Logic Can Take Us From A to B

By Traci Hubbard

This is a personal short story of how moving from A to B required more than logic… it required trust, faith, patience, and a whole lot of imagination.

In August 1994, I was suffering undefinable pain in my head, neck, and back. It felt like I had a swallowed a golf ball and it was stuck. Four trips to the emergency room, four spinal taps, and every time sent home with a strong narcotic that did not touch the pain. Late that August, Sarah found me at the bottom of the stairs in our home in a partial (70%), coma. She called both of her grandmothers and asked them to come over telling them, “Mama is really sick.” Sarah remembered that when I feel sick, I like to take a hot bath. Somehow, she managed to get me into the bathtub, and I am told she sat with me until her grandmothers arrived. My mother-in-law stayed with the girls while my mother took me to see Dr. Richards, our family doctor and friend. I imagine his way of being with his patients was much like David’s. He was Chief of Surgery at St. Joseph’s Hospital and respected and loved by his peers. Dr. Richards paged his Neuro colleague, a medical assessment was made, and I was rushed to an MRI, followed by another spinal tap, where viral meningitis and severe encephalitis were diagnosed. As Chief, Dr. Richards had a private hospital room and that is where he placed me as family and close friends were called to the hospital to be beside me and pray. For days, I went in and out of consciousness. My prognosis left everyone stunned.

A week passed and I remember waking up to the sound of Sarah’s voice telling me Oscar Wilde’s story of The Selfish Giant. It was one of the girl’s favorite bedtime stories. Sarah’s voice was sad and trembling. My girls were laying beside me, Amy on my left, Sarah on my right. Each had one of my silky pretty robes on, both had an arm and leg draped over me like a cocoon. Sarah was at the part in the story where the Giant was asking the little boy, “Who hath wounded thee? Who hath wounded thee? Tell me so I may take my big sword and slay them!” “The little boy replied, “These are the wounds of love.” It was then that I awakened and said, “Girls…I love you more.” All I can say is there were happy tears all around.

Later that night, around 3 am in the morning, I awoke to find myself on a rolling bed, parked in a hospital hallway in front of an elevator. To my right was a huge window that overlooked the skyline of downtown Fort Worth. This was significant because every time the girls joined us on a trip to lead a workshop, conference, retreat, or camp, when we drove home, we created a tradition where whoever saw the skyline of Fort Worth first shouted, “I can see downtown Fort Worth. I love you!” The person who shouted first received the prize of choosing where we would eat dinner that evening.

(I remember this like it was yesterday)… I remember smiling through my pain and whispering, “I can see downtown Fort Worth.” And then in my spirit, I heard the Spirit whisper, “Traci, how much do you love me?” I whispered back, “I love you with all my heart.”

Again, the Spirit whispered, “Traci, how much do you love me? I replied, “I love you with all I am.”

A third time, the Spirit asked, “Traci, how much do you love me?”

I became frustrated…this was not a logical conversation. Mystery, Love, the Spirit, knew I loved her with all I knew how to be…so, what was this about? I had never experienced the physical pain I was in, and I thought the Her timing and repeated question was insensitive at best, and very odd…I mean come on Mystery! You know my answer, so what is up?

As I looked out the window over the beautiful skyline, a last question came to me.

“Traci, do you love me enough to leave here, to leave your mother and extended family and friends, and go to a place you don’t know, a place far away, and love me and the people who live there?” I whispered, “Here I am Lord…I am awake, I am in pain, and I am helpless and dependent on everyone around me. You are here with me, you know what is going on better than I do. I will go wherever you lead me.”

The conversation ended with, “Traci, all will be made known, and it will hurt. You will need courage to move from many places in your journey with your daughters. I will be with you even as you are shattered by information and a reality you could never imagine. It is in the shattering, in the impossible, that you will see a way through the storm that you will walk through, hand in hand with your daughters, and a path of love and opportunities for the three of you will appear. The three of you, together, and individually, will become more and accomplish more than you can imagine today. It will be hard, it will be painful, but I promise, it will be beautiful. And Traci, I love you more.”

