Message of the Humming Bird

"Always actively seeking the sweetest nectar, they remind us to forever seek out the good in life and the beauty in each day. The prime message of the hummingbird animal totem is: "The sweetest nectar is within!" Hummingbirds are also a reminder of how we expend our own energy."

I should start with this: I am not a medical doctor. I am not a doctor of psychiatry. I am not an addiction specialist. I’m just an artist trying to make my way through the ugly phase.

As I was laying in my bed wondering why I struggle with creating art I had the thought that my real job in life is to be an uplifter. I attempt to see the beautiful in the ugly. I attempt to work through my own ugly long enough to unfold something of value.  I attempt to point out the beautiful in places where someone else can only see the ugly. We are all a work of art in progress. Even after I have managed to create something beautiful I know the lines that are there. I know where the ugly parts are. I used to point that out to people when they would say WOW…thats so pretty! I would say “Yes but look - right there. Do you see where that line was imperfect?” They never would have seen it had I not pointed it out. They were seeing the whole as it was presenting itself to the world. The layers were the thing they knew nothing about. I drew their focus to the imperfection and then thats all they could see.

I recently met with a family member who volunteers at The Mother of Mercy House in an area of Philadelphia that is known for its ugliness and imperfection. Once a thriving and beautiful community it has succumbed to ravage, disease and decay. As the city was attempting to break up the areas where people who are addicted tend to congregate they succeeded in moving them on. However, these downtrodden and drug addicted souls found a church no longer in use, basically abandoned, and they broke in and made it their new meeting place. I went to the page for the Mother of Mercy House in this area and on their page they had posted a link to the article about the abandoned church. It was the “ugly”. However, it was the comments that so captured my heart and made me see things with new eyes. In the article about the Ascension of Our Lord Church in Kensington the author wrote

“In the half-light, they could make out thin forms. Some shot heroin in the pews, some laid half-naked on mattresses. Others stumbled past in their stupor, not noticing the priest and nun in their presence.

Father Murphy did all he could think to do. He began to bless them.”

In the comments below the post someone wrote

“And the Mother of Mercy house team was there to bless them. Awesome.”

Fr. Murphy replied “And we know our blessing is only a beginning.

My prayer is always that they will know how loved they are by God and that that love will lead them to seek the healing and help they need to live their full dignity as children of God created for nothing less than to share in the very life of God--Eternal Love!”

Someone else wrote “ I have so many mixed emotions about this. My heart breaks for this holy place, so many loyal parishioners loved and cherished it for so many years. Yet I feel like maybe God called all these troubled people to his house for a reason.”

And again Fr. Murphy replied “Each person is a temple of God, a dwelling place of Eternal Love. And each person is made to live in Love in time and in eternity.

Discerning how to help those addicted to discover their dignity and live in Love is the ongoing question.”

It hit me. They aren’t living in love because they simply can’t love their ugly phase. The same visual pain I suffered when I looked at a piece of my art as it was struggling to become something was a similar pain that they were suffering when they looked at themselves and simply couldn’t find where to put the next stroke to move this harrowing experience into something beautiful - their future lives. There is only one way that a piece of art does not make it through the ugly phase and that is when it is abandoned in the middle.

I found myself so drawn to Fr. Murphy’s replies. And in particular to the woman who said maybe they were called to Gods house for a reason. At the time all I kept thinking was how beautiful the church was. They were all still moving through their ugly phase and had moved it into a place of beauty. The juxstaposition both moved me and disturbed me. You may think they were defiling that church. I tend to think the church was saving them. Or better yet perhaps they were saving the church, as one women commented “This could be an amazing sign. What a beautiful place it could be returned to. To offer food, help, shower, and of course mentoring and prayer.”

I mentioned to a friend that if I had carried a vase of roses into that place we would have the beautiful and the ugly cohabiting in the same place. Its all layered in life, isn’t it? Theres no separating the two. It is all a piece of art in the making going through the different phases. Human beings tend to turn their focus only toward the beautiful. But try as you may it can’t be done. The ugly is right there, under the beautiful, all becoming the whole. So I am posing this question to myself - perhaps there is no ugly. Perhaps there is only “becoming”.