationship and it can kill the gratitude instinct altogether.

I do this with my kids - hand them something good and then, before their little minds can even compose any kind of sincere expression of thanks, I demand, "What do you say?" 

I do this with my husband - perform some little service or sacrifice for him, and then, before he really has time to process the love that prompted the favor, I demand acknowledgment.  Did you notice that I put the trash out tonight?  Did you see that I bought you a case of your favorite beer? I may say this very lightly - casually - even lovingly - but the demand is hidden there. Say thank you. Feel grateful. Repay me. 

That which is demanded can never be freely given.

Isn't that the key to the mystery of our free will?

What is demanded cannot be freely given.

And that which is freely given is so much sweeter than that which is extracted by demand.
It's sweeter for the giver and for the recipient.
The payment of an extracted demand satisfies the cashier at the store, but not the person in relationship.

I'll pay the hospital bills for Joseph because the hospital will demand that I do so. The law of the land and my own private sense of justice will ensure that I do so. But it will not be sweet. For either side.

I'll pay the hospital bills for Bernadette because the hospital lavished love upon us and made no demand in return. Some profound, beautiful natural law will prompt me to do so. And I will write a heartfelt note to the hospital. It will be so sweet to me to be able to do so. I hope and believe it will be so sweet for the recipients as well.

I hope that I will more consistently live the moral so eloquently proclaimed to me this evening in the Parable of the Two Hospitals. I hope that with my family, my friends, my acquaintances and with strangers, I will be governed by the truth that that which is demanded can never be freely given. I hope I can let go of my petty demands and enjoy the sweetness of unprompted gratitude. And I hope that I can grow in my ability to express gratitude - abundantly and sincerely - towards those who demand, towards those who rarely demand, and towards the One who never demands.

another

Kelly - 

October 2013: ANOTHER !?!?!?!!

November 2013:  another....?

December 2013:  another......

January 2014:  another.  another.  another.  another..... 




Rich - 

October 2013: ANOTHER !?!?!?!?!!

November 2013:  ANOTHER !?!?!?!?!!

December 2013:  ANOTHER !?!?!?!?!!

January 2014:  ANOTHER !?!?!?!?!!

Exhibit A

James turned one early in November. He's old enough to have worn a tie to Christmas Eve Mass (see Exhibit A). So....I should be almost three months pregnant right now, had we followed the Standard Sealy Family Plan For Family Expansion. But I'm not three months pregnant right now. I'm not one month pregnant. I'm not even one day pregnant. And oh how I begin to wish I was. But, as the handy chart above shows, Rich and I are still in the negotiations process - and we are not swiftly moving in the same direction.

a head wound that already made him look like The Boy Who Lived
just begged to be finished off with a marker

I've been in this place before - a place where my prayers cannot help but start with that one wistful word: another. But for the very first time, my prayers are not ending on the same expansive note. Because.... I'm not sure that they are likely to be answered as per my exact wishes any time soon, and I'm trying hard to accept that. Though I would be tremendously glad for the gift of another baby, my husband would reeeeeeeally not - so..... I'm trying very hard to remind myself that I already have a baby. He doesn't even have hair yet. Well, ok, he has some completely ridiculously cute curls on the back of his head, but he's still practically bald up top. He's in diapers. And a high chair. He's nursing. And spoon-fed. He barely talks, except to say Hi-dah! (Hi Cat!) and Cook-Cook (As in "cookie". As in "I saw you eat that cookie and if you don't give ME a cookie in the next 13 seconds I am going to make the next half hour absolutely miserable for every.person.in.this.house."). He also says Genk-oo (Thank You. For the Cookie.) and when Rich gets home from work, he RUNS trippingly and unsteadily to the door with outstretched arms and lovingly, joyfully, exuberantly calls to his beloved father,
  MaMa !!!


(We're working on that. Hard. Well, Rich is - I think it is hi-larious).

He's only two months past his first birthday. He's a baby. I HAVE a baby.

But every time I find myself in a moment of silence and solitude - every time I turn my gaze on God - my heart whispers it  -  "another". I can't help it. There are PLENTY of moments of noise and chaos and near-disaster (and actual disaster) each day when another seems like a perfectly foolhardy design, but in the quieter moments, the desire is anything but foolhardy.

(10 AM.  disaster.   idea seems foolhardy.   extremely.)

1 PM.   idea appears far less foolhardy
( or at least slightly more sensible than napping with a toothbrush in hand)

Last night I was unable to sleep, sitting up in bed in the dark and staring out my window. Snow was falling heavily and my eyes were mesmerized by the sight of it streaming past a streetlight. I was mentally going over all sorts of things and then....    Another.    Jesus,    another.    

I caught myself (almost in time) and surrendered the desire (again). Suddenly, for the first time in my whole life, I wondered if Mary ever had to surrender that desire....to be pregnant again, to labor again, to hold a brand-new infant again, to see a gummy first smile again, to fill up the home further, to add another little face around the dinner table, to hear one more layer of laughter around the house and enjoy one additional source of silly faces and earnest expressions and tight hugs. Did she ever find her heart whispering another? 

But how could there ever be Another for her?

Another virgin birth? Another star-drenched angelic host? Another magi? Another child divine?

Another was impossible.

Mothers aren't supposed to have favorites, but how could it be helped if the First Child was God and the others were just.....ordinary.  No. Mary had to be satisfied with Just One. More than satisfied, she had to be humbled and grateful and overjoyed beyond telling. She had to submit to her vocation as He had shaped it, trusting that His designs were best for her, best for her Child, best for her family, best for the world. She had to pour herself completely into what had been given her without broodingly longing for anything other or additional. She had to live in the moment, surrender completely and accept whatever unfolded in the life of her Family with total trust in the goodness of God's (often surprising and always challenging) plan.

As do I.

As do I.