I remember my heart beating with a wild calmness. The elevator door opened, and a porter emerged to pull me in and take me for another MRI.

The sun rose and I woke up to see my mother sitting beside me. Dr. Richard walked in, accompanied by my Neuro to tell me that the MRI showed I had not suffered any brain damage, and they could not explain why. They were expecting a certain degree of mental deficit. I was to go home and rest in a dark and cool room for the next few weeks.

Four months later, on January 9^th, 1995, we drove into Calgary, having accepted a position in a church, over two other offers, one being in St. Augustine, Florida, and Atlanta, Georgia.

While I was in recovery at home, I sent out our resumes to church’s looking at their needs and how they matched our set of skills. Although I loved our ten successful years in itinerant ministry, and the creative process and writing of the interactive role paly studies was life-giving, I did not enjoy flying in and out and leaving my children. My identity, the meaning of my life, was being a mother to my children, not being applauded on huge and small stages. Jetting across the globe, being pampered with private jet rides with a red carpet literally spread out to a waiting limo, to take us from podium to lunch in another state, and then back to the podium, was not my idea of ministry and a life-giving journey.

So, resumes went out, and a lot happened in the in-between through the years, shattering’s, soul quakes, and rebuilding’s. But through it all, my daughter’s and I experienced a journey beyond our dreams. Most of the path wasn’t logical, and the truth is, there is not straight line from A to B. Following the Spirit…learning that all human beings, including ourselves, are frail and stronger than we can imagine, and imperfect and just what we need at the same time, and this is not logical. Fear is a natural reaction to the unknown. If we never journey into fear, and feel it in our bodies, we can never become fearless. We learned that although loving another person…loving a mother, a daughter, a sister, a friend or a partner may feel wonderful at times, real love has very little to do with feelings. Love, the ‘I love you more’ kind of love is a choice.

It’s a tethering to something greater than ourselves. While uncertainty abounds, the path that appears when we decide to keep walking and loving through the soul quakes – the Red Sea places where we arrive, wait and trust the waters will not overwhelm us. Living in faith and imagining what we cannot see but trust because of our relationship with Love is life giving. It is breathing in that the Hubcats (our nickname for my daughters and me), will not only continue to love, but thrive through all sizes of griefs and losses that evolve into meanings that are worth more than any hand can hold.

I understand Paul’s heart in his letter to the church in Corinth, and the meaning in his words, “We declare God’s wisdom, a mystery that has been hidden...none of the rulers of this age understood it…However, as it is written:

“What no eye has seen,    what no ear has heard, and what no human mind has conceived”—the things that the Sacred knows…and these are the things Mystery reveals to us by through the Spirit.

The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of divine LOVE. For who knows a person’s thoughts except their own spirit within them? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of LOVE except the Spirit of LOVE. What we have received is not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is LOVE, so that we may understand what LOVE has generously given us. This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, explaining spiritual realities with Spirit-taught words.” 

The moment we transcend the limitations of our logical mind, we understand there is no such thing as time and space. There is only the present moment where the path is within us…where it has always been. We exist to experience a life beyond all human alphabets.

Friends, these are our moments…every moment of every day right where we are as we are is where we create our path by walking together. May we be courageous to see beyond our eyes and listen for the whisperings only the ears of our souls can hear, and when we do, we will create more than logic, more than moving from point A to point B. I am standing here in this moment as a living miracle promising you that trust, faith, and creative courage will empower us to experience more than we can ever imagined. How can I say this? I can say this because when we dare greatly, we will understand and walk in this truth that what we do together is not about us, or our close and distant neighbours, it is all about love, and folks, the wounds in becoming love are beautiful.

May we be selfless giants. And may we remember that the Sacred’s love defies logic and always makes a way as She walks with us. I can see Lake Country! I love you more. May it be so, amen.