A Red-Nosed Humbug

I have in my possession a cellophane-wrapped, unopened DVD of Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer, [i] that 1964 classic, stop-motion animated television special which I had to wait for every year, scouring the newspaper TV schedule each Sunday after Thanksgiving, plotting my weekly watching agenda around it and the other iconic Christmas shows. There was no recording it, no VHS, no DVD, no DVR, no On-Demand. We all waited with bated holiday anticipation.

Now, though, I refuse to open my personal copy.

“Yeah, Dad, we know, we know. But can we just watch it anyway?” My kids’ response to the intro of my annual, “You know, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer is …” tirade as the season was upon us.

“We know, we know,” accompanied by an appropriate eye-roll.

I suspect you know the story. Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer was born with a nose that glows red and one foggy Christmas Eve Santa chooses him to lead the team pulling his sleigh, flying all around the world. Rudolph saves Christmas. Blah, blah, blah.

The TV special in 1964 was based on the chart-topping song recorded by Gene Autry in 1949. The song was written by Johnny Marks, brother-in-law to the original author of the poem, Robert L. May, who wrote it in 1939 at the height of the Great Depression as a children’s book advertisement gimmick for the Montgomery Ward store in Chicago.

Here’s my tirade.

Rudolph is born with what his community considers a defect—a disability—his red nose making him different than everyone else. Out of fear or embarrassment or shame his parents decide to keep him hidden at home until it’s finally time for reindeer school when they fashion a mudball to cover up his nose.

Who does that? What kind of parents are these anyway?

❄

Well into the 1930s the eugenics movement, a pseudo-scientific system of beliefs and practices aimed at improving the genetic quality of the human population was accepted in the United States and many places around the world. By 1939, when the original Rudolph poem was written, the Nazi regime in Germany had developed eugenics into a system of classifying people and euthanizing those who didn’t measure up to their arbitrary standards.

The first to be euthanized in Nazi Germany’s Aktion T4 [ii] program were those with mental and physical disabilities—the first genocide victims of the Holocaust—driven around Berlin in a darkened, sealed bus with the exhaust fumes piped back inside until their lives ended.

Should we be surprised that in 1939, or even in 1964, Rudolph’s parents keep him hidden? Either out of shame brought on by those around them or by fear that should he be found he’d be taken away? Keeping hidden those who are “different” was a common practice in the US until the dismantling of state institution systems in the 1980s leading to the independent living movement. We were, in fact, told by some professionals in 1988 when Lindsay was born that we might want to do exactly that, put her in an institution, go on with our lives, have another baby if we wanted. [iii]

❄

In 2000, I took Lindsay’s younger sister, Lacey, to visit the recently opened US Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC. One exhibit explained the Nazi policy of removing children with disabilities from their families, another showed toys that had been taken from kids during those monstrous times.

I asked my 9-year-old, “Do you know what this means, Lacey?”

“Yes, they would take away Ted,” her favorite stuffed bear which never left her side.

“Well, yes, probably but they would also take Lindsay away from us.”

More than 20 years later she still remembers that moment as an emotionally crushing realization. (But I figure, hey, an extra year of therapy for my now adult children and they’ll be fine, right?!?!)

❄

Rudolph tries his best to fit during his reindeer games flight attempt until the excitement of hearing the cute doe with the long eyelashes, Clarice, say she likes him causes his prosthetic nose to pop off. Nose uncovered, disability revealed, bullying begins.

All of the other reindeer

Used to laugh and call him names

They never let poor Rudolph

 Join in any reindeer games.

“For crying out loud! Get away … get away from me!” his friend Fireball reacts.

Comet, the reindeer games coach enters the scene with his deep authoritative voice, “Now, now, now … what’s the matter?” but when he sees the glowing red nose he shrieks, “Aggghhh!”

“Donner, you should be ashamed of yourself,” the Jolly Old Elf himself scold’s Rudolph’s father, “What a pity. He had such a good takeoff too.” Donner’s head hangs low as Santa turns his back and walks away.

What a horrible story!

“Aww, dad, can’t we just watch it anyway?”

Unable to tolerate the taunting and name calling and rejection, Rudolph runs away and meets Hermey, an elf who wants to be a dentist rather than a toymaker, Hermey who “feels different” because of his life orientation, Hermey who is forced out of Santa’s workshop, shunned from the community, forced to flee rather than live a life as a closeted dentist pretending to be a toymaker.  

