Max and L. update

Max just called to tell me that L is being discharged from the hospital, as we speak.

The good news: She's feeling better.

The doctors still don't know what's been making her sick. With her history, that's important. They're going to rest up at L's mom's house until L is well enough to travel (she has residual effects from earlier neurosurgeries), and then come back home to the Bay Area. Then they'll reconnect with her infectious-disease specialist here.

Max thanks everyone for your prayers; she says it's the most important and effective thing we could have done.

I thank you, also.

Pray for Max

Please pray for Max and her partner, L. L was hospitalized with a staph infection in her neck, a year and a half ago. She's been having symptoms again, and has just been readmitted while they figure out what's wrong.

The hospital is near L's mom's house, several hours from Max and L's. Max drove down to be with her. Pray for L's strength, her health care team, and for Max as she supports and advocates for L.

Max and I are good friends; she mentored me my first year of grad school.

Thank you, and know that the prayers of all of my communities sustain me.

Prayers

My eye is gunky, red, straight, and healing well. Thank you for all of your prayers.

I got a call from my dermatologist this afternoon. The bump on the back of my ear, that we thought might be basal-cell skin cancer, turns out to be melanoma.

I'll know more on Monday.

I am, in a word, terrified. Pray, please.

Thank you, MadPriest, Mimi, Paul, and everyone. And thank you, all who surround me in real time. This is community. Your support means more than you know.

UPDATE: My appointment is at Kaiser Oakland at 1:30 (West Coast time). I"ll post again as soon as I know anything. What I know right now, is that I'm held in grace and love. I feel like the planet is lifting me up. Thank you all, so much--your support means more than I hope you'll ever need to know. You are helping the fear subside.

Thought for late in the semester

Men often become
what they believe themselves to be.

If I believe I cannot do something,
it makes me incapable
of doing it.

But when I believe I can,
then I acquire the ability to do it
even if I didn't have it in the beginning.

--Mahatma Gandhi
***

I stole this from Swandive, but it's not the first time I'd seen it. Several years ago--I've forgotten exactly when--someone at Traditions in Olympia had scrawled the same quotation on their staff graffiti board. I noticed it, ran for pen and paper, and tucked it in the back of a journal somewhere. I was achingly lacking in self-confidence then, but I knew what I was missing. I don't know that I believed these words, but I wanted to. Now, I can appreciate the truth in them.

I don't even want to list all the pressures I feel right now, around school, summer, and figuring out next year. My friends here are similarly under the gun, so to speak; for many of them, it's about finding jobs. Pray for all of us, please.

I seem to find these things that feed my faith, or they find me, when I need them. I am grateful.

Monday Prayer Blogging

Why? Because who doesn't need prayer on a Monday? Some of my friends do poetry and prayers as regular features; they use different days. I like the idea of spreading the wealth.

I fell (crash, bang) off the poetry wagon last fall. Gonna see if I can make this work.

I chose this prayer because it speaks to me of beginnings. Relax, breathe, let the Spirit into you. Fear not.

Risen Christ,
Your voice makes itself heard
Peacefully in the Gospel.
You say to us:
Do not be worried.
Only one thing is needed--
A heart which listens to my Word
And to the Holy Spirit.

Amen.

--Brother Roger of Taize (1915-2005)

Birthing

This is an adaptation of an e-mail I sent to a friend. It’s also a prayer request. Sometimes it helps me to share with someone I trust before I proclaim to the world. The feedback I got affirmed the clarity I felt, even through my inarticulateness. I’ve added a few details for context, and removed some—but much of this is verbatim. Please pray for the homeless, the exiles, and the sense of mission to them that’s being birthed in me. Thank you.

I have to make a phone call this morning, to someone I’ve never spoken with. I’m still on muscle relaxants, and didn’t take them last night, in the interest of clearing my head. I can write clearly enough, but can't sequence worth anything, when I talk. I keep starting, and stopping, mapping things in my head and starting over. It’s really frustrating.

