Walking with St. Thomas

When I left town for an inpromptu retreat after weeks of not having been alone for more than ten minutes, I was worn thin. These days, I'm adjusting to a new, expanded role at work and caring for more people than ever before. There is no good time to get away. But there were three days that my spouse wasn't working, and she said, "Yes, go," because she could see I wasn't myself.

All of my adult life--even when I was living alone--I have gone on two retreats a year. I know myself well enough to know I can't be present, authentic, whole without doing so. I got out of the habit when I began my spiritual director program; those two years of monthly weekends felt like mini-retreats, with lots of space for breathing, even though they were structured in a way my earlier retreats had not been. Then Petalouda House, our family's work to welcome folks who don't have housing and support their emotional growth and practical skills, took off, and there was no good time to get away.

This summer, two years after completing the program, I began to feel it. Resentment, fear, constant irritation, an inability to concentrate on anything I was doing, anxiety beyond any I'd felt in years--it was time. 

And so, I went, knowing that often, I go on retreat to prepare myself for even more complicated challenges upon my return. (This retreat was no exception; now, I look back and see it happened at exactly the right time, and that I wouldn't have been able to get through the month of August had I not taken that time away). 

It's not easy for me anymore to go away with no books, no phone, no computer, nothing but a notebook and pen. It used to be much easier to just do it, and not worry about what might happen--to remain open and willing to be changed (or not), to be challenged (or not), to find peace (or not). This time, I entered the space feeling ill-at-ease, unsure of where to begin, worried I'd somehow manage to waste the time and not "get anything" out of it.

The retreat center provided a basket of bread, cheese, a muffin, and fruit; a small, sparce room with a rosary, an icon, a Bible, a bottle of holy water, a rocker, a desk, a bed; circular walking trails through prairie and woods and by a lake--and silence. Deep, deep silence, except for the sounds of birds, crickets, bullfrogs--the sounds of my childhood. 

Each retreat space was named for a saint. I was excited to be assigned to a saint I'd never met before--I knew my space would be one of the three that were left, and assumed I'd be given one of the rooms named for a woman saint.

Instead, I got St. Thomas. The doubter. The one who must have been an outcast of sorts. After all, he'd been away for unknown reasons during Jesus' first appearance to the Apostles in those spooky 40 days between Resurrection and Ascension. (Who leaves their tribe at times like that?) The one who insisted he wouldn't believe Jesus had risen unless he actually touched Jesus' wounds. (Really? That's how he'd know the man he'd been following around for years?)

To say I was disappointed would be an understatement. I'd never paid much attention to Thomas' story. Long ago I'd moved on from the stories clearly aimed at proving some specific theology to meditating on the words Jesus is recorded to have said--often contradictory and strange. St. Thomas seemed too eager to lead readers to a particular conclusion, a character of convenience rather than of substance. 

At some point about halfway through the retreat, I settled down with the giant Bible that was in my room. Up to that point, it had been untouched. It stood on a stand below an icon of the Theotokos of tender mercy--my favorite of all. Jesus' cheek touches his mother's, his arm wrapped around her neck. I had meditated on that image after dark, but had hardly noticed the Bible.

I looked for places where Thomas shows up in the Bible, not really sure of what I was doing, or why. Keep in mind that I didn't have Google, just an index, and not a great one. Still, I think I found all the words attributed to him, all of them in the Gospel of John. Still, I remained unmoved, shrugged, and went out for another walk.

At some point later that day, I was sitting in the rocking chair staring out the window of my room. I'd come back from a long walk and was taking a break, breathing, drawing myself into stillness and attention. And I had, quite suddenly, the distinct feeling that St. Thomas was there with me, urging me to pay attention to him.

I got out my notebook and began to write a dialogue between the two of us, a practice I've had for decades but haven't used in recent years. It was instinctual to return to that practice, to stay open to what would come. 

It turned out St. Thomas had a lot to say to me. None of it had anything to do with doubt, except that he expressed how often he's overlooked as one dimensional. 