They runaway together and along the way connect with old Yukon Cornelius who is a bit quirky emotionally having spent his time solitarily prospecting for silver and gold. Confronted by the Abominable Snow Monster of the North, a misunderstood soul who has been forced to live alone in a cave due to his unacceptable behaviors, Rudolph, Hermey and Yukon flee for their lives.

They land on the “Island of Misfit Toys” where Santa and his elves have dumped all of the unwanted, “broken” toys that no children will love. Afterall, who wants a Charlie-in-the-Box or a spotted elephant, a train with square wheels or a water pistol that squirts jelly, a cowboy who rides an ostrich, a boat that cannot stay afloat or an airplane that cannot fly? Who wants a pink fire truck? Forced exile to the island for losers.

Are you kidding me? Is there a worse story for us to teach our children?

Rejection and segregation and isolation abound in this story! Inclusion, tolerance, diversity, acceptance, anti-bullying, grace. Where are these qualities? They are absent.

Rudolph’s disability, Hermey’s life-orientation, Yukon’s mental health, Abominable’s antisocial behavior. All those toys sent to a concentration camp because no one could possibly love them. 

Rudolph, afraid that his glowing nose will endanger his friends by letting Abominable find them again, leaves the group. He discovers, though, that his parents and Clarice, the eye-lashed doe, have been searching for him and were now trapped in a cave by Abominable who then knocks Rudolph unconscious. The others catch up, Hermey lures Abominable out of the cave, Yukon knocks him out with his prospector’s hammer, and Hermey pulls out all of Abominable’s teeth.

Once everyone is back together at Santa’s workshop, Santa announces that Christmas will be called off this year because of the stormy weather. Rudolph’s nose glows.

“Rudolph, Rudolph, please can you tone it down a bit?! I mean that nose of yours,” he says with disgust which then suddenly becomes a revealed excitement, “That nose! … That beautiful, wonderful nose! … That’ll cut through the murkiest storm they can dig up!”

Then one foggy Christmas Eve
Santa came to say

"Rudolph, with your nose so bright
Won't you guide my sleigh tonight?"

It’s not until the fat old guy with his red suit, bushy beard, and white privilege decides that this defective reindeer can be useful for his mission and suddenly he’s acceptable. Everyone cheers. Hooray!

Hermey can pull teeth, Yukon can live with them in peace, and even toothless Abominable has a purpose as he gently places the star atop the Christmas tree. The misfit toys make it into the sleigh for distribution.

They all live together happily ever after? Please! Only because Santa says so? I don’t think so!

❄

“We know, we know, dad. Now can we watch it please?!”

I consider my unopened copy of this misguided children’s tale an act of resistance, a statement of defiance by a parent of a child with physical and intellectual disabilities who could very easily have fallen prey to the pseudo-ideals which society has historically used against the different among us. 

These attitudes are still manifest in some ways in our 21^st Century and intolerance could easily reemerge from its covertness if we allow.

I invite you to not watch it this year. 

I no longer wait with bated holiday anticipation for Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. Call me a Red-Nosed Humbug if you will. I’ve been called worse.

---

[i] Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, Rankin/Bass Productions, 1964. Written by Romeo Muller, directed by Larry Roemer, narrated by Burl Ives. Based on the song, "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" by Johnny Marks.

[ii] Aktion T4 (Action T4) was named for the street address of the German  Chancellery department at that address, Tiergartenstraße 4, in the Berlin borough of Tiergarten. 

[iii] Our closest facility, Pennhurst State School and Hospital, originally known as the Eastern Pennsylvania State Institution for the Feeble-Minded and Epileptic was finally closed on December 9, 1987, just 4 months before Lindsay’s birth. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pennhurst_State_School_and_Hospital

The Hand That Feeds

Lindsay bites. We all have defense mechanisms and Linds has worked her way through a few. There were times when if you got physically too close, you got kicked—understandable. Or times when a headbutt that would normally bring a visit to an ice hockey penalty box would abruptly end your encroachment as you grabbed your forehead and suppressed your commentary—“#$@#*&#  ... Oh, my goodness, that hurt!!!”