I used to literally think in print, all the time. Until I started really trying to talk about God. Now, any concept—any at all—comes to me in images. If I could paint, it would be a lot easier.

I also used to be a much more casual blogger. Now I only write anything substantial if I'm impelled to. It often takes me half a day. I still enjoy it, and it's still an artistic process; I just do it from a completely different place. It’s both a place of mission, and of “sighs too deep for words.”

My prayer group met last night, for the first time since late fall. I talked about NOLA. I told them about the interweaving of vibrance and problems and devastation and resurrection, and why I love the city. I told them of the homeless encampment on Claiborne, and how witnessing that had galvanized me. Since I've been back, I've envisioned starting a chaplaincy for homeless people. It was the first time I'd told this group, I know my place is with the exiles and I want a collar so I can feed them. [I use that term, both physically and sacramentally.] Someone asked me, "Who is this God, who's making you want to do this?"

Damn good question. The only words I have are love, nonjudging, not forgetting anyone. The more-true truth is the image, of being shot through with a lightning bolt. Not in the sense of storminess or danger or even traveling quickly—but pure, clear, warm light; rightness. "Go. Show them that I love them."

I don't know yet where I’ll end up. But I know that this wanting to feed the homeless and the exiles is the right path.

From Bishop Charles Jenkins of Louisiana

Bishop Jenkins of Louisiana seeks our prayers, in support of people and families affected and displaced by Katrina. I've met some of the case managers he refers to. They do good, and necessary work. Please pray for them, and for the bishop, and for the Diocese of Louisiana's relief efforts.

Here is the text of Bishop Jenkins' post.
***

Please pray with me. I seek your prayer and support on several pending issues.

Some may know that Case Management across the Gulf Coast will cease in March unless a bill pending in Congress allows FEMA to fund our efforts. Case Management has been heretofore carried on by a coalition of national relief organizations under the stewardship and leadership of the United Methodist Council on Relief (UMCOR). Our coalition is called Katrina Aid Today. Other church groups have included Lutheran World Services, Catholic Social Services and Episcopal Relief and Development. The original funding for Case Management came not from tax dollars but from a gift to the United States from the government of Qatar. We who have been involved in Case Management more than matched this gift. A bill in Congress (S2335) would enable FEMA to continue to fund Case Management. No new taxes are needed because the funding is in the FEMA budget.

Case Management is teaching one to fish. You know the old story of giving a person a fish today and they will be hungry tomorrow. Teach them to fish . . . Case Management is a professional means to enable people to construct a recovery plan, to provide some resources to make the plan feasible, and then for people to stand on their own. The Episcopal Diocese of Louisiana alone graduated 325 families in December of last year. So please, pray for a miracle here. I do not want to see this important ministry stop nor do I want to see it sputter to a temporary halt and then try to start up again. We have proven our capacity to do Case Management.

I ask also that you pray about my capacity to continue funding a relationship with a law firm in Washington, Krivit and Krivit. This is a complicated issue (Church and State). The fact is that we would not be so far along in seeking funding for the continuation of Case Management were it not for the hard work and professional knowledge of the good people in this firm. I am out of money to pay them. They are working on faith now. I have many requests “out” for funding but so far, no action. There is more, much more, for us to do with Krivit and Krivit.

Thank you for your prayers and support.

Bishop Jenkins

h/t Ormonde Plater.

I'm safely back in California

Wide-eyed and wide awake, though my body thinks it's after midnight.

There's so much I need and want to do—for school, self, and ODR. I'm not even going to share my to-do list; it's frightfully long. I have to hit the ground running tomorrow.

Thank you all for your prayers for me. Please keep them up, for New Orleans. Pray for all forsaken and forgotten people. Pray for resurrection, wherever it be found.

