To be honest, I’m still processing it all.
(Although I suppose you could attach that statement to pretty much everything that’s ever happened to anyone, anywhere of any sensitivity.)
Even so, I admit to being a little unnerved by events this week–– although I also do appreciate the synchronicity they have around this month’s theme of Abundant Expectancy (without expectation.)
That meditation is HERE.
Fittingly for the Christmas season, I’m inspired to parallel my experience with three legal different legal counselors to the Bible’s Three Kings, or as it’s often translated, The Three Wise Men.
Before we get into it, Just FYI, I would first like to address this technicality:
The gospel of Matthew actually doesn’t specify the number of wise men, just that there were three gifts: gold, frankincense, and myrrh.
Faithful Readers simply assume there weren’t other wise men who arrived in Bethlehem rudely empty-handed.
In any case…
All 3 counselors I spoke to were entirely in agreement about the basics of my current legal dilemma.
Even so, one encounter left me feeling entirely reassured, another somewhere between positive and neutral, and a third, completely unnerved.
(I’ll spare you the details, but essentially it’s an unpleasant, even thorny situation, but one that is a) completely solvable and b) has a six-month minimum timeline before anything truly unfortunate can happen).
Why, I wondered, while offering the same basic conclusions, did that single presentation have such an unsettling affect?
And more importantly, how could I most effectively (to borrow a technique from both Vlad and Taylor Swift), learn to shake it off?
Interesting, most poems I know about the Three Magi, especially T.S. Eliot’s and Yeats’, despite the Christmas setting, are actually total downers.
Even Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s more tender The Three Kings gives this explanation to the Wise Men’s gifts and their symbolic meaning:
They laid their offerings at his feet:
The gold was their tribute to a King,
The frankincense, with its odor sweet,
Was for the Priest, the Paraclete,
The myrrh for the body’s burying.
Like presenting a prenup at the altar, I think we’d all agree that bringing embalming materials to a birth celebration seems a rather grim offering.
Or is that what Wise Men do?
Do the Magi and the Poets know that a touch of sorrow is always necessary, even at our most joyful moments?
I wonder…
The dominant factor in choosing my current apartment was accommodating my chocolate lab Belle’s senior needs.
She could no longer walk any stairs whatsoever, and while I was strong enough to carry her 70 pounds up a flight or two, if I were unavailable, that wasn’t really something I could ask a dog walker or a friend to do.
In addition, I needed a speedy exit route since her ability to hold her
bathroom moments was increasingly drastically limited.
Thankfully, we found a place we both loved, one right next to the elevator with near immediate rooftop access.
Flash forward three years.
A few months ago, Vlad became friends withFox, an 11 year-old hound whose owner had chosen our building for very similar reasons.
A week ago Fox was leaping around the baseball field and frolicking with Vlad, as though they were both 2 year-olds.
Then last weekend, Fox was suddenly hospitalized and diagnosed with advanced liver failure.
And then on Tuesday he was gone.
When things are at their most challenging, you can almost always take some solace from the endlessly great Mary Oliver.
Indeed, in many ways this week, I’ve drawn strength from a favorite poem of hers.
The Uses of Sorrow
(In my sleep I dreamed this poem)
Someone I loved once gave me
a box full of darkness.
It took me years to understand
that this, too, was a gift.
This morning, something happened that shifted everything in my “Wise Men” lawyer narrative.
I ran into another dog friend on the baseball field, someone to whom I had recommended one of those particular counselors.
(That lawyer had done a great job for me in a similar matter 15 years ago.)
My dog friend and I shared about how dissatisfied we both were with them now (she had hired them; I’d had a consult), and how disturbed we were by aspects of our respective encounters.
Realizing I could in no way stand by my glowing online recommendation, I decided I should quietly remove it, quickly googling to see which others I might have left.
To my astonishment, I learn that said counselor, mere days before our disturbing conversation, had been arrested and charged with 3 felony counts.
It was, to say the least, a mind-blowing revelation.
To my credit, I’d sensed something was off, but not THAT off.
Al the negativity I’d experienced, all the deflected and inappropriate emotions, suddenly made a lot more sense.
I now saw why that rather than an “everything will work out just fine” attitude––the spirit of Abundant Expectancy––instead I encountered a set of entirely negative expectations.
Fortunately, that’s a gift I chose to return, unopened.
Ultimately, I wonder if maybe some myrrh must always accompany the gold and frankincense.
It’s certainly not the only way to learn, but we all know that fully embracing our losses and failures help us grow enormously.
Lessons come in all sorts of packages.
Indeed, in the middle of writing this, Fox’s dad texted me asking if he could swing by and drop something off for Vlad.
It was Fox’s last unopened Bark Box, a monthly subscription service of toys and treats.
This one––full of chew toys that Vlad and Malibu are eager to tear into––is heartbreakingly Christmas-themed.
Emotions run high during the holiday season.
I’m keenly aware that amidst some unexpected chaos, I’ve also received two pieces of potentially game-changing good news.
(I’ll share those soon enough).
But I’m also appreciating the boxes of darkness that appear underneath the tree as well.
Sometimes the advisors you approach for guidance are far more lost––even hopelessly so––than you feared you were.
Not every wise man bears a gift from Toys R Us.
Indeed, some gifts are inherently bittersweet.
Take the charming box of toys and treats that just arrived for Vlad, tinged with sadness because Fox can no longer enjoy them.
Charles Dickens ends A Christmas Carol with a similar realization.
As Scrooge grasps the final specter’s hand, he vows:
”I will honor Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year.
I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future.
The Spirits of all Three shall strive within me.
I will not shut out the lessons that they teach.”
And right now, flooded with all sorts of emotions, embracing gifts of light and darkness, I’m trying to do exactly the same.
Truly, life’s lessons and gifts can come from anyone––Wise Men and Magi, Lawyers and Litigants.
All that matters is that, whenever and however they arrive, no matter how they’re wrapped, we remain abundantly opento receive them.
Namaste for Now,