I took Lindsay on a child-sized roller coaster one summer evening at a beachside amusement pier. She loves this sort of thing, ups and downs, twists and sharp turns, her tongue sticking out to catch the wind whipping at her face. She gasps and giggles the whole time, at least until she gets tired of you holding her from behind. Considering all that she can’t do, during this period Lindsay had perfect hand-eye coordination and with her left hand she could perfectly catch the corner of my eyeglasses. This night she somehow reached behind herself mid-ride, swatted at me, clipped the corner of my glasses, and sent them sailing off into the night, over the fence, and out into the sandy beyond. “Noooo … Linds!”

Do you know how hard it is to find your glasses without wearing your glasses on your face? In the dark, in the sand, pushing her wheelchair, furious and frustrated but pretending all would be okay?

Mostly now, though, to defend her personal space she’ll just bite you. And I say “just” because usually it’s justified.

There was the time when at a family reunion, my eldest maternal cousin leaned in to give Lindsay a hug as she was getting ready to leave. Linds clamped down on the fleshy underbelly of her upper arm and bit so hard she drew blood. Since the human mouth truly is dirtier than a toilet seat, a quick trip to the ER for an antiseptic consult and a tetanus booster ended the day’s festivities.

Or the time when a dentist-with-a-death-wish insisted on prying open Lindsay’s mouth to inspect her teeth. Go figure, right? The long-handled metal tool with the round inspection mirror at the end should do the job. Linds bit down once that sucker was in her mouth and by the time he was able to wrench it free, the mirror was smashed. “Huh … never had that happen before,” he announced with a shrug as he looked at his broken Lindsay-ized dental tool. I was checking to make sure no glass shards were left behind in her gums.

And her adult visit to the neurosurgeon who had the audacity to want to reach behind her head to check on the ventricular shunt she’s had tucked under her skin since Day 3. Linds whipped her head to the right like a snapping turtle, jaws ready to fix this newest invasion. If not for the swift withdrawal of his hand, we would have been responsible for disabling the left hand of the chief of neurosurgery at one of the world’s premier hospitals! “Sorry,” I apologized, “I warned your med student but I forget to tell you.” “It’s okay,” he said but I think he was counting his fingers as he said it.

Lydia, Lindsay’s stepmother, with a bit of a smile brought to my attention what might have caused a proverbial “international incident.” During Pope Francis’ visit to Philadelphia, we parked ourselves outside the seminary where he was staying. We were convinced he would stop the car and hop out to meet Lindsay when he saw her wheelchair. Leaning in to pray for her, he would want to reach out and lay hands on her. But it could have had disastrous consequences! The headlines: “Il Papa Hospitalized and Critically Ill from Prayer Bite Infection.”

Ave Maria! Maybe it’s a good thing his motorcade kept going.

Lindsay stands about 4’3” which on me is about chest high. I can tell you in all honesty that a smack to the back of the head is the primal response to having an unwanted clamp of teeth on one’s nipple—a shocked look of regret and apology crosses both faces, one a look of “I can’t believe I just did that!” and the other “I can’t believe you just did that!” You can decide who had which look.

A few hickey-like bruises on my chest and arms over the years is really nothing to complain about. After all we each do have our defense mechanisms whether we realize it or not. I’m just really glad not everyone chooses biting otherwise we’d all be a bit bruised with teeth mark scars as we stumble through our days.

All-in-all, I can deal with the biting. I’ve just learned to avoid leaning in too close and know that if I do and get chomped, it’s my own fault. And I’ve developed a split-second reflexive move that works until it doesn’t and then I get bit anyway.

Life is short, as they say, so smile while you still have teeth.

© Copyright 2019

James F. McIntire

All rights reserved. 

Are We Yet Alive?

"I'll be how old by then?"

As Lindsay neared her 21^st birthday, a milestone which many medical professionals had told us was probably the upper limit of her age expectancy, it occurred to me that I wasn’t sure what it meant now that she had arrived. Quite frankly, I didn’t expect that she would live this long so as she neared the day I thought I’d check in with her pediatric neurologist.

“Doc, we haven’t talked about Lindsay’s life expectancy for a while. What do you think?”

“Well, she’s pretty healthy and I don’t see any reason why she won’t live to a typical age.”

“You mean a typical lifespan for someone with her condition, right?”

“No, I mean if the average American woman is expected to live to about 80 years old, maybe Lindsay’s would be 78.”

“I’ll be how old by then?!?” 

❖

Life’s reality for parents of a child with disabilities is that the child that was once imagined is not the one that arrived. What arrives with this infant is sorrow and grief when it’s discovered that the child has physical or intellectual disabilities. There is grieving for the lost child.

