Sutura

It turns out that I do not get a scan today. Insurance is resisting my having scans so close (last one was Dec 13). I am deciding that this just gives me more time to heal...so that the next scan will say, "No Evidence of Disease" (NED - the term doctors use now instead of "remission).

I read this beautiful story today in the book, "The Power of Silence" by Robert Cardinal Sarah. I need to hear it especially since Shawn is out of town and I had not one - but TWO boys come home from school after throwing up yesterday (one is still home)!!

"...a story taken from the golden legend of the Muslim holy men. One day the good woman Sutura went to find Tierno Bokar, the wise man of Bandiagara -- a village in Mali located on a plateau by the same name...here lived the Dogons, a people famous for its austere art, its complex beliefs about the origins of the universe, and its profound sense of transcendence. Sutura told him: 'Tierno, I am very quick-tempered. The slightest gesture affects me severely. I would like to receive a blessing from you or a prayer that will make me gentle, affable and patient.'  No sooner had she spoken than her son, a three-year-old toddler who was waiting for her in the yard, came in, took up a small board and struck her with it violently between the shoulders.  She looked at the toddler, smiled, and drew him against her and said affectionately while patting him, 'Oh! What a naughty boy, mistreating his mother!' 'Why did you not lose your temper at your son, when you say you are quick-tempered?' Tierno Bokar asked her. But Tierno,'Sutura replied, 'my son is only a child; he does not know what he is doing; one does not get angry with a child of that age.' 'My good Sutura,' Tierno said to her, 'go back home. And when someone irritates you, think of this small board and tell yourself: Despite his age, this person is acting like a three-year-old child! Be indulgent; you can do it, because you just were with your son who struck you so hard. Go, and that way you will no longer get angry. You will live happily, cured of your ailment. The blessings that will then descend on you will be far superior to those that you could obtain from men: they will be blessings from God and from the Prophet himself. Someone who endures and forgives an offense,' he continued, 'is like a large silk-cotton tree that the vultures befoul while resting on its branches. but the disgusting appearance of the tree lasts only part of the year. Every winter, God sends a series of downpours that wash it from top to bottom...Try to spread to God's creatures the love that you have for your child. For God sees creatures the way that a father looks at his children. Then you will be set at the topmost rung of the ladder, where, through love and charity, the soul sees and evaluates the offense only so as to forgive it more wholeheartedly.' ... Sutura corrected herself so perfectly that, in the last days of her life, they used to say: 'Patient as Sutura.' 

This is my resolution for Lent - to treat everyone as a naughty three-year-old. I am not sure how this will translate when it is actually my children that I'm angry with. But I thought that this was a beautiful reflection for today - and I love the image of a toddler whacking his mom with a board! I always tell people who ask about how much things hurt that "It's not as bad as having a toddler wham you in the nose with his head!" That's pain right there and it is always instantly forgiven because the toddler never really knows what he or she is doing and that it hurts so badly. I pray for the grace to love everyone the way I can love toddlers. :)