And thank you to all the people of New Orleans—people who became my friends, and strangers on the streetcar—who told your stories, answered my (sometimes achingly naive) questions, took care of me, and shared your love of your city with me. Thank you for your generosity, and for your sacred trust. Thank you for everything you do, to bring justice, peace, and reconciliation to your home. Your work will always inspire me.

Peace be with all of you, and healing, with your city. I will do the best I can, to help you.

Pray for the world.

I didn’t write these prayers. My best friend did, and I am the friend she mentions.

Pray for New Orleans. Pray for the world. Pray for all who are suffering from violence, war, sickness, and oppression. Pray for the exiled; pray for the forgotten. And pray that you may know how to serve the people God puts in your path.

Pray for all who are where God has sent them, and who know it and rejoice in it. Pray for all who are doing the work of God where they are, unawares. Pray for all who would go where they are sent, if they only knew where, or how. And pray for all of us, that we may do the work of God everywhere we find it, and that we may minister to each other when we’re worn out and exhausted. Pray for the love of the world, and pray in thanksgiving for the love of God, which sustains and feeds us all.

New prayers appear weekly, on Thursdays, at the World in Prayer website. You may also subscribe by e-mail.
***

I, the Lord of sea and sky,
I have heard my people cry.
All who dwell in dark and sin
my hand will save.
I who made the stars of night,
I will make their darkness bright
Who will bear my light to them
Whom shall I send?

You've probably heard this wonderful hymn by Dan Schutte.

As I write this, a friend is just about to return home after spending a month helping with the recovery in New Orleans. She would give anything to be able to stay there instead, and is hoping and praying to be able to go back. And I—I am an Episcopalian, whose diocese voted last month to leave the Episcopal Church. Where congregations left, new congregations are springing up, and I wish with all my heart that I could walk away from my secular job in order to serve them.

Sometimes when we pray, we hear...we think we hear...the voice of God.

Some 45,000 people die each month in Congo because the ongoing fighting there has led to rampant disease and food shortages, according to an International Rescue Committee study released this week. The death rate is nearly 60 percent higher than the average for sub-Saharan Africa. Two days after the study was released, Congo's government signed a peace pact with the armed militias in Eastern Congo.

Whom shall I send to bring light to their darkness? Whom shall I send with succor, with food and medicine, with safety, with peace?

Gaza's only power plant shut down, saying it had run out of fuel because of increasing Israeli restrictions. Israel promised to allow some diesel fuel and medicines into Gaza, but Gaza residents sought their own solution instead, breaking through the Gaza-Egypt border, buying up goods unavailable in Gaza. Thousands--possibly as many a half a million--crossed into Egypt, with one BBC correspondent saying there are so many Palestinians in Rafah that it is almost as if the town has been annexed by Gaza. Supporters of Hamas clashed with Egyptian riot police and hurled insults at Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.

Whom shall I send, to tell them that I love them all? To bind them together, in times of plenty and times of poverty, to set them free from an inheritance of hatred? Whom shall I send?

There has been a sharp rise in the number of Afghan children forced out of school because of violence, President Hamid Karzai has said. About 300,000 children in the south--where the Taliban-led insurgency is at its strongest--now stay at home, compared to 200,000 a year ago. Yet despite the number staying home out of fear, about six million Afghan children attend school--some six times the number during the years of rule of the Taliban, when girls' education was completely outlawed.

Whom shall I send to cherish the children, to give courage to the parents, to build out of this generation the wisdom of the future? Whom shall I send as teachers, as learners, as friends?

Flood waters continue to force hundreds of thousands of people out of their homes and livelihoods in Mozambique, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Swaziland and Zambia. Heavy rains are expected to continue at least through February and possibly into April. Authorities say the damage could be worse than catastrophic floods seven years ago, although they expect the death toll to be lower. The Zambezi river now seems to burst its banks with monotonous and terrifying regularity, but most of those displaced returned to their farms, preferring to risk another flood than surrender their dignity and independence.
"Where else can we go?" one Mozambique resident asked a reporter. "This place is our home. It gives us crops and fish. We don't know anywhere else."