“Will she know that she’s different?” I recall asking that when Lindsay was born and the full extent of her conditions and disabilities was being unveiled. Will she understand when other kids stare and point and laugh? Will I understand when a parent takes their young child aside and whispers, “It’s not polite to stare”? Will others call her names and tease her?

The words I heard were words of loss.

“She’ll never roll over in her crib,” they said. She passed that hurdle. “She’ll never walk,” they said. It took her 9 years, but she overcame that prediction. “She’ll never know you as her parents,” they said. Passed that one.

She’ll never ride a bike. True. She’ll never read or write. True. She’ll never learn to swim. True. She’ll never drive a car. She’ll never live on her own. She’ll never attend college. She’ll never get married. She’ll never have children. She’ll never cook a meal or read a book or laugh at a joke or know romance. She’ll never, she’ll never, she’ll never. All true.

And at every missed milestone, there is sorrow.

The professionals call it “nonfinite loss and grief,” repeated reminders of missed achievements compared to what parents hope and dream and anticipate for a typical child. These moments can destroy a parent’s imaginings of what their child and the world should be like so that the grief continues and is revisited at each perceived loss.

When an elderly parent dies, say, one can understand it as an anticipated and acceptable, if painful, life moment so that the grief at that loss will dissipate and life moves forward. Even in the loss that might come with a sudden trauma, there is usually a resolution and the grief in time subsides. But with nonfinite loss there is no reversal and the only coping for a parent comes through building emotional resilience.[i]

❖

Lindsay spent her 31^st birthday in the hospital. Holy Week began with Seizure Monday and ended with Resurrection Sunday.

Since Day 2, Lindsay has had a seizure disorder. There have been moments of seizure-ness in her lifetime, but mostly they are controlled by medicine. This year on Monday, April 15, while I was last-minute filing my federal tax return, a nasty, full-body seizure broke through after a mostly seizure-free decade. Tuesday morning arrived with lethargy and a non-functioning Lindsay so to the hospital we went. By Tuesday night the neurologists discovered that she was in status epilepticus, a continuous stream of seizures in her brain which were not showing physically. She lay in bed motionless and fragile. By Wednesday of this holiest week the seizures had, with the help of new medicine, mostly ceased according to the subdued EEG peaks and valleys. But Lindsay lay there still, functionless, asleep and unresponsive.

“Have you thought about,” I could see only the neurologist’s eyes because of the prophylactic infection mask, “advance directives. What you want to do in case she gets worse?”

Words of yet another nonfinite loss.

Of course, I had—for 31 years, I have. Hasn’t every parent at some point thought about it? What if my child is near death? What if all seems hopeless? I I told him my “I’ll be how old by then!?!?” story.

In this lingering potential loss a persistent question arose again: Who am I if not Lindsay’s dad?

Did I have an answer to the doctor’s question? Did I have a fully decided decision? No.

❖

By Thursday I was asking the Psalmist’s question “How long must I bear pain in my soul, and have sorrow in my heart all day long?” [Psalm 13:2]. I was pleading like Job, "How long will you say these things, and the words of your mouth be a great wind? … How long will you torment me and crush me with words?” [Job 8:2; 19:2] 

How long, O Lord?

The nights were tedious, the foldout chair-bed unwelcoming, the food tolerable, the care was world class.

On Friday—Good Friday when I am headed with many Jesus-followers to the cross and tomb—Lindsay was alive. Alert and sitting up, crossed legs like only Lindsay can do, tapping her chest with her “You better feed me!” sign. The tomb was full, but Lindsay was back. 

At this resurrection moment in Lindsay’s life I stood looking at her wildly sprawling hair glopped-up with the goo that attached her EEG leads, at the IV tube poked into her left gauze-wrapped arm, at the Band-Aid on the back of her right hand where repeated bloodwork was drawn, and at the hated, unflattering hospital gown. I let down the side rail, sat on her bed, and leaned in.

“Here we are again, Linds,” I thought back to the intimate moment I had with her the day she was born, “You and me, Linds. I’m here for you no matter what. We’re in this together. I love you.”

We are alive again ... still.

© Copyright 2019

James F. McIntire

All rights reserved. 

---

[i] Through Loss  Elizabeth J. Bruce, Cynthia L. Schultz. ACER Press. Australian Council for Education Research, 2004 and Bruce, E. J., & Schultz, C. L. (2001) “Nonfinite loss and grief: A psychoeducational approach.” Baltimore, MD, US: Paul H Brookes Publishing.

