Starting
Point A
final journey in search of beauty
By JAMES STEPHEN
BEHRENS
Not far from here, a woman named
Dorothy is about to embark on a journey of mystery and beauty. She is dying.
Her body is no longer capable of supporting her spirit, a spirit strong and
faithful.
I last saw her a few weeks ago. She was weakened by her disease
and tired of the treatments. She had moved in with my sister Mary and my
brother-in-law Brian, her only son.
She wanted to show me some photographs. She smiled and said,
Just look at these. They were pictures of her daughters and son and
their children. I noticed one picture of her, and said what a pretty dress she
was wearing. Who, dear? she asked. And I said, You. There, in
the pretty dress. She smiled. Oh, yes, that was taken in the
restaurant. I had thrown her off track. She wanted to get back to the
other pictures.
As long as I have known her, Dorothy has been taken with the
beauty around her. To point out the beauty that she was and is came as
something of a jolt to her. She was absorbed in what she found all around
her.
When she and Harold, Brians dad who died not too long ago,
lived in an apartment not far from Mary and Brian, I visited them. Pictures of
family graced the walls, the tabletops, the bookcases. As we chatted, my eyes
roamed from photo to photo. A golden light from a late afternoon sun played off
the bright green of the plants just outside a window. There seemed to be beauty
everywhere that day. I now see that the beauty of that small dwelling was a
reflection of Harold and Dorothy.
Many years ago, I took a painful leave of absence from active
ministry and needed a place to stay before leaving this country to live with
Mary and Brian in Switzerland. Harold and Dorothy welcomed me to their home for
several weeks. I was deeply unsettled then, and the kindness they showed me was
about as close to the meaning of our life here as one can get. They could
provide no answers or even a direction. But warmth, kindness and beauty were
there.
I went to Switzerland and stayed there for a while with Brian and
Mary. Some months into my stay with them in a little town called Versoix, not
far from Geneva, Dorothy arrived to help Mary after the birth of my niece
Katie.
Dorothy was deeply impressed with the beauty of Switzerland. The
flowers, the cleanliness, the orderly routine of Swiss life, the natural beauty
captivated her. She was in paradise. I, on the other hand, found things a bit
too neat, too orderly and pretty. I kept looking for flaws, for some dirt, some
sign of weakness. I suppose I was looking for something of myself.
I found one such blemish.
Every day, I took a walk down to Lake Geneva. To get to the
lakeside, I had to go through a short underground tunnel that ran beneath the
tracks.
One day, while going through the tunnel, I noticed something new
on the painted yellow walls graffiti. It was a slogan of defiance, presumably
sprayed onto the wall by a disgruntled youth. The graffiti in so many words and
with a crude gesture expressed the wish of the artist as to where Switzerland
should go.
I mentioned it to Dorothy later that day, and she was aghast. I
told her that perhaps that anonymous defacer was just frustrated and would find
better ways to express his or her hope for societal betterment. Dorothy looked
at me, her wheels turning, and said, You know, you may be right.
And then she smiled.
If she sought beauty, she found it. If it was a long time coming,
she waited for it. And when it came, she shared it. But the beauty with which
she most blessed life shone from her heart and her smile. I wish I had told her
that in just those words. I would like to see her smile and believe my words,
and tell me once again, You know, you may be right.
Trappist Fr. James Stephen Behrens lives at Holy Spirit
Monastery in Conyers, Ga. His e-mail is james@trappist.net
National Catholic Reporter, June 30,
2000
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