May We Be as Free as Simeon and Anna
Ring Around the Rosie, by Edward Henry Potthast
By Suzanne M. Lewis
Step into any Catholic church, early on a weekday morning, and you will observe a ragtag contingent of volunteers reporting for duty. Many of these, with gray heads and bent backs, will shuffle or limp, often with the help of a cane. Their presence is easy to overlook in the Sunday crowd, who arrive to fulfill an obligation; but at daily Mass we can clearly see the faces of the free men and women in our midst. And most of those faces are wrinkled.
If God were to come to earth and mix his life into ours, according to a schedule, at precise addresses in every city and town across America, could you imagine any appointment more important for you to keep? Could you imagine wanting anything more than to show up each day for this stupendous, recurring miracle?
* * *
When my Grandma was in her eighties, one of her daughters noticed dust bunnies lurking in the corners of her house. In a shaming tone, my aunt said, "Mom, I remember when you used to get down on your hands and knees to scrub the baseboards with a toothbrush! Now look at what's become of your home. How could you let it get like this?" Grandma replied, "Did it ever occur to you that I was out of my mind when I did that?" Then she broke into gales of laughter at the very thought of her past lunacy.
* * *
As I grow older, I'm struck by the elderly people who play a part in the stories surrounding Jesus's birth and earliest life: Elizabeth and Zechariah, Gaspard (the grizzled magus), and then Simeon and Anna. A long established tradition in the Church also imagines St. Joseph as an old man.
These Gospel figures remind us of Abraham and Sarah, who followed God's challenge to "count the stars," while each† laughed in delighted wonder at the astonishment of an "impossible" child.
Simeon and Anna bear a gift for the rest of us. When given a choice between the busyness and demands of ordinary life, they each chose instead, day in and day out, to keep their appointment with wonder. We can follow their example. This is freedom.
* * *
One morning, as our motley band filed out after daily Mass, some small children noticed that it had rained while we were inside. My friend Wayne, who was 93, stopped dead in his tracks as the kids ran past him to jump in the puddles. Wayne stood and stared, his mouth open with surprise and his eyes full of joy as the happy children stomped and splashed water with abandon. He stayed like that until the game was over and the kids had been bundled away to their car. Then he turned to me, laughed, and said, "God must feel as delighted when he looks at us as I feel when I see those children play in the puddles! He loves us and enjoys us so much!"
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February 2, 2021 marks the five year anniversary of 501(c)3 nonprofit status for Revolution of Tenderness. On this day, we renew our pledge to take up God's challenge to count the stars, and we are dead earnest in our commitment to laugh at the wonder of new life and light that Christ constantly pours out and leaves puddled everywhere around us.
Most of all, we promise never to let dust bunnies disturb our sanity.
† Please see: Genesis 17:17: "Then Abraham fell on his face and laughed..." and also Genesis 21:6: “Then Sarah said, 'God has brought laughter for me; everyone who hears will laugh with me.'"
