Snow Pictures

by Kevin Deeny

  “I know what you mean, and I may be able to help with that. If you’re up to it, I thought we could take a little hike tomorrow.”

  “That sounds great Marcus. I need to work out a lot of kinks.”

  They retrieved Tim’s bag from the carousel and crossed the short distance to Short Term Parking and piled into the Jeep. “I see you’re still keeping this thing running; it sounds like it runs better than my car,” Tim noted.

  “I keep at it,” Marcus responded. “It’s one of my mental health projects. When I have a bad day, it’s very therapeutic to go out to the workshop and think of nothing else but changing the oil or throwing in a new set of spark plugs.”

  Tim chuckled as the Jeep backed out of the parking space and added: “Well it sure looks like this old girl has provided a lot of therapy.”

  Marcus laughed, “Amen to that Father Tim.”

  Their ride home took over an hour, and Marcus kept the conversation light to allow Tim to nap along the way. When they pulled into the driveway, Rosalind came down the porch steps to great them. She gave Tim a big hug and exclaimed, “Tim, it’s so good to see you! I’ve really missed that smile of yours.”

  “Oh, it’s me who really missed you two. You look great Rosalind,” he said as he released her from his hug and they climbed the porch steps arm-in-arm. Marcus followed behind dragging Tim’s luggage which he swore under his breath was packed with bricks.

  They ate an early dinner and sat around talking and catching up until Tim began to nod and they shuffled him off to the guest room. While they cleaned up, Rosalind asked, “Are you still thinking of going up to Hawk Mountain?”

  “Yes, I think so. The weather looks good for tomorrow, and Tim wants to get out and stretch his legs.”

  “Good. That should give you two plenty of time to talk. I’m going to get some errands done and then work on closing some files. If you’re home in time, we could try to get out to the Mill for dinner.”

  “That sounds like the plan then,” Marcus added as he locked up for the night and made the rounds, turning off lights as he went.

  Rosalind and Marcus woke to the smell of brewing coffee and went to the kitchen to find Tim sitting at the kitchen table with a steaming cup of coffee and the morning newspaper. He looked over the top of the paper when they entered and said, “I’m still in another time zone and woke a little early.” He pointed to the coffee cup and added, “I can’t even think without coffee in the morning, so I jumped right in.”

  Rosalind laughed, looked at Marcus and said, “Are you sure you two aren’t related? I think Marcus needs coffee to get his heart started in the morning.”

  Over breakfast, they discussed their plans for the day and Tim was enthusiastic about the hike on Hawk Mountain. Having been born and raised in Chicago, Tim had never heard of this wildlife sanctuary perched atop the Appalachian Range that is dedicated as a refuge for birds of prey. Marcus promised to fill him in on what he knew about the site as they drove.

  At the top of Hawk Mountain, they parked at the visitor center, and Marcus commented that there weren’t too many cars or school buses in the lot yet. He explained to Tim that there are a lot of educational activities that go on at the center and it wouldn’t be unusual to see young children with their parents on many of the trails. It was, after all, a beautiful day for a hike.

  Once on the trail, they stopped first at the South Outlook and took in the sweeping valley with dense tree coverage on both sides of the valley until the trees gave way to vast expanses of farm fields in the distance. A few hawks lazily circled overhead and followed the contours of the treetops in search of prey.

  They continued their climb to the North Outlook which took them to the top of the ridge and out of the tree canopy to a rock outcrop that formed the spine of the mountain. From there, they could look both North and South since they straddled the spine and their view took in nearly 70 miles with the well known Appalachian Trail a mere stone’s throw away.

  “Rosalind and I love to hike here, and this is one of our most favorite places,” Marcus said in a hushed undertone. “Let’s pick out a spot in the sun and sit for a while.”

  They chose a large rock that gave them an unhindered view and sat. They both enjoyed the quiet for a long time and were transfixed watching the hawks as they transited along the flyway following a migratory path that was etched in their genes. Some small groups came and went and others, equipped with binoculars, came and searched the sky to identify and count raptor species. Occasionally, they would excitedly point out the location of one as it entered their field of view.

  Tim broke the silence to say, “I see why you both love this place, the setting feels reverential.”

  “I think that’s a good word for it, Tim. That’s certainly how it feels to me.”

  “Would it be OK to talk some while we’re up here, Marcus?”

  “Sure Tim, there is no better place I could think of.” Marcus reached into his backpack and pulled out a couple of energy bars and water bottles and handed one of each to Tim. “Watch out for the chipmunks, they are curious and hungry.”

  Father Tim unwrapped his energy bar and took a bite. He mumbled in reply, “They will have to fight me for it.” He put the remainder in his shirt pocket where he had a fighting chance to hold on to it. “Rosalind told me that you were troubled by your experience with the little girl a few months ago.”

  “That’s fair to say, but what troubled me may be a little out of the ordinary.”

  “In what way?”

  “I don’t know how much Rosalind told you about it, but there was a 5-year-old girl named Lily who drowned in a boating accident that I tried to resuscitate using CPR. I was unsuccessful and her parents were devastated.”