Inspiration Porn Star

A recent revelation. I am … an inspiration porn star. Yes, you heard it here first. At 59 years old I have just come to the realization that this 5’4”, grey-haired little guy is a porn star. Well, an inspiration porn star anyway.

Perhaps I should explain. Inspiration porn is the using of people with disabilities as an inspiration solely because of their disability which was coined by Australian disability rights activist Stella Young.

Me? I have become an inspiration porn star vicariously as a parent to my now 30-year-old daughter, Lindsay, who has intellectual and physical disabilities.  

“I don’t know how you do it. You’re such a great dad.”

“God would only give a child like that to parents who can handle it. You must be special.” 

“Do you really take care of her all the time? Oh dear, I just couldn’t possibly do that!”

“She’s one of God’s special angels.”

“God only gives you what you can handle.”

This is inspiration porn in all of its splendid, glorious, nonsensical nonsense.

I am, quite simply, a parent. And Lindsay is, quite simply, my middle child. No one praises me for my parenting of Tim the elder or Lacey the younger. To the world I am, quite simply, their father. Nobody special, nobody miraculous, nobody that God has chosen as the chosen one.

I have never heard:

“Wow, you taught Tim how to ride a bike? You must be so special!”

“Oh my, you helped Lacey learn how to tie her shoes? I never could have done that!”

“You are a dad to your children 24/7? God must have chosen you especially for that role!”

But when your child is born with intellectual and physical disabilities I suppose you instantly become an inspiration porn star. Lucky me.

Usually I just respond with, “No, she’s just Lindsay. Nothing special about her except that she’s mine.” What do people expect? Sometimes I want to respond, “Well, when she was a baby I tried leaving her out in the woods under a tree but she kept finding her way back.” But I guess that wouldn’t be so inspirational now, would it?

I often wonder about these purveyors of porn. Perhaps it’s an addiction. Do they really devalue themselves so much as to believe that they would have done differently? Are they so shallow that there is no comprehension that people are people no matter their abilities or circumstances? There is a sort of voyeurism in peering in on a life that is different than yours, commenting on it as if your life is better, and claiming inspiration when what you really mean is “Wow, my life could be worse, I could be him!”  

Stop it, you who do it. Stop the labeling and condescension and othering. Stop trying to put your own worries into perspective by pointing at others’ lives. Be inspired by all that is around you and let it make you a better person but don’t create your porn using me as your inspiration.

Porn stars get paid—inspiration porn stars don’t.

© Copyright 2018

James F. McIntire

All rights reserved.

Anacanafranistan

Like Groucho Marx’s Dr. Hugo Hackenbush slouching along with his compadres Tony and Stuffy in tow to the bedside of Mrs. Emily Upjohn, a gaggle of young doctors paced the hallways carrying their flat open, medical tomes whilst scratching their heads.

Like The Stooges’ “Dr. Howard, Dr. Fine, Dr. Howard …” clambering for an anacanafranistan to begin their surgery, the young docs searched their dense books that day for an answer to give the unsuspecting parents parked on a bench outside the consultation room.

“We’ve looked at the ultra sound images of your baby’s brain and we’re not sure what’s going on. There’s a lot of blackness where there should be gray matter.”

Is it a tumor?

“We’re calling it a cyst.”

So it’s something that can be removed?

“Well, we don’t know if it’s a solid mass.”

Okay.

“And removing it might not be life-compatible.”

That’s the phrase I remember most clearly. Not life-compatible.

So what is it?

“It might be fluid filling in open space where brain matter should be.”

Fluid. It can be drained, then?

“Well, yes. But trying to do it before she’s born is probably not life-compatible.”

Then can she come out now so you can take care of it?

“Well, bringing her out at this early point might not be life-compatible.”

There it was again. Not life-compatible. That was becoming more and more the answer. The longer she stays inside, the safer she is, protected by the womb and the life it provided but invading the womb to try any corrective procedure was probably not … life-compatible. The longer she stays inside, the larger her head size grows and the more dangerous it is for her, so getting her out gives a chance to try fixing the problem but having her out this early might not be … life-compatible.

The proverbial rock-and-a-hard-place. Except when it comes to the birth of your daughter who is neither rock nor hard place.