Whom shall I send to learn the ways of the waters? To find the rhythm of the seasons, and the nurturing of the land? Whom shall I send to find the homeless? Whom shall I send to rebuild and replace, replant and strive?

Reported rapes have doubled in Kenya since December's disputed elections. Many are gang rapes, carried out by groups of armed men. Almost half the cases at Nairobi Women's Hospital are girls under the age of 18. One case was a two-year-old baby girl. An estimated quarter of a million people have fled their homes to escape the unrest and some 85% of these are women and children. Many of these are in unsafe temporary shelters. Kathleen Cravero, Director of the United Nations Displaced Person's Bureau for Crisis Prevention and Recovery said, "Battles are fought on women's bodies as much as on battlefields. It is not so much that women are targeted in some deliberate way but their vulnerability makes them easy targets for anger, for frustration, and for people wanting to cripple or paralyze other segments of the community in which they live."

Whom shall I send to protect the most vulnerable? Whom shall I send to bind up their wounds? Whom shall I send to the angry and insulted? Whom shall I send to bring wholeness to their hearts?

I, the Lord of wind and flame.
I will tend the poor and lame
I will set a feast for them.
My hand will save
Finest bread I will provide
till their hearts are satisfied
I will give My life to them.
Whom shall I send?

Here I am, Lord. Is it I, Lord
I have heard you calling in the night.
I will go Lord, if you lead me.
I will hold your people in my heart.

Amen.

Traveling, and moderating comments for awhile

I'm leaving in a few hours, to spend the next month in New Orleans. I'll be doing a project with the Episcopal Diocese of Louisiana. Details to follow, as I get immersed in it.

As excited as I am about this, and as much as I've been wanting to do it since my first trip there last March, this is the first extended trip I've ever taken alone. I don't so much fear for my physical safety as, well, I'm just generally scared. I'll be fine once I get settled, and working; right now, I've only a vague idea of what I'm getting into.

What compels me to return to NOLA isn't the touristy fun stuff; it's the people. I'm going, so that I can listen to survivors' stories, and share them.

I have no idea what my internet access will be like while I'm gone. I've been very public at Jake's place, and while I haven't experienced any sort of trolling yet, I don't want to leave my own space vulnerable to idiots. So, I'll be moderating comments, at least for the next while.

Please pray for me, for the city of New Orleans, the people of the Episcopal Diocese of San Joaquin, and for all who are marginalized, mistreated, or exiled. And please pray for those who wield their power in damaging ways, as well. Pray for all of us, and be good to one another. Thank you.

Prayers over finals week

O God of peace, who has taught us that in returning and

rest we shall be saved, in quietness and confidence shall be

our strength: By the might of your Spirit lift us, we pray you,

to your presence, where we may be still and know that you are God,

through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.


O God of strength, who loves us as your holy people and

empowers us to do your will: Give us the discipline to do

what we need to do, the clarity to do it well, the grace to forgive

ourselves, and the courage to rise stronger next time,

through Jesus Christ our Redeemer. Amen.

BCP 832, and me

What You Can Do for Episcopalians in San Joaquin

From Remain Episcopal:

Those of us who remain Episcopal within the Diocese of San Joaquin extend our thanks and appreciation for the overwhelming expression of love and support that we have received from faithful Episcopalians and Anglicans throughout The Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion. We are committed to the very challenging tasks that we are now faced with, including but not limited to, supporting and protecting the clergy that have stood with us, maintaining and growing the parishes that retain their Episcopal affiliation, providing support and leadership to those who are in the minority in their current parishes, informing and gathering those who have left over the years in response to words and actions they found oppressive and marginalizing. To those within our diocese who have not felt represented by Remain Episcopal but have a desire to remain loyal to The Episcopal Church, please know that we do not exclude those who may feel their opinions and beliefs differ from ours. Contact us so we can better understand all perspectives and go forward representing all. ( reach us at contact@remainepiscopal.org )

