Falling Down Day

Thursday: First it was Matteo. There was a slight assassination attempt on him at day care. The little boy behind him, Liam, saw an opportunity. The doorjamb was coming up fast on the right as the line of children moved from one room to another. Liam must have known that Teo was in a weakened state, owing to his running nose, his coughing, and his mouth breathing. Suddenly, looking away, shove – BLAM! Matteo trips into the doorframe, crumbles, dissolves into tears, and Marin is called.

Marin checks with how Teo’s teacher, Karis, feels about his status. Bump on forehead, already iced, straightline red bruise, no broken skin, he’s in my lap, the startled breath- catching sobs have turned to whimpers, he’ll survive.

Second was Marin. While adjudicating his recovery, Marin’s preparing to go to her ObGyn exam. These are coming at a fast clip this last month of our pregnancy. On the way down the stairs at work, she’s talking to her coworker, Naomi, over her shoulder, and – oops – missteps, and finds herself in mid-header. Whoa! Severly pregnant woman bouncing down the stairs.

I get a phone call as she’s driving to her appointment. Characteristically, she tells me of Teo’s misfortune before revealing why her voice is shaky. She’s all adrenalined up over her topple. Initial diagnosis, bumped knee. Really? YIkes!

Suddenly I feel like I’m in the wrong place. How can I help, what can I do, just say the word!

Apparently, at the doctor’s, they belted Marin up with a fetal monitor to hear how our little trooper is faring, head down with teeny fingers poised on the starting line waiting for the go. All well.

Finally, it was me. But only existentially. The boys from the LDS Church (Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints), whom I kept standing in our entryway the first Sunday in December, finally got through. The original followup visit I got suckered into they canceled for being late, then we kind of didn’t pick up whenever we saw “Church of Jesus Christ” on our caller ID. Then last week our caller ID was out for two days, and I ended up agreeing to meet yesterday at 4.

In short, my fall was to my knees. In two ways. The first was how I always end up admiring the system which brings me these fresh young people, sitting in my living room, talking about their lives, their faith, and trying to interpret scripture with someone like me who knows more about what they’re doing than they themselves know. I almost feel like an academic advisor.

The second was in prayer. Elder X (they never tell their first names, which would help the memory) prayed us into their bible study. Then, after learning really interesteing stuff about their families kneeling together and praying before bedtime (I just found that so sweet, though, of course, I’m projecting), their lives of doubt, competition and conversion, the quality and intensity of their missions, Elder X reads some scripture which is essentially wierdly irrlelvant, and asks me questions on the reading, which I answer.

That’s when I tell what I really think about Jesus’ resurrection, about the new intensity of life his followers discover in his absence, and how that “new life” is supposed to play out in Christian churches. I realized, a moment later, that my “Christian” story, no matter how different from the mainstream “Christian” doctrine, is over their heads. Just as their ideas are essentially “over my head.”

Because, it turns out, the “resurrection” for them means Jesus visits folks (Lehi’s decendants who sailed to America in 600 BC) in the New World, and that the “failed” system of prophets and apostles which, in Christianity, “crumbled” upon Jesus’ death, was revitalized among Lehi’s decendants, and led to the golden tablets which Joseph Smith discovered, dug up, and translated.

Hm. Okay. I listened politely. After all, what would Unitarians need to do to get our kids to become “our missionaries of Unitarian freedom and truth-telling in the Ural Mountains” as Elder Y had been for the Mormon “story.”

The prayer came when they asked me to close the session. They asked me to pray. Which turned out to be fun. It’s such an odd, wonderous thing, like someone coming up to you and saying, “could you make up a spontaneous gratitude poem so we can close our eyes together and enter a place of profound openness.” And then, what you say is welcomed, gratefully.

As I bid them farewell, holding my newly received “Book of Mormon,” I walk down to invite Marin and Teo to reinhabit our living room. In effect, we all have gotten up from our falls, a little different than we were before.