White lab coattails floated behind the doctors like security blankets, stethoscopes draped around necks like badges of authority, the big books open in their hands as they scuttled past us toward the safety of the consultation room. “… Dr. Howard, Dr. Fine, Dr. Howard …”   

This was two months before our second child was to be born. The obstetrician knew her head felt big for this developmental stage and the ultrasound images confirmed it. Something was not as it should be. And there started the next chapter of “Life with Lindsay.”

We prayed. My seminary colleagues prayed. Our church connections prayed. Prayer chains from far away places heard from our friends, and they prayed. “But what should we be praying for?” We wanted only that she could suck and breathe when she was born. That would at least give her a chance.

April 19 she came into this world. She took a breath; she showed signs of the sucking reflex; an evaluation score of 9 at one minute and 9 at five minutes – a 9/9 on the Apgar scale – for this uncertain newborn. Lindsay was alive and she was ready for the world. She was, in fact, life-compatible.    

I met her face to face a few minutes later in the nursery where she soaked up the warmth of the heated bed. My new daughter had a head the size of a one-year-old, her eyes were sun setting but alive. “I love you Lindsay. I’m here for you no matter what. We’re in this together.” For 29 years that bonding moment has stayed firmly knit between us. “I love you.” She’s never said it back to me but if you need to hear it in return, then what love is that?

I often think back about those young docs pacing the hallway trying to make sense of the ultrasound, trying to figure how to mask their own anxiety, deciding what to tell these anxious young parents, searching for facts in a place where faith – “the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen" [Hebrews 11:1]   – was more the needed balm. 

I’m guessing most went on to be fully functioning docs, many nearing retirement now like this weary old dad after these 30 years. Did they remember that day as their career days moved ahead? Did they use the knowledge from that encounter – the medical and compassion knowledge – in later years? Did they practice what they learned? I know I have. And how many times did that phrase come back again in their medical careers? Life compatible.

Life-compatibility is something we all wrestle with. Is what I have done with my life, am doing with my life, life-compatible? Are we creating a world which is life-compatible? Are we sustaining what God has given us in such a way that all around us is ... life-compatible?

Lindsay wakes most mornings with a smile on her face and a newness in her eyes. She has never said a word yet she speaks to me each morning as we take a moment together. “I am life-compatible, dad. This is who I am,” her presence whispers to mine. “I am here for you, Lindsay, no matter what,” I attempt to share back with her.

We are life-compatible, my daughter and I. No matter who or what might Groucho through our days, we go on in faith and hope. We are life-compatible for as long as life allows.

© Copyright 2017

James F. McIntire

All rights reserved.

Angel in a Rocker

The beeps and buzzes and dings and whirs of the appropriately hygienic neonatal intensive care room don’t seem to wake the new life inside. Beyond the plate glass that guards them, the oaken rockers look through the window, inordinately oversize sentinels of these infantly tiny beings in the warming beds of that room. Yet they also seem too small to hold the large angel that rocked one slowly to and fro that day. I could see him out there, beyond the glass. I couldn’t hear him over the din and bustle of where I was. Where we were.

She, who had just become she only a few days earlier, was securely tucked in her new womb of glass bed and soft blankets, dim radiant light from above. He, the angel unaware, has a tiny book open in his hand and he’s bowed into it as he rocks gently. The pocket Bibles the Gideons hand out to students and soldiers. I know he’s praying.

He’s praying for Lindsay. Lindsay who is one of the newest members of God’s family, Lindsay who is trying to get her bearings in this bewildering world of beeps and dings, trying to be comfortable with a head circumference as round as a 1 year old, trying to bear the leads and wires and IV’s which have invaded her tiny body. And David, this angel with the narrow chin, wide jowl, and thin beard, rocking his prayer, is praying for me as well.

My newborn is headed for brain surgery on this third day of her life. “What happens if we decide to not implant the shunt?,” I had naively asked the surgeon. He had pulled from his desk drawer a length of the thin plastic tubing which would run under the skin from my baby’s new brain down into her abdomen letting drain the excess cerebrospinal fluid to absorb harmlessly into her body.

“Her head will continue to expand as fluid builds up. She probably won’t survive very long without it,” he answered with the blunt voice that they must teach in medical school. Or maybe it just comes naturally to some. Confident, experienced, accurate, honest, decisive. I am so much more ready for the soothing pastoral voice of hope and possibility, peace and embrace. For me, though, the bluntness of this other angel made the decision all the more obvious.