St. Thomas wanted me to see him. He wanted me to imagine how he'd left the secret room to take a walk that day; how he'd walked rapidly through the streets, breathing hard, much as I'd done for the first few hours of my retreat--almost manic in my worry. He wanted me to imagine how claustrophobic those days between Resurrection and Ascension had been--the waiting, the fear of being found, the constant movement and noise of so many people in such a small space. He wanted me to think about how frustrated he'd been that no one else was thinking about the concrete things they were going to need--safety, food, blankets, pillows, the basics. H wanted me to know it had been risky, but necessary, to leave.

How hard it was to feel left out. How hard to show up with food and other essentials and expect a thank you--and instead find that everyone but you had shared a sacred, joyful moment.

Had I ever felt that way, on the edge, unsure of the meaning of a clever joke, unable to remember an important moment that would be talked about for years to come because I wasn't there? In other words, had I ever felt lonely or ashamed? Had I ever felt resentful that I needed to get things done while others didn't seem to notice the urgency? Had I ever felt unsafe, even in places I knew well--afraid someone might recognize me as a person to be despised? Had I ever felt overwhelmed because no one would let me be alone?

Well, yes. 

Perhaps our paths aren't so different after all, St. Thomas said to me.

And so, for the rest of the retreat, we walked together. We talked about how Jesus had taken his hand and guided it to his wounds. How fearful (and disgusted) he felt at the prospect of actually touching them--he hadn't meant it literally!

How necessary it is, though, to be willing to enter into that kind of vulnerability. To touch the wounds of another. To guide another's hand toward your own. To let go of all the barriers--ego and fear and a desire to be who the other wants you to be and a need to feel important in some specific way other than as a piece of Holy Fabric in the Great, Stitched-Together, Imperfect Design.

That's a level of trust that's hard to come by, I said to him, and he nodded. By now, he was just there, his presence a given, the conversation ongoing. 

I spilled holy water on my fingers and touched all of my own wounds, physical and emotional and spiritual, wounds I'd given myself, wounds others had inflicted, wounds I'd allowed to scab over and wounds that I opened again and again. I started with the top of my head, ended at my toes.

Sometimes his hand guided me. Sometimes my hand guided his. Sometimes I asked to be left alone, and he honored that request.

By then I knew the retreat had taken hold of me--I was no longer worried about whether I was spending my time as I ought to be spending it, whether I was focusing on the right things or the wrong ones, or what anyone would think of what I was doing. I wept as I moved through my own well-constructed barriers, the hardest places to touch. 

Still, as the retreat trailed into its final day, I didn't know what to make of Thomas' "confession," as it's called. The point of the story, as I remembered it from my childhood, was that he'd been the first to recognize Jesus' dual nature as God and Human, the first to call him "my Lord and my God." I felt there was something more to it, so that short prayer--My Lord and My God--became my breathing as I walked up and down the dock, sat still at the edge of the lake, meandered through woods and prairie, knelt in the chapel, ate my homemade bread. It seemed to describe everything I saw, heard, smelled, touched, tasted. Everything was part of that Unity, that Deep Grace, that Ongoing Evolution. Especially the wounded places. Especially the imperfect places.

And so, forgiveness is possible. Self-love is possible. Healing is possible. To recognize the divine, we must touch wounds--our own and others'--feel dried blood on our fingers, not be afraid. Or rather, we can be afraid, aware of our fear--but do our best not be afraid of being afraid.

I thought when I left the retreat center I would leave him behind. But he's lingered, following me on my morning runs, sitting beside me in the passenger seat of my car, touching my shoulder when I'm talking with one of the young people living with us, laughing with me when I'm playing with the dogs, or my son, breathing in when a spiral of monarchs float up and settle back on a patch of milkweed, sitting behind me at work when I'm carefully answering an e-mail, attending to my tone, testing my words for authenticity.

I'm not going anywhere, he keeps saying. I'm not done with you yet.