Many of you have asked how you can help. Please continue to pray for the Diocese of San Joaquin. We are all mourning some level of loss regardless of our affiliation. We are in need of comfort, strength, discernment, and wisdom as we go forward in love and service to our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. The tasks that face us will require considerable financial support. We need to get the word out that The Episcopal Church is still present in the Diocese of San Joaquin. Bulk mailings and print ads for media in 14 counties are costly. We would appreciate any donations. We are a 501(c)(3) organization so your donations are tax deductable. Please mail them to:

Remain Episcopal
2067 W. Alluvial
Fresno, CA 93711

Much more on their website. These people matter to me because my best friend is among them; they matter also because they've been persecuted for twenty years (by which I mean lied to, manipulated, and abused). While I hurt for the ones who followed their clergy out, my heart is rejoicing with my friends. There is joy, relief, and hope in the Valley. It's like watching a flower open, or a bird fly for the very first time.

Episcopalians in San Joaquin need our support, our prayers, our love. I'm keeping the link on top of my sidebar for the foreseeable future. If you can give money, please do; if you have prayers to spare, give those.

And, if you are an Episcopalian in the Diocese of San Joaquin and you need a community to worship with, please contact them. They will help you.

ALSO: Check out the brainstorming at Jake's. (Thanks, Buddhapalian.)

I know it isn't Friday

...but here is a poem, and an Advent offering.

I’m involved in a discussion over at Buddhapalian’s, stemming from today’s Daily Office readings. Specifically, this passage from Amos:

Take away from me the noise of your songs; I will not listen to the melody of your harps. But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an everflowing stream. (Amos 5:23-24)

The call for justice and righteousness stirs me, deeply. The implication (fleshed out more, over there) that unless we walk our talk well, our worship is not acceptable, is troubling to me.

I’m sorting that out. Meanwhile, when I woke this morning, I remembered the last lines of this poem/prayer. All of it is worth sharing, in this Advent season. The lessons are all about the coming of the Kindom. We are preparing ourselves to receive anew the Christ, this tiny, helpless, squalling child who grew into full stature as human and as God. Born to Mary and as one of us, this infant was committed from before time, to the redemption of the world. The child came, to reconcile us to the One who created us. He came to teach us, to heal us, to laugh and play and work and grieve with us. To show us how to live, and to show us how to love. He stood up for those who couldn’t stand for themselves. He healed the most despised of the outcasts. He was able to be moved, when the Canaanite woman caught him in the wrong.

The Incarnation of God’s love and justice is, always and again, waiting to be born: to us, and with us, and in us.

You and I cannot become God. But we are called—commanded—to become fully human. It’s dawning on me, what an incredible grace, and responsibility, we are given.
***

God signs to us
we cannot read
She shouts
we take cover
She shrugs
and trains leave
the tracks

Our schedules! we moan
Our loved ones

God is fed up
All the oceans she gave us
All the fields
All the acres of steep seedful forests
And we did what
Invented the Great Chain
of Being and
the chain saw
Invented sin

God sees us now
gorging ourselves &
starving our neighbors
starving ourselves &
storing our grain
& She says

I’ve had it
you cast your trash
upon the waters—
it’s rolling in

You stuck your fine fine finger
into the mystery of life
to find death

& you did
you learned how to end
the world
in nothing flat

Now you come crying
to your mommy
Send us a miracle
Prove that you exist

Look at your hand, I say
Listen to your sacred heart
Do you have to haul the tide in
sweeten the berries on the vine

I set you down
a miracle among miracles
You want more
It’s your turn
You show me

--George Ella Lyon, included in Life Prayers. HarperSanFrancisco, 1996.

