Holy On My Lap - Counting Hairs (Lisa)

Holding my daughter Claire on my lap every day for near 27 years, as an infant and toddler to full grown adult, was a privilege that taught me a little about holiness.

She felt like baby Jesus on my lap and later in life, the suffering and dying Jesus. It was all so holy. She caused me and her family to slow down and count every hair on her head bringing us the closest to loving like Jesus as we had ever been. Claire was like that. She forced you to see the sacred in her and I have missed the weight of holy in my lap. The thing is, her physical absence is whispering a new teaching to me. She whispers…You are all that holy mom.

Each person I encountered today is just as holy as Claire. We are all children of God are we not? I can not pull everyone up on to my lap and count the hairs on their heads but I can pause and reflect on the holy that resides in them. I can’t hold myself close, cheek to cheek but I can hug myself and realize the holy in myself, faults and all. I am a holy child of God and with that comes not boldness and swagger but profound humility in my ability to live in exhaustive awareness of this.

Claire had the patience of a saint. What if I too could imagine that I had been blessed, filled, with that same holy patience, that no matter what the situation, I would always choose patience in response? It is very hard to imagine. Humbling.

Never did she say a bad word about another person, accepting, meeting all others right where they stood, no matter what gender orientation, religion, political leaning, beliefs, pasts, sins, no matter appearance, cleanliness, level of intelligence, nothing, NOTHING mattered, not a thing. She just loved us all.

God filled all of us with the same compassionate tenderness but it is hard to find many who come close to loving like that, even as we hold the same capacity to do so. There are others, gifted children of God blessed with this capacity, notable saints who came close but it is a rare sight to see. And so yes, it was a rare privilege to hold this holy person on my lap every single day of her life, but she whispers, it is not a rare privilege to be in the presence of holy mom.

Oh! The power of love, if only we humbly knew the capacity of our holy, the holy in each of us, what we could do this day with all that goodness.

Dear Jesus,

As You hold us on Your lap and count the hairs on our heads, help us be aware of the kindnesses born in us each day. Help us to love each other unconditionally. Help us try to be good like your precious daughter Claire.

Amen