Risk, Truth, Grace, Love, and the Healing Magic of Presence
That beautiful song from Josh Groban came up in the shuffle this weekend, stopping me in my tracks as it always does because it brings my friend Miles Adcox to mind.
Let me first stop right there and say that it feels brave writing the phrase “my friend Miles Adcox.” It feels brave claiming the title of his friend, because my wounds tell me that I’m not nearly enough to be worthy of it.
Interestingly, while claiming that feels like braving the wilderness and my wounds scream unworthiness at me, there’s not a doubt in my heart that “friend“ is exactly what he would call me … Nor that that wilderness is exactly where I’m supposed to be.
He and that song are the center of one of my favorite stories to tell. It’s a story I’ve told numerous times, but there’s an element central to what I was feeling that I’ve filtered in every previous telling.
Part of me believes that element of my heart is not allowed to exist, and that it’s certainly not allowed to have a voice.
Yesterday I happened on a talk in which my friend Miles said that the four principles central to connection are risk, truth, grace, and love.
Those words took my breath away.
So, here’s the whole story.
Last June, I had a really hard time with Father’s Day. Having lost my dad when I was 20, it’s never a great day, but last year was particularly hard. It was a combination of discovering that his death during a tumultuous season in my life left me believing he went to his grave ashamed of me, and a Father’s Day post the man I have long loved from afar had written about his precious little girls. It's the latter that I've filtered as I've told this story; my wounds scream that it's wrong and stupid that his words about those girls always shatter my heart into a million pieces.
The depth to which he sees his daughters is absolutely stunning.
I will never forget one particular birthday post he wrote about his youngest ... It went on and on about her heart and spirit and who she is and the way she walks in this world.
SHE WAS FOUR.
His love for them is something the likes of which I have never seen in my lifetime, and it is both wondrous and excruciating for me to behold. It simultaneously fills me with the radiant light of knowing that love’s extraordinary power lies in simply seeing the other, and with the shattering pain of never having been seen by the people who mattered in my young life.
The space he occupies for me makes it all the more radiantly shattering.
So, the Monday following Father’s Day, I was barely able to walk through my workday. I just collapsed in tears every other moment.
I put on a video of a talk Miles had done because his kind presence was what my heart needed, in order to continue breathing, frankly.
At that point I had been following him on social media for probably three years or so, and I had met him exactly twice ... Once when I attended a fantastic event for The Onsite Foundation, and then a couple of months prior to this day, when he randomly (or not) showed up at my church.
I was stunned that day at church to discover that he actually remembered me from both the Onsite Foundation event and social media, having beautiful things to say about my online presence.
I could not imagine that I was even a blip on his radar ... I was just floored that he remembered me.
So, I put on the video of his talk, and I was finally able to breathe as I walked through rest of that hard day.
It happens that Josh Groban’s beautiful song about the power of presence is a part of that talk, which is why long before that day, it always brought Miles to mind.
The next night, I went to a show to see the aforementioned man I’ve long loved from afar. I don’t always go to his shows, because depending on where my heart is in any given moment, seeing him can be hard. It was a benefit for an organization I love, though, so I decided I would go. Also I’d had a gift made for him months before and had been waiting for an opportunity to give it to him, so I took it with me on the chance that I’d have a moment for one of those awful 30-second after-show conversations.
I mean, seriously … Can’t we go sit down and talk about my mom’s suicide rather than have this torturous small talk?! I am not a fan of the after-show receiving line.
As I sat in the silence before the show, still feeling everything from Father’s Day and also all that comes with loving someone who is otherwise involved - anticipating not only seeing him, but also perhaps the especially shattering pain of seeing him with his beloved - I looked up to see the people walking in to fill the empty seats at my table.
My jaw dropped.
Walking in to sit not only at my table, but in the seat directly across from me, was Miles.
Are you fucking kidding me right now?!
This man’s kind presence in a video had absolutely saved my heart 24 hours earlier, and now that I was feeling the echoes of that same pain plus an additional layer of loss and longing, here he was standing before me in real life person.
What. On. Earth.
The healing magic continued when I told him the story of the day before, and he wrapped me up in a big hug. I exchanged wonderful greetings with his lovely wife Vanessa and sweet Maverick who would be joining us out in the world shortly thereafter. Then Miles proceeded to introduce me to one of the most stunning heart healers on the planet, Mike Foster, who was with them for the evening.
It is ridiculous the people who just show up in my midst these days.