  “Marcus, that would trouble anyone. No parent is prepared to lose their child, particularly one so young. I’m sure it was traumatic for you too.”

  “I agree; It was heartbreaking, and I sure wasn’t prepared for the possibility that I couldn’t save her. But I had other concerns too.”

  Marcus explained, “You’ve heard me speak before about my near-death experience many years ago of being in a beautiful and peaceful valley. Yet shortly after I began CPR on Lily, I found myself back in that same valley with that wonderful sense of peace and Lily was standing next to me holding my hand. Although I never met her in life, she addressed me by name before she walked down the valley. I knew at that point that she had gone home to the place we call heaven.”

  “Marcus, that’s a wonderful and comforting thing isn’t it?”

  “Certainly. I knew without reservation that Lily was truly at peace and I had no concern about her well being. Yet I was greatly concerned about her parents. I also need to explain something else. I’ve been working at understanding healing for a long time now and am now to the point where I have a strong sense of a person’s general health and emotional state under certain circumstances; usually, if I focus. That day, when it became evident that Lily died, I sensed the highest emotional anguish in her mother I’ve sensed in anyone – ever. I’m worried about her, but don’t know how to handle it. I can’t seek help for her and base my concern on something I ‘feel’ is true; I would be considered little more than a quack, and it wouldn’t be taken seriously. So, I am struggling with how to deal with this concern.”

  “My second concern is a little more self-serving. I don’t understand why I was in the valley again. I get the NDE as it related to my experience – sort of because it involved my peril, but I sure don’t get this experience. I think I was some comfort to Lily as she transitioned, but I’ve never heard of this ability to pop back and forth like that and I don’t know what to make of it.”

  Tim coughed and quipped, “Damn, when you come up with issues to talk about, you don’t mess around do you?”

  Marcus smirked and said, “Great, a priest who curses; there’s surely hope for the r
est of us, Father Tim.”

  Tim chuckled and then turned serious. “Let’s set aside for the moment how you arrive at your concern for the little girl’s mother. Do you think she is in mortal danger; perhaps thinking of harming herself?”

  Marcus thought for a moment and responded, “No, that’s not the sense I got. It is more like a deep state of guilt and sorrow I fear she will never recover from.”

  “That’s good in a way because it doesn’t appear to be imminent and there’s time for the issue to evolve and to see if an opportunity presents itself. I have a thought, but want to chew on it a bit.”

  “Ok, but while you’re chewing this brings up an issue I didn’t think about before. What happens if I do sense that something is imminent? If I act openly and quickly, who would believe me?”

  “I think you answered your own question. Knowing you as I do, you will follow your conscience, but there is nothing to prevent you from acting anonymously or through others. The greater question is should you act, and if the answer to that question is yes, you will figure out how.”

  “The second concern you have is more illusory, and I think we need to drill down a little. From what you told me, the experience was comforting for Lily. It helped her to have a hand to hold until her dog came to reassure her and keep her company as she walked down the valley. Pardon me for the biblical reference, but we can know this by its fruits; your presence was helpful for the little girl, and we can conclude that it was a good act. Another question we could ask is; Was it helpful to you or others?”

  Marcus answered, “In retrospect, yes it was helpful for me. I had not been able to save Lily, and this experience with her helped me to know, in absolute terms, that she was well and whole. And now that I think about it because I had that experience with Lily, I’m free to share it with her family if a way presents itself.”

  “Despite the tragedy of her loss to the family, it appears that your presence with Lily was a good thing for multiple reasons and the experience may have been triggered from your desire, or perhaps God’s desire, to do some good here.”

  Marcus laughed, “I see you’re banking some God points here, but I get your point.”

  Tim smiled and said, “You never know when you may need the points. More seriously though, I think that it is important to recognize that both the intention and spiritual outcomes brought the potential for some good, even with the event of Lily’s death.”

  They both sat quietly and enjoyed the warmth of the sun and the long lazy view before them while they allowed the conversation to settle in. Marcus was turning something over in his mind and finally decided to bring it up. “Tim, do you mind if I run something else by you? It has some biblical background so you might be the perfect guy to tell me if I’m full of crap or not.”

  “Marcus, I can’t think of a better time or place to talk about anything that’s on your mind. Do you have any more of those energy bars?”

  “I sure do. I took a fist full from the pantry when we left,” he said as Marcus reached into his backpack and passed two more to Tim. Marcus continued, “From the first time I read the bible, I was in awe of Jesus’ healings: they were immediate, complete and defied the current understanding of nature and science. Beyond that, what further excited me was that he told his apostles that they would “…do all these things and more.” Even though I was still in school time, I remember thinking that this was great; all we need now is to find one of the healers that used the knowledge that was passed down from Jesus through the apostles and I had a chance of healing myself as well as my father’s alcoholism. Of course, I found no one. I looked back on that childish belief years later and wondered again, “Why can’t we do this?” It’s not about faith; there are lots of believers. So, if not faith, then what?”

