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Thursday, July 1, 2010

Seeking "the face".....


So....
I'm home and all the realities of the place have slithered back into position.
This is not necessarily a bad thing really....reality is what it is, and isn't what it isn't!
Poverty both sucks and forces us to think creatively. Minding children makes me both incredibly witchy, and beautifully disciplined in the way that i am normally not....well....I'm still not disciplined enough, it maybe just makes me think how fabulous discipline really is. And wouldn't it be nice to have more of it. Gosh. I'll save that for another blog.

I'm thinking a lot on THE FACE. The face that comforts us. The face of God in the face of a loved one....the face of God that we seek and it doesn't go away.
This is all inspired by reading so much James Loder, in case you were wondering.

So...here's today's imaginative leap!
I, ever struggling with my lack of VonWillebrand protein and thereby thin blood, am extra conscious of anything that's going to cause me to bruise or bleed. I worry about my dad, too. He bruises like a banana due to medications....sometimes he has bruises on the back of his hand that look so grisly that my knees go weak. I digress.....anyhow, I try not to bleed. I try not to let him bleed. Stay with me here....
This, in case you are not from The Shore,is "greenhead season". Now, a greenhead (in Scotland, incidentally, it's called a clegg...not a statement on Nick Clegg...I'm prepared to give him a chance), is a horrible, evil, nasty fly that doesn't just bite, it takes a nasty hunk of flesh out of you! And you bleed! Horrible. They're bigger than a house fly, more grey, delta shaped, and rather slow...they land softly, so they can usually bite you before you realize they are on you. Like most biting insects, they have a way of thinning the blood at the site of the bite...Horrible. For most of my life I have thought of these creatures as, well, a mistake of creation....what could they possibly be doing that benefits anything?!
So, the other day, I'm sitting at the table on the porch under the crazy tiki umbrella my dad got me for my birthday... with my dad and a few others who happened by.... and I see a little, greenhead, b*****d land on my dad's elbow! I, with my famed Ninja-like reflexes, whack the little s.o.b. off his elbow, it falls to the floor, on its back. My dad thanks me. The crowd cheers. With exaggerated energy, I raise my foot (sandalled in my lovely, beaded flip-flops) to put the miserable thing out its...well... misery. It sensed my approach, flipped upright, skittered to the crack between the redwood boards. It didn't get there in time. I squished it. Nobody noticed that part but me....and the greenhead.
It's been with me ever since. I'm aware that this might make me seem rather Buddhist or Hindu, but in that micro-second when the greenhead sensed its mortal danger and attempted to save him/herself, I wondered what the Face of God looks like for a clegg. Is it a clegg face? Is the face of God for us a...well....face as we imagine a face to be. What makes a face a face? Why is a face such a comfort? It is. It is the ultimate comfort. To gaze at a loving face that gazes at us lovingly is what makes us tick. It's what makes us try to be funny or clever or industrious....do greenheads seek a face?
There's a chance that greenheads don't think that much....but who am I to say? I squished first and thought on the face after. My scientist friends would/will laugh at this.....but the thinking that went behind the greenhead's attempt to save itself felt familiar. It felt like how I am when protecting myself or my family....and how present the seeking of FACE is in the nurturing act. To nurture is, in a sense, to be nurtured. To create is to sort of be a part of creation.
To seek the face is to look for God......

Weirdly....I'd probably kill the greenhead if the situation happened again. Do I sense a sad face?