I generally encounter my face only in bits

-post-brushing teeth inspection

-close-up of lids and lashes for makeup application

Then off I go.

But in this time of social distancing/virtual meetings, I have been faced with…

My Face.

Right there, on the screen, staring back at me.

It surprised me, the sight of her.

I watched as a hand snuck up to touch the soft skin below her chin,

And when I felt its fleshy sag, screen and reality connected.

She–that grey-haired woman with slightly pouchy cheeks–not jowls yet, certainly not jowls!–is Me. I am She.

She-I smiles/smile at a remark made by another meeting participant, and I examine her/my crows’ feet–made by more than one crow, apparently.

I am struck by her/my resemblance to my Italian father.

The creases around my mouth, the roundness of my olive cheeks,

Deeper, pouchier on my small, 91-year-old father, who is…

Vulnerable.

A social media update, posted by a former writing colleague, comes to my mind. Her husband, in his fifties, is battling Covid-19. “I watch his face,” she wrote, “check his temp, gauge the color of his lips, try desperately NOT to count his breaths.”

Many virtual meetings into a pandemic that disproportionately affects our elderly, my eyes dwell only briefly and with sympathy on my own growing-old face…

before wandering off to watch the others on the screen, some more lined than my own, some less,

each one dear.

Beyond them, connected by unseen webs, are countless other dear faces, one linked to another, another, stretching round our hurting world.

So many faces, each one Dear to at least one Someone.

Lord, have mercy.

Christ, have mercy.

Explanation: We’re a household of 8 right now, none of us essential workers, so we’re homebound except for trips to the grocery. We’ve played a number of games of Bananagrams in the last few days. It’s a game in which you take letter tiles and make words that must intersect with each other (like a crossword). My niece and I, both writing geeks, set each other the task of writing a poem with our words. I took the words from two of our games (they’re underlined below) and wrote the following:

In waxen, waiting times (as in the here-and-now of COVID distancing) we want to jug Joie–Joy!–like fine oil, each little bit and pip of it precious, as worthy of hoarding as toilet paper.

Yet, in this waxen, waiting time–in which we have time–we must learn that true joy is not simply fetched but requires seeking, a tracking down, a following of one clue after another.

Joie’s clues? Shh, I’ll tell you…

‘Tis time, says Joie, to bayonet our grievances and set them adrift in deep, diked waters, to press into prayer for all beings, from bison and badger to next-door neighbor and even that Facebook enemy.

‘Tis time ‘to let go of all liens–be they financial or psychological–and set free our grudges, from those we consider “quaint quirks” to our -isms (sex-ism, patriarch-ism, rac-ism, class-ism, gender-ism…),

‘Tis time to send home the judge and jury and practice acceptance, nay, to practice LOVE!–LOVE unending, like the digits of Pi stretching ’round the world and back till our own hearts are pierced,

‘Tis time to invite God in, flaming like shining fire, permeating like fragrant cigar, to melt our icy bits, fumigate our every stinky corner,

‘Tis time to buy, as the Scripture instructs, the living water, with zero money, zero price,

So that our wilted beings rise–cleansed, freed, loved, lightened–filled to overflowing with JOY!

Please check out not only this article but Esau McCaulley’s blog as a whole. I had the privilege earlier this summer of hearing him speak on racial reconciliation. His voice, crying out for racial reconciliation in the Church, needs to be listened to.

Perhaps it’s just that my current life chapter could be titled, “White Movers, African-American Neighborhood” or that the author of this piece, Esau McCaulley, is a fellow Anglican who desires more African American leadership and presence in the Anglican/Episcopal church in the United States, but I nearly cried when I read this piece. I want to sit down and have a really, really long conversation with this man. And, oh, do I wish he were in Chicago instead of in New York.