Attentive to Joy

December 12, 2018

Johanna grinned.  “The natural thing would be to worry, fret over him, try to make things easy… So I have to choose to let him walk the path he wants to walk.  Choose to be confident that I raised him with the principles that will save him.  Choose to believe in him.  And ultimately choose to not worry— the ultimate unnatural act for a mother.”

“Faith,”  Claire said.

“Courage,” Johanna said.  “Faith is what we earn when we have enough courage to face what is in front of us.”

From Dream Wheels by Richard Wagamese


I remember somewhere I heard, “even though it didn’t really happen it is true.”  It’s probably in Dennis Sumara's book, Why Reading Literature Still Matters. Richard Wagamese’s books do matte

This is true: Faith is what we earn when we have enough courage to face what is in front of us.  It is like the words to the Taize chant, La Tenebre:  
Our darkness is never darkness in your sight
The deepest night is clear as the daylight.

What does it mean to have courage?  So much of what causes me to get stuck, to react, to not act, and ultimately to have a less than abundant life is the result of being afraid.  My son asked me what I was afraid of —I said I didn’t know and then I confessed that I did.  

I am afraid of the what if’s—- predicated by the worst case scenario more often than not.  I am afraid of perception and judgement, other people’s but mostly my own.  My own view of what constitutes a good? life that is skewed by the world of achievements, of relatively short lived trouble.  The bottom line, maybe, is the illusion of control, being able to effectively manage a life.

There are lots of reasons to be afraid— but none of them are true. 

Courage is choosing: choosing to let be, choosing to trust others to make choices as they see their lives unfolding, choosing to believe in each other without fear. 

As I’ve been with my adult children, I realize so painfully how my fear did try to protect and rescue, how my fears limited possibility and my acceptance of the person.  That is not quite an accurate reading of the world or even what is before me.

In the novel Dream Wheels, (and in my own life), the mothers Johanna and Claire see the immense challenges that a life altering accident and life altering moral choices that have given them every reason to worry, to fret over their children, to coddle and protect.  Having the courage to let another walk the path he wants to walk, to believe in the possibility.

There is another world view— where what seems weak, unreasonable, inexplicable that we can pay attention to is filled with holiness. God is with us.  That is the truth.