Praying for the Diocese of San Joaquin

My best friend (alias Apostle in Exile) is a delegate to the San Joaquin convention, meeting today and tomorrow in Fresno. We’d planned for me to go with her, but she has more confidential meetings than she thought, and I have one more week of the semester. I’m also preaching Sunday; it just was too much. (Just as well, really; I’ve been feeling queasy and nauseous since I woke up.)

She knows I and other friends support her; Remain Episcopal knows they have support from outside. We know how the vote’s going to go; the overwhelming majority is expected to finalize the decision made last year, to split from the national church (and to likely align with the Southern Cone). We don’t know how that will play out.

We’re talking about people’s faith, and what they’re taught about the God they seek and love. We’re talking about communities, webs of long-standing relationships of support and journeying together, being divided because some leaders can’t stomach the idea of receiving Communion at the same table with those with whom they disagree. We’re talking about homophobia and sexism, and what it means to let narrowness and prejudice define for you, who’s in and who’s out of the Realm of God. We’re talking about fear of the other, the unknown and misunderstood, disguised as love for what’s held up as righteous.

It’s clear which side I’m on. And while I know, like I know the sun is shining, that God loves all of us more than we can imagine, that God raises up whom God will, for leadership, and for that matter, that sexuality, expressed in a loving, consensual, committed adult relationship is holy—I also know that my anger, irritation, impatience, and possibly arrogance around this issue are not helping.

I’m well past praying for unity. The best I can pray for is a compassionate divorce. And I pray that everyone directly involved, and all of us on the outside watching, will listen, deeply, and can discern the true will of God. The vote is almost a given. The steps that people take afterward will make all the difference. I pray for openness, honesty, generosity, and love on all sides, even as we take leave of one another.

We are all, right now, every one of us, caught up in the forgiving, merciful, empowering, liberating, life-giving love of God. We all—John-David, you, and I—will be redeemed. We all will stumble into grace. Let us remember the One at the heart of our faith, who said, “Let anyone among you who is without sin, cast the first stone.”

Radio silence

I have something looming very large in my consciousness right now. I’m feeling very, very angry and very, very hurt—and that’s just the beginning.

I also have an incestuous social circle. People who know me in real life read this, and many of them know each other. I can’t talk about it online. Even to allude to the reasons for my anger, even obliquely, even anonymously—would feel like a breach of confidence. I can’t work this out on the ‘net.

I also can’t be all happy-smiley, healing-earworms. I don’t have that grace in me, or hope. I don’t know when I will.

Until I can write, pray, feel, or think about other things besides school and this, I’m staying off the blog.

Peace to all, and please pray for me.

"You do not have to be good."

The tape is playing again. Not, “I’m not good enough”—because thank God, I genuinely believe that I am—but “I don’t know how to be good enough,” in response/reaction to my perception of another’s expectations. I don’t know how to be anything other than who I am. And I know how unreasonable it is to try. But I still want to.

I want to keep something; I don’t know if I can. Above that, I need to be true to me.

I know how far I've come; I'm holding on to that faith, in God and in me. Pray with me for courage, for endurance, and for listening to wisdom.

Rapid growth—as much as I'm thankful for it—is damned disorienting. It's also disorienting, when you think you're past something—and you're not.

Back in the boat, again.

Poem for today

I’m taking a feather from lj’s cap; she does this frequently, and I love the idea. I think I might make it an occasional feature; God knows I have plenty of prayer/poetry books.

(This is printed in Women’s Uncommon Prayers, p. 24. Poetry and Turabian citations aren’t going together for me.)

Today

Let me live today.
Let me be open to the miracle of this day.
Let me breathe the best of today.
Let me not miss the heart of today.
Let me find the gift of today,
hidden like a jewel in rubble of care, duty, and detail.

Let me pause to hear
the steady beat of the heart of God—
hoping, aching, sorrowing, expectant, patient,
despairing heart of God.

