Beauty at the Blood Drive

Few things are better than being surprised by beauty. 

This is true when one stumbles across a stunningly clear mountain stream cascading over rocks and roots. It is true in that moment in a crowded room when, in the late hours of an exhausted and exhausting day, your eyes find that right person who stops time and heart. As is often the case with surprises, beauty can take our breath away literally anywhere at any time. It happened to me today at Salisbury School, sitting at the canteen during a Red Cross Blood drive. 

The toll house cookie, crisped perfectly to my liking with lots of melty chocolate chunks, didn't hurt. But what really touched me as a few of us donors sat at table, simply doing what we'd been told to do in these first moments of recovery, was the crystalizing sense of the staggering beauty of human connection. 

I suspect that I'm not alone in feeling at least a bit apprehensive about blood donation. (Spoiler alert: details follow, including needle size.) Though I understand the benefits of the act, I still see that it's an odd choice to walk into a room full of strangers and allow one of them to do all that must be done for the extraction of a pint of blood. Donating requires having a 16-gauge needle inserted through the inner elbow, followed by roughly 5-8 minutes of lying relatively motionless. In light of all of this and more, it is somewhat tempting to ignore the multiple phone calls prompting me to schedule my next donation. 

Giving blood is not for everyone. But I do believe that everyone can find and beauty in any of a variety of acts of generosity and selflessness. These actions often force us to push ourselves to show up, and they almost always yield lovely and good things. As is often the case, getting over the threshold is a big part of the battle. In this setting as in others, once I roust myself and follow through on the commitment to enter in, I almost always find the surprise of human goodness. These days as much as ever, this beauty is a treasure.

I was met just inside the door by the pair assigned to register people entering, and it was lovely to find a beaming elderly woman sitting next to a Salisbury School student wearing a wide grin. They had clearly connected well with each other already, and they graciously welcomed me in. As she updated my name tag to add a "C" she shared that her daughter's name, Erika, also often gets botched. I sat and waited to be called into registration, exchanging knowing looks of unstated but very real camaraderie with others ready to give (yes, always with at least a touch of misgiving). 

I admired the new tattoo of the staff member who registered me. It was almost as cool as the new technology being used by the Red Cross, including a thumb cuff that precludes the finger jab that used to hurt way too much. My phlebotomist was an ace, chatty enough to put me at ease and skilled enough to keep me that way. I finished filling the pint bag in about 6 minutes and 15 seconds.

It was during my time on my back, staring at the Salisbury School common room ceiling, that I truly began taking stock of the beauty unfolding around me. Everything detailed above began to coalesce and take shape as an evident sense of community. Folks who don't know each other, or those who will benefit from their gift, are drawn together into a practice that can feel like a ritual, a deed that truly saves lives. I reflected that each pint bag, literally life blood from donors, would eventually travel around the country into the hands of practitioners working to heal folks in need. 

A Salisbury student offered me pizza before I even sat down at the canteen snack table. I found a juice box, a water bottle, and the perfect chocolate chip cookie described above. At least as importantly, I struck up conversation with a Salisbury staff member who, four years earlier, happened to have joined others from the school in celebrating James Mars Day at the Norfolk UCC church where I serve as pastor. We had worked for some six months with Salisbury students and their teacher Rhonan Mokrisky, who had researched the life story of James Mars, to raise awareness of Mars, the last slave sold in Norfolk near the end of the 18th Century, and plan the dedication of a Witness Stone honoring Mars. This Salisbury staff member shared that students of the school have continued this work of sharing important but lesser-known stories about slavery and other forms of injustice. With clear pride, she celebrated their curiosity and courage in telling such stories and seeking to prevent oppression and cruelty today. 

In the span of a few hours, I received at least as much as I gave. That unlikely blood drive in a gymnasium became a setting for me to be awed by relationships and blessings that I would have missed had I stayed home. I thank God for the chance to share the gift of my much-needed blood, and I'm ever grateful for yet another experience of being surprised by beauty.