And by these days, I mean since I began embracing every single thing I love. That includes embracing everything I was feeling for a singer/songwriter I barely knew, when my wounds screamed that I would never be worthy of him, and my heart knew that it had years of healing to do before I could even contemplate a relationship.
It turns out that embracing and giving a voice to that love - because it’s the truth of what lives and breathes in me - is infinitely more powerful and important than whether it is returned. As with every single thing outside myself, the question of whether that love is ever returned is completely out of my hands.
It also turns out that the questions are an amazing place to live. Certainly not without pain, but with more depth and richness than I imagined possible. Embracing that love, regardless of what it looked like and having no idea what it may ever look like, has been the center of every bit of my healing and discovery these past four years.
One of the deepest and most powerful truths I've discovered is that this moment is the only one we can ever know. The beautiful thing about the mystery of every moment after this one is that by definition, everything is possible in it. What we dream of now is absolutely possible, as are a million other wonders we’ve not even conceived of yet.
There is just no need to pick up the heavy burden of "never" and carry it, because with very few exceptions, we simply cannot know that something will never be.
When we can let go of expectations and timelines and simply embrace mystery, we get to live in openness and wonder, and it is miraculous.
So, that night as my heart carried the heavy weight of Father’s Day loss and longing and my soul was so weary, the friend that that song had long brought to mind did indeed come and sit awhile with me.
It mattered So. Much.
He didn't offer any answers or solutions or even talk to me about anything in particular beyond hearing the part of my story I shared with him ... He was simply THERE.
Presence is healing magic.
Then because all that wasn’t quite amazing enough, apparently, there were more beautiful surprises to come.
Ever since his book Scary Close had come out a couple of years earlier, Donald Miller had been a powerful presence for me. Actually when I was first writing my healing journey, our words were mirroring each other‘s nearly verbatim. I mean, I would write something, and an hour or two later, he would post nearly exactly the same thing.
A lot.
I was starting to wonder if he had someone stalking my page! Not that it was in the realm of possibility that I would be a blip on his radar, either.
As Miles and I chatted, I looked over at the next table and spied Don.
“Is that Donald Miller?!” I asked, knowing that they’re good friends. “I’ve wanted to meet him for ages.”
“It is! Let’s go say hi; I know he’d love to meet you.”
I’m not sure in what universe Donald Miller would possibly care about meeting me, but those words were a beautiful gift.
We walked over and accosted the lovely Don and Betsy over their dessert, and Miles would have introduced me had I not embarrassingly burst forth with my years excitement before he had the chance! Yay for being real and not being able to rehearse those moments.
Don and Betsy were so gracious and kind, and here’s what I will always remember about that moment:
Standing before this author whose pages had brought such clarity and healing to my journey that I couldn't get through one without writing a page of my own, feeling Miles’ hand on my back, and hearing him say “She's good people.”
Oh. My. Goodness.
After the show, I did have a moment for one of those torturous 30-second conversations with my beloved, and I was able to give him the gift I’d been holding onto for months. Funny, in that conversation, he actually mentioned the fact that this moment is the only one we can ever know.
I love it when the universe whispers that a deep truth I've discovered is, in fact, a deep truth.
I handed him the gift to open at his leisure, and a couple of days later I received one of the most powerfully healing gifts ever to grace my life.
One of my deepest wounds stems from my heart and love not being received by the people who mattered. My mother in her deep brokenness felt no bond with me when I was born. She said for my whole life - no doubt from horrific guilt - that the bond mothers are “supposed” to feel with their children is “a crock.” Because she felt completely unlovable, she saw my expressions of love as nothing more than a ploy to get something. My love was not only rejected, but criticized and punished as manipulation. My Dad and I were very close when I was little, but when I was a young teenager, he started sending me messages that my love was too much. His words that I was going to “scare boys off” were forever etched into my heart.
These are deep wounds I carry to this day.
So, it was an unimaginable gift to me when a couple of days after that amazing night, my beloved sent me his thanks for the gift I'd given him ... Along with a photo of it in his hand.
I have no words for the power of that image; something I’d had made that came from the depths of my heart, literally being received and held by this person who matters so deeply to me.
I have no doubt that he just snapped a photo because it’s what we do these days, and it’s beautiful because he’s an artist and that’s what he does. But that photo has a healing power he could never have known.
I continue to be stunned at the healing power of simple presence and kindness and grace, and the shattering power of criticism and control.
I also continue to be stunned at the level to which so many of us understand control to be love.
Control is absolutely no part of love, ever.
It’s amazing who and what we find when we simply embrace what we love, and bravely step into the wilderness of speaking the truth of what lives and breathes in us.