You Get Me

I am in Oban, on my way to Iona.

Last night, a family member in Canada offered to make sure some of Rory’s belongings were kept safe for him.

From Scotland, I could not do that myself.

The message repaired nothing.

It prevented one more loss.

I began to weep.

I walked along Oban Bay until I saw an open door at St Columba’s Cathedral. A priest stood outside, preparing to lock it. He saw my face and asked whether I wanted to go in first.

I stepped into the dark cathedral and broke apart on the way to the altar.

I thought of President Jed Bartlet in The West Wing, alone in the National Cathedral. He curses God in Latin, calls him a feckless thug and says:

“You get Hoynes!”

Bartlet believed he had given God enough and been answered with loss.

I understood him.

For a while, I blamed God too.

Not loudly. I simply began treating every fracture in my life as evidence that I had been abandoned. The lost vocation. The damaged brain. The collapsed work. The distance from my son. The love that could not keep any of it from breaking.

I carried the evidence to the altar.

But I did not make the case.

I fell to my knees before the tabernacle.

The body of Christ was hidden there: broken, given, still present.

And I gave thanks.

Not because everything had been restored. It had not.

Not because I understood what God was doing. I do not.

I gave thanks because a member of my family in Canada had stepped forward to keep Rory’s things safe. Because a priest in Oban had left the door open. Because I had not been abandoned.

Bartlet looked towards heaven and said, “You get Hoynes!”

I looked at the broken body of Christ and said:

“You get me.”