Just three days before, another angel had glided he and I south on US 1 toward this new life that had just entered mine. Mom stayed where Lindsay had been born, the baby went by ambulance from there to the children’s hospital with the McDonald’s in the lobby, where she would have the best care the world could offer and where dad would get his fill of French fries and Diet Coke over the next few weeks. Mom and Linds were taken care of, but I still needed to get there. This angel, also bearded, also a fellow graduate sojourner, also a prayer-filled messenger from God had his car ready. Kevin prayed as we drove; Kevin with his Texas drawl and gentle manner. We talked, I’m sure, but God-only-knows about what.

The ancients have reminded us to not “neglect to show hospitality to strangers,” since by doing so many have “entertained angels unawares.” (Hebrews 13:2) Take Abraham, for one, in the noonday heat near those huge Mamre oaks who ran to greet the three who came his way without knowing for sure who they were or why they were there. “Hey, wait, I’ll get you some water,” he offers, and so angels are entertained unawares. (Genesis 18)

The doctor-angel was new to me, but the others of my angels were by no means strangers and they were most probably unaware that they were angels. No white robes or feathered wings or golden halos. No Glory-to-God-in-the-Highests or trumpet fanfares. Those two were just once-strangers who had become angelic-friends over the few years that led to this place in our lives, two of that greater band of angels hovering over us those days before, during, and after Lindsay’s birth.

At birth, I had no idea if she would survive. And since I hadn’t a clue, I had begun asking what would happen if she hadn’t. Where does my baby’s body go? How do parents go on living? From whence does my help come?

The angel behind the wheel on Day 1 reassured me that I need not be worried. On Day 2, she had her first seizure and the angel on the telephone from that hygienic room let me know that Linds—and I—were not alone. On Day 3, she now faced surgery where that blunt-message angel would invade her tiny body, come near her fragile brain, and pass through her newly developed insides, slipping into her abdomen that life prolonging thread. And the rocker angel’s presence reassured me that I need not be anxious.

To whom are you an angel? To whom are you the one who calms and reassures, who brings the good-enough-news to make a difference? And who are the angels in your life? Those who cry with you and help you lay your burden down?

Lindsay has led me to many angels in her now 29 years of days and she without words has entertained angels unawares who surround her with messages from beyond. Lindsay has angeled many too, with her gift of silent welcome and quiet determination, she who has no words has a spirit about her that shakes the world and changes lives.

So also do we angel the world around us unawares. To he who struggles with not knowing what’s around the corner. To she who wonders what to do with the new life in her arms. To they who are frustrated, shunned, shamed, abandoned. You are the angel in the rocker, the angel behind the wheel, the angel with sometimes blunt news, the angel who expects no hospitality, the angel that hovers with presence and assurance.

In the midst of the beeps and buzzes and dings and whirs of the world, receive your angels unawares, and be them as well.

© Copyright 2016 
James F. McIntire
All rights reserved.

She Is

Who she is 

Is she who is.
She is who –

She is –

will be
has always been.
 

The I Am

named her

from the fiery branches
of a tender embrace;
a smoothing voice,
in a worldly wilderness.

The Word who

raises the valleys,

who levels the uneven.

"You are as I Am,"
came the spark of inspiration
expired from that 

ethereal,

never expiring, 

Flame.

Beautiful

as a fabled
Linden Tree Isle,

which lends its name.
Strong 

as prayers

prayed for
She who is.
Weak 

as faith

that prays.

Alive

as that

Burning Presence

burning within each.

She is who knows.

Who knows what it is.

The I Am

The I Be

The I Exist

No,

She does not do.

No,

She does not speak.

No,

She does not

but

BE

Who she is.

The I Am 

claimed her,

named her,

and each of you,

and me,  

claimed,

named,

proclaimed

To be.

Nothing more;

Nothing less

Than

Blessed.

As am I –

And you –

By all that has been

once the Prologue

Bespoke

And Became.

She is me

As much as I am her

As much as I am of,

And she is of,

And you are of,

The I Am.

“Do not doubt

Only believe”

The non-expiring Logos 

expires.

“Live life

Eternal,

Abundant,

As You are in

The I Am.

Alive in me,

As I am alive

In The I Am.”

“Go, then, be.”

She knows.

The I Am,

Breathed.  

© James F. McIntire

All rights reserved.

2017