Listen, listen.
Do you hear it?
Ever so faint but steady, steady,
rhythmic organ, strong muscle,
thumping, beating, pumping, sustaining, encompassing,
wildly dancing heart of God.

Let me live this day, aware, open, listening, breathing, alive.

--The Rev. Virginia Going

Saints, alive

These are some, with whom I'm in relationship, and who have given me particular gifts. I could have listed many more, and if I'd gone global, I'd still be writing.

Max, Apostle in Exile, St. Aidan’s, Calabash family, Olympia family, Craig and Cindy (in memory of Rachel), Pete, everyone at Traditions, everyone at the Bishop’s Ranch, Lizette, Sue, John, Margo, Mother Laura, Eileen, Jonathan, Jake, Marc, Nedi, Liz, Will, Sharecropper, lj, Juniper, Mimi, Grandmère Mimi, Jane, Garnabus and Fuego:

Thank you all for the gifts you give, to me and to the world around you. Thank you for your love, your commitment, your faith. Thank you for the ways in which you create community: sharing a sacred place in nature; calling out for justice; preaching and teaching the reign of God; loving and welcoming all people; changing the world from your kitchen table; adopting people into your family; deep listening, advocacy, and encouragement; opening your home to an internet acquaintance; reaching out to people in cyberspace. Thank you for being the kinds of mentors, teachers, family, and friends whom you are. Thank you for challenging, supporting, and nurturing the people whom you touch.

Collect for All Saints' Day, BCP 245:

Almighty God, you have knit together your elect in one communion and fellowship in the mystical body of your Son Christ our Lord: Give us grace so to follow your blessed saints in all virtuous and godly living, that we may come to those ineffable joys that you have prepared for those who truly love you; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, one God, in glory everlasting. Amen.

Please pray for friends of mine

If you come here and you’ve never actually met me, you’re probably already blog-friends with Eileen. She is losing her adopted-mom (literally, work friend) to terminal cancer.

I know the space that adopted parents fill; I know how much I love mine. Please, go pray for Eileen and J.

Mother Laura has been extremely supportive of my journey, recently. She has a preliminary interview in November for her dream theology teaching job, as well as several important writing deadlines coming up.

Garnabus and Fuego are friends of mine from seminary. They live and work in a neighboring diocese now. They were just here for a new-clergy event at the Ranch, which is another home for both of them. (Fuego said when she saw me, “It’s great to see someone who loves the Ranch as much as we do.”) I hadn’t seen them since May, and it was great fun visiting with them, and their daughter M, whom they're in the process of adopting.

They got some difficult news right as they were preparing to go home. I don’t know what they’ll make public, and I don't want to break their confidentiality. But hold them in the light, please.

Thank you.

Gifts

I had an absolutely amazing experience at the peace pole yesterday. I tried to write it down afterward, but I may as well have been struck mute. I functioned perfectly well during dinner, but when I got back to my room last night, I couldn’t even hold a simple phone conversation. I woke from a dream in the middle of the night, and I’m thinking about all of this, now.

I’m walking a lot, this week, on purpose, and I’m making a point of going to my holy places often. I went for a walk before dinner, because I’d just taken a nap and needed to clear the cobwebs out of my head. I started from the creek trailhead; I love the creekbed, and though the trees are completely different, it feels like walking in the woods at home. (This is a kind of home, but I mean where my roots are.) The creek is still dry, but you can feel the groundwater coming up and cooling the earth. The air was cool; it felt wonderful.

I came up out of the shade and onto the hill, and as I climbed higher, a strange thing happened. It wasn’t like walking in the sun on a hot summer day; the temperature was only in the 70s. In some places, the heat stopped me in my tracks. I could feel, and smell, the warm, living, breathing Earth. I felt sort of sweaty, but that wasn’t coming from me—I think it was the moisture in the ground, evaporating. (It hasn’t rained since Friday, but the ground is damp.) I kept having to stop, and breathe it in.

