PROLOGUE
Concord, New Hampshire
Mid 50’s
Before India, my father was the minister of the First Congregational Church in Concord, New Hampshire. Our family’s life was intrinsically intertwined with the church’s life and it was fun. I never felt the ‘shoulds and thou shalt nots’ that others have felt in their early church experiences…ours was about community and festive enterprises. My dad was the beautiful warm anchor that spoke to the congregation with intelligence, humor, humanity and depth, and I was so proud standing beside him after each service, when he greeted ‘the people’ and shook their hands.
Today, the word ‘Christian’ has become something very other than this.
SAINT FRANCIS
During the New Hampshire years every night after the hooplah and laughter at the dinner table, the six of us would sit in a circle on the living room floor, our black labrador, TEDDY, in the mix, for family worship. Family worship was story telling, with Saint Francis in the mix, his blessing which my father spoke regularly as the benediction at the end of his church services, closing our evening ritual.
The family worship stories were connected to faith…to all faiths…stories from Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, ancient cultures, greek mythology, and bygone Christian days wherein dwelt saints and mystics, and our own family stories.
Saint Francis, was the mystic, poet, itinerant preacher, who had grown up in wealth but discarded it on the day that he crossed paths with a man who had leprosy, and went forward in poverty and service, doing whatever he could to alleviate the suffering of the poor. He passiionately loved all creatures and preached to the birds…in fact he became the patron saint of the environment and animals.
Maybe because my mother loved him so…maybe because Saint Francis and I have shared themes in our lives…from bird love to leprosy patient imprinting to actively cariing for others’ suffering…and not to mention our name…He became special to me from childhood.
My mother’s grandfather had travelled the world and had brought back a carved wooden statue of Saint Francis from Assisi, as a gift to my mother when she was 10. Wherever we moved, she wrapped him up and he moved with us. When my mother was dying she gifted me with him, and he has sat on top of the cherry chest that another great grandfather (who was Thomas Edison’s carpenter) had created. He stood there quietly blessing my Malibu nest.
When the Franklin Fire was happening and we were evacuted…three weeks before the Palisade Fire…I loaded my car with everything that I could think of in the treasure department. Saint Francis had been carefully tucked and wrapped. This fire came close but did not take us and so when the coast was clear, I emptied the car, heaved a sigh of relief and put my home back in order.
When the evacuation word came for The Palisade Fire, we had no time…and I did not gather one thing.
You know what happened.
BUT…miracles, miracles…weeks after the devastation, while living in my sheltered cottage, I unfolded some blankets and jackets that I have always kept in the car and THERE…THERE….Saint Francis…..THE STATUE….he must not have made it back into the house after the Franklin Fire….I cannot believe that I had not noticed this at the time but THANK GOODNESS…
And so now…his prayer:
Lord, make me an instrument of your peace: where there is hatred, let me sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; where there is sadness, joy.