So . . . magic?
A second grade class was asked to take paper, pencils and crayons and “draw what magic looks like to you.” What would you draw? Today, pictures of cellphones or video games might be part of the mix — but then, decades ago, besides magicians, an underground train suddenly appearing street side, or an airplane, might seem like magic.
Not sure what rendering one particular child turned in, the shapes or colors. Whether a house with family and puppy playing; perhaps a big round sun. Some green grass, bright red and blue flowers; or maybe a lone puppy. But beneath the illustration, and can’t you picture it written in a second-grader’s hand: “Love is magic because it makes hard things easy.”
Love is magic because it makes hard things easy.
Surely the humility that inspires that kind of love rests on, begins with, something greater than you or I mustering up care for ourselves and each other. Goes beyond the joy and warmth of a puppy. That child glimpsed Scripture, for among its graceful wordings, God appears as Love and Spirit. As Soul. Like a Mother. . . right there wherever we might go. Caring for the sparrow, so why should we think less for ourselves. Making lilies of the field sparkling and beautiful, so why think less for ourselves or the world’s peoples.
I believe that. And what more gorgeous way to think of magic than as love with a capital “L.” As our being caring and cared for, guarded guided chosen by a divine Love. Bigger than each of us. Bigger than all of us.
Right there to just ask . . .
And thinking of “magic” being Love, took me back to a turning point. A Love point. Not the first to feel cared for like as a sparrow, yet profound. Illustrating in a way, what Christian Science Sunday School was already coloring in for me, that “Father-Mother is the name for Deity,” . . . indicating “His tender relationship to His spiritual creation.” That’s from the book “Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures” by Mary Baker Eddy, the founder of the Christian Science Church.
When I was not yet 20, my mom passed on. Or as some cultures gently say, “walked on.” And I was asking for more than a bit of “magic.” For Love divine to walk right in and gather me up. I recall going to my little desk by the window and opening that book “Science and Health.” No recollection of the day, sunny or rainy. But of being transformed. Gathered up. I do remember that. For I was reaching for the reality of our existence. The book opened and my eyes fell here: “This is what is meant by seeking Truth, Christ, not ‘for the loaves and fishes,’ nor, like the Pharisee, with the arrogance of rank and display of scholarship, but like Mary Magdalene, from the summit of devout consecration, with the oil of gladness and the perfume of gratitude, with tears of repentance and with those hairs all numbered by the Father” (p. 367).
Since then much stands out in that paragraph but that day, oddly it was “those hairs all numbered by the Father.” For me it captured both the Magdalene’s powerful presence in loving the Master (for who wouldn’t want to wash Jesus’ feet) and the sparrow having its own house. They became one. I felt bathed — every fear washed away. So very cared for. Forever. Mom cared for. Cared for together.
Who wouldn’t want that “magic” . . . now just to remember to ask.
Patti Kadick lives in Salisbury. This first appeared on her blog: aroundabovebeneath.com