Sitting in the Courtyard of El Convento, the golden sunlight shimmers through the Palm Streets and bushes that line the marble tiled floors. The busyness of Old San Juan is on the other side of the four walls that rise four stories. Each floor is distinguished by open arches that allow sunshine and ocean breezes through the hallway, and before air conditioning, into the open doors of the rooms where the Nuns stayed before it became a hotel. The rooms are large enough and have floor to ceiling windows opposite the doors to allow the breeze to cool the rooms.
It is late afternoon and I am sitting in a large soft chair with my bare feet propped on a glass coffee table. I am keenly aware of where I am at … and am taken aback by it. This is beautiful! I’m back in the Caribbean which is a place that I love and I am working.
For years I wondered what it would be like to work here. Though I’m only here doing this for a few days, it’s another dream come true I suppose. Just a taste but … well you never know. There is still time in my life to expatriate, chase Hemingway or mimic Buffett. Maybe live in a thatched hut under the coconut trees, beside a white sandy beach and the aqua blue water of a reef protected Bay. Of course I’d need a generator to power the blender and the sound system.
It could happen.
My life has seen a lot happen though I can’t figure out how … or why.
Most were fantastic: work accomplishments that had never been achieved … the satisfaction of helping so many people achieve things they never thought they could achieve … invitations to speak carried me around the world … books I’ve written sit on a shelve and give me pride … inside of them are letters and notes thanking me for things I said … and I live on a beautiful island surrounded by an incredible carnival of friends who spark laughter and joy.
Sure there were other things not so great. I was run over as a kid and my left leg was shattered … my son and I were in a head on collision and somehow survived though the experience stays with me to this day … marriages ended … so did a career … I learned that giving my life trying to do good means there are some who hate me for it and hurt me …burnout and depression arrived.
Sitting in this courtyard I am watching the golden sun shine through the long lead green Palm trees on me. I am bathed in it. So is the space and things around me. It is as though the Kingdom has come on earth as it is in heaven. I am suddenly one with both.
Earlier I was with my friend Chaco, Dr. Jose Vargas Vidot who takes health care to people in Puerto Rico, Haiti and most of Central America. He’d been attacked in the newspapers because while he graduated from medical school he is not a licensed physician. He does manage them though to provide wonderful care to people desperate for it. So another group of physicians attacked him for it ... Health care is a screwed up system.
I was at his press conference where he answered the charges. There were many reporters and a huge crowd for the event ... Doctors, medical students, and the people who benefit from the work. He spoke eloquently and answered every question. At the end of it … he cried.
Then I saw something that I’ve never seen before.
A lady screamed out the name “Chaco” and the hundred or so people there burst into applause, clapping and crying and screaming. Then they all rushed and with him standing crying in the center a hundred people hugged him at once, continuing to scream his name in unison. “Chaco … Chaco … Chaco!” and they cried with him ... in joyful celebration of him.
The press went nuts of course. They jerked their cameras off their stands and angled for shots of this amazing thing. It lasted a long time and I stood there humbled by such an expression of love.
I do believe that love conquers hate … good triumphs evil … in second chances and angels … there is always a way regardless of the obstacles … forgiveness is better than resentment … life is a gift and that the gifts of life come and go … happiness is there to grab hold of but it often means letting go of something else … we can live right up until we die.
Sitting in El Convento bathed in heaven and earth I experience prayer. There are no words. I have survived hate, abandonment, depression, burnout and death … so far. I also love, feel good, have yet another chance, feel angels kiss me and am happy.
I feel all of these things at once. Powerfully! Fully! Completely!
How is it that I am here?
Everything went wrong. Now everything is going right.
Then I know … cause the angels tell me so … because you are where God needs you to be.
I stand and get wine. Communion occurs. I touch my finger to the wine and then the wine to my forehead and heart … still bathed in heaven and earth …
And I humbly cry in joy.
