Monday, May 24, 2010

St. Cashmere, pray for us

Cashmere Castillo was found yesterday.

He was eight. Full of play and mischief, he wandered too near the quick current of the Chicago River at a park near his home on the northwest side of Chicago.

It took a week to find his body. I think his school photo appeared in the paper every day that the search continued, and every day tears came to my eyes when I saw his face.

Dozens of stories go by us every week. Tragedies and successes, murder and mayhem fill hundreds of column inches and hours of television overage each week. Most of those stories pass by our eyes leaving no mark.

Then one comes along that grabs you by the heart and won’t let go.

I can’t say why this one has attached itself to my heart. Maybe I look into Cashmere’s young face and see the colors and contours of two of my grandsons, who share his Latino heritage.

Maybe it’s because I chase those boys around and witness the utter abandon of their playful joy that eliminates all awareness of danger. Maybe it’s because I know how easily what happened to Cashmere could happen to them.

Maybe the fragility of life is so real because I read and respond to the prayer list that hits my desk at the beginning of each week.

And maybe I will never figure out real reason why Cashmere’s photo pulls at my heart. I just know that the boundaries that protect me from caring about a hundred other stories in the paper disappear each time I see his photo.

May God grant him the fullness of joy. May he run free in the fields of heaven.

And may he be a holy saint revealing the thrill of being alive, the delight that God intends--and the joy that comes when we realize how fully we are loved and can love. May he teach us how utterly beautiful and gratuitous life on this planet is.

His young face teaches me at least this much, lest I forget. And I often do.

It seems profane to say it, but this child’s death has made me more alive. His face makes me aware that there is a love in me that hungers to get out. I didn’t create it. It’s just there. And I feel more alive when this love bursts the narrow confines of my constricted concerns.

This should not surprise anyone. God is love. Christian tradition said this from the start. To love, to feel love, to have love awakened within is to know God truly, literally, physically inside one’s body.

To feel love awakened is to know the Infinite Source of life within your own life, moving you beyond isolation, connecting you with the beauty and tragedy of living--telling you that all you are and all that is rests securely in the hand of the Love who reveals holiness in the face of eight year olds.

Pray for us, St. Cashmere. Break down our walls that we might truly live.

Pr. David L. Miller