  “When I looked around more broadly, I found accounts of healers in other cultures who healed much like Jesus healed and, in some cases, in much greater numbers. Their explanation of the process is that they tap into something that is already there and they simply act as a conduit with the actual healing being done by the individual. With that explanation, it would seem that healing of this nature is not something necessarily granted by God instance by instance; it is something that has been available from the very beginning. I look at it this way, this is part of the human potential; we grow or evolve into this.”

  “Marcus, you seem to place a lot of emphasis on biblical accounts, but how do you reconcile this theory with those healings?”

  “I have a different take on what the purpose was for Jesus’ healings. I think he was teaching; the purpose was not to demonstrate God’s power, every Jew at the time already accepted the power of God as fact. If I think of it in simple terms, I don’t think he healed people to demonstrate what God could do, he was showing us what we could do.”

  Marcus continued, “So if we accept that proposal coupled with observations from other healers over time, it would suggest that this is part of the human potential and like any attribute will show up in small numbers in the population and grow if there is a supportive environment. That is precisely the premise I’ve been working on. What is interesting to me is that this is teachable and proficiency seems to get better with use; not unlike any skill.”

  “That’s a lot to consider, but it requires some speculation about Jesus’ motives that you and I may not be able to answer.”

  “That’s true for all but one of the healings. A woman in the crowd was healed by touching Jesus’ robe. Jesus didn’t intend to heal her, and his motives don’t apply, but he did notice that energy had gone out of him. So, it seems to me that Jesus too was a conduit that other healers have said is always there and available to us.”

  “I’ve never really considered that before, that’s an interesting observation. And as we’ve been talking, I had a thought about one thing you could do about your concern for Lily’s mother. I don’t know if you have discovered if there are limits to focused intention with respect to distance or location, but one possibility to try is to focus on peace for her and let that intention go where it will. You’ve said that you normally have no control over how the body uses the energy you pass because the body knows what to do with it. In the same way, you could project your intention outward and see what happens.”

  “I never thought to do that. I had a concern but never formed an intention about it. I’ll give it a try. Thanks, Tim.”

  They had been talking intently for some time, and Marcus had noticed the quality of the light changing as the sun traversed their southern field of view. It was time to go, but he had one more thing to bring up with Tim.

  “Tim, I mentioned that I am becoming more perceptive and I noticed when I picked you up at the airport that you seem to be under a lot of stress. I don’t want to pry, but is there anything that I can help you with?”

  Tim looked down the valley to the distant farmland while he contemplated Marcus’ question. His work for the last 18 months had involved gut-wrenching issues for the Church which had necessitated many trips between Chicago and Rome. He didn’t expect to see any change for some time to come, and he knew, as Marcus correctly perceived, that the stress was taking its toll. He finally turned to look at Marcus and said, “You’re right about the stress. It involves matters that have to remain confidential, but I can tell you that my faith has been severely tested. I’m not sure there is much you could do to help with that.”

  “I don’t accept that conclusion, Tim and you shouldn’t either. We’ve spent a lot of time, since we’ve known each other, talking about healing, and my experience has shown me that healing comes in many forms. Who is to say what good can be done?”

  Tim thought again about his present personal concerns that evolved from dealing with several internal personnel issues within the Church; ones that don’t relate to medical problems and which he doesn’t think are likely to be subject to Marcus’ particular healing approach. None-the-less,
he saw no harm in trying, if for no other reason than to accept help from a friend when it is offered. “Ok Marcus, it’s worth a try. We can give it a shot when we get back to the house.”

  “Tim, there’s no time like the present. All you have to do is exactly what you’re doing now. We just have to change your focus a bit. You can sit right there, and I’ll ask you to focus on a few things, and then if all goes well, I’ll see if I can pass you some energy. If you sense the energy, I ask that you don’t try to direct it, your body will know what to do with it. Are you ready to try?”

  “Really, right here and now?”

  “Yup, this is no big deal. Consider this; you’re sitting on a mountain a little closer to God. She’ll keep an eye on you,” Marcus said with a chuckle. “Are you ready?”

  “Ok.”

  “The first step is usually to visualize yourself in a safe and comforting place, but I think we are already there. Close your eyes, feel the sun, sense the wind as it passes over the mountain, and hear the motion of the trees as they sway in the valley.” He gave Tim several moments to adjust his senses and continued his guidance.

  “Become aware of your body as it calms to the rhythm of this place and expand your senses to feel your heartbeat in your fingertips. Breathe deeply and calmly.” Marcus paused again for a few moments while Tim focused his attention on the task, and watched for his breathing to settle into a relaxed rhythm. He continued, “Each time you breathe, visualize golden light flowing into your body and with every beat of your heart, see the golden energy pulse throughout your body. Do this with every breath you take and when you’re ready, let your body take over and do this on its own. Relax and enjoy the peace and warmth of it.”

  Marcus waited for a few minutes and then reached out and clasped Tim’s forearm and felt the familiar flow of energy. He smiled to himself because there is always some purpose; it is never wasted, and he was pleased that Tim would feel this connection. When he felt the flow of energy ebb, he removed his hand, looked away, and sat in silence.