I kept walking, and had strange thoughts of climbing Mt. Sinai. I mostly sort of ignored them; I was also mindful of having to do this and get back, to host dinner. I didn’t have a ton of time.

I got to the peace pole, and I did what I’ve been doing: let the peace descend on me, and find the prayers I left last summer. I had tied them next to each other, about a week apart. One was thanksgiving for love, family, community; the other was for Rob’s soul. I realized, “I knew then, what I’ve been fighting to recover now. I was swimming in that sort of confidence.” [When I say "family," I nearly always mean close friends, adopted as such.] I also found a prayer that family-friends had shown me, that a friend of theirs had left for them. I don’t remember the words; it was basically for happiness and health. It struck me as incredibly loving.

I stood there feeling this, and thinking about all of it, and about all I know to be true of these friends. It came to me, as it came out of me: “Teach me to love like that: freely, openly, joyfully. Teach me not to grasp.”

Click.

I’d been wrestling for just that, for… is it a month, now? I hadn’t had the words to ask for it. And in the asking, I was ready to receive. I know it’s not going to be the same kind of struggle. From here, it’s just practice. I don’t think I’ll have to prove myself to the people I’m thinking of; they’re more tolerant of me than I am. I will need to practice it—both because I need to know I know it, and because circumstances will make me. And that is—completely—okay. Good, even.

I walked with this all the way back down the hill, and I felt God physically with me. It was one of those times when God says, “You got this, and I’ve got you.” It felt like hands on me. If I falter—and I’m human, I will—I know what to remember. That’s the piece I still can’t put into words, but I remember what it felt like, and the words it gave me, and and what I know, and knew.

My best friend let me grab onto her for as long as I needed to. I don’t need to, anymore—but it took two years before I stopped falling to pieces in the middle of the night. These friends don’t let me do that, and it’s appropriate that they don’t; both for them and for me. They’re still patient with me, more than I am with myself. I’m going to be loosed on the world again, really soon. I need my community’s support—and I need to find my own strength. I need to learn to trust that I have enough love to survive, and trust myself, and trust God. I’m beginning to get there.

I got down the hill with ten minutes to spare. I was standing there, just-post-epiphany and not sure what to do with myself, when one of the guests walked up to me and asked when dinner was. I told him, and he got talking. I didn’t say a word about where I’d been or what I’d just come from. I don’t know why he did it, but he told me his story. He asked me not to repeat it, so I certainly won’t here. It was his own tale of resurrection, and truly a gift.

The dream I woke from, two hours ago, was about Confession. Not in the sense I experienced when I needed it so badly; this was about confession in community, but it was a community I barely knew. The difference was the text: it was longer than what we have, and all I clearly remember is the beginning: something alluding to Jeremiah (not sure why) and the words, “You see us.” The sense was, you love us, and you know we fall short. There was an absolution, but it was also implied in the confession itself.

I woke feeling curiously comforted. And—obviously—I had words, again.

What’s striking me about all of this, is how gentle God is. I wrestle with myself so damn hard. Sometimes it works; usually it doesn’t. God has shown me my task—and it is a task, not an impossible mountain—through a deeper realization of what love is, and then immediately a chance to give it to someone I barely know, by listening to him. Then, this completely sensible, non-surreal dream, saying, “Yes, I see you; yes, I love you.”

This is why I’m wide awake, at 2:41 in the morning. Alleluia.

POSTSCRIPT, one day later:
There was a page number referenced in the dream I had, 491. I knew it was nowhere near where the Confession was supposed to be, and I'd been meaning to look it up. I just did.

BCP 491 is the beginning of Burial of the Dead, Rite II.

There is no way I would have known this, anywhere in my subconscious. I've never needed to use that rite.

I wouldn't go so far as to say that God's playing Tarot cards with me. But, there is no deeper change, than death.

I think it's clear, what I'm burying.