Major milestone--and summer update.

I’m actually, truly, honest-to-God graduating from seminary tomorrow. Holy cow. By the grace of God, the love of some incredible people, and my own steel will, I've done it.

It hasn’t sunk in yet. It mostly feels weird, to be done. After everything that’s happened in this time... I don’t have a reason to be here anymore. I’m just, like that, done. And ready (truly) for the world.

My field ed professor, with whom I’d also done a reading course, e-mailed me Tuesday night. I’d been trying both to be responsible about my work, and give her space: her mother had been ill, and died on Sunday. We all knew it was coming. My oral work could wait. (She said I'd done enough, and that we could have these conversations over the rest of our lives anyway.)

My teacher and I are also good friends. We’re both driven by ministry to the marginalized. We get what makes each other tick. For her own reasons, she understands the post-cancer, post-nuclear life. She has walked solidly with me.

Bishop Mary Gray-Reeves of El Camino Real (CA central coast) visited our last field ed class, last Wednesday. I asked her about what's going on outside church buildings in ECR. She talked about a “church in the fields” idea that she wants to get going in Salinas. It’s similar to what I’ve been involved with in the Tenderloin, but with the migrant workers. My follow-up question: “Do you take interns?” (Her answer: “Yes, but you’d be working for free.”)

My teacher picked up on that interest. She wrote to me, you seemed really excited about +Mary's idea. What would you say to staying at my mom's house in Monterey this summer, taking care of the cats, and taking Spanish classes?

Um. Dear God. Yes. I knew I’d say yes before I even thoroughly read it. I made myself wait until the next morning to answer.

She's going through hell right now—and she’s thinking about me.

I've had times when I worked for something—I really wanted to go back and do my field ed in NOLA this year, for instance—and couldn't make it happen (even with the bishop of Louisiana’s invitation, God bless him). I did nothing to deserve this, would never have thought to ask for it, and didn't see it coming. It makes sense for both of us, when I think of it—but I would not have thought of it. This is grace.

People have been throwing grace at me by the handfuls for a year, because I’ve needed it. This is not accommodation. This is gift.

Ironically, my parish in SF says, now that I've been where cancer took me, and came back resurrected, I'm emotionally ready to do discernment work with them. They want to work with me, after I get past the transitions of health, job, housing. I'll have my diocese’s three-year residency requirement in August. And I’ll be two hours south, all summer. This feels very much like an open door, and I don’t know what it means. I’m trusting the Spirit for whatever's next.

The practical part of me says, stay in contact with the community you already love and are rooted in, and that knows and loves you. Wisdom says, go with God.

I’m going to do both, until the way becomes clear enough to blind me.

Taking off from a New Year’s meme

I’ve done this meme in past years. I’m doing it now because I’ll be in the car all day, back and forth from the dermatologist, on New Year’s Eve. (I really don’t want to make that drive—but I still have this ridiculous rash, and I’d like it to be seen before February.) I’m going to the Ranch when it opens again after the holiday break, and I’ll be mostly there until Epiphany West.

So, here again is a paragraph of more-or-less nonsense, disjointed story-telling, the year in fast-forward. If you want to play, take the first sentence from every month in your 2008, and string them together.

Sleepily checking in from NOLA; it's 3:16 am West Coast time. I had another calling-dream, last night. Have to write a reflection paper; it was due a week ago. I’ve been only peripherally blogging, for awhile. I’m just going to sketch yesterday out, so you’ll know what you might expect if you or a friend ever has to ride this rollercoaster, and for my friends who are watching me. I am still so scared, underneath everything. Because my liver is toxic—and I don’t feel as bad as that sounds—I get to go back to the Ranch this weekend! I took a whirlwind trip to Berkeley yesterday, to keep an appointment at school. I had a conversation over IM with a friend [in New Orleans] this morning. The hardest thing is the unpredictability. No sicker than usual, but my wireless is. Still here, just busy… and trying to work through nausea, headaches, and no brain.

I had no idea, when I wrote that check-in from St. Andrew’s parish house in New Orleans last New Year’s Day, where I’d be a year later. (I could have guessed, curled up under a blanket on the floor in my best friend’s office, but that’s not what I’m talking about.) This year has taken me places I would never have imagined.
***

A conversation over sushi, a few days before Christmas:

“I’m still talking about losing my fears… and a year ago, I went to New Orleans alone. For a month. Before I had cancer.”
“Yes.”
“I was scared, but I knew I’d be okay once I got there. And I was.”
“That’s the difference. You had to be brave. Now, you’d just go.”
“Well, yeah. Now I have friends there.”
“That’s not what I mean.”
“Oh. Yeah, now I’d ‘just go’ to Timbuktu.”
***

Let me say, again, as clearly as ever I can: Cancer sucks, but I would NOT give it back. This whole journey has given me way more than it took. I would never have found this fearlessness, if I had not had to. I would never have learned to trust myself, or my community, or my God, the way I do now. I would not be who I am, without the past eight months. Or the next six, until my treatment’s over. This will be working in me for a long, long time. And I want it to.

I miss my brain. But I can do things from here, that I could not do when I was well. I’ll get the cognitive function back. And I’ve become so much more spiritually open, and intuitive. I want to hold on to that.

I never want to forget how deeply and unspeakably grateful I am, to be alive.

I’ve known for some time, that the biopsy scar on my neck makes me human. I’m learning what that truly means. I touch it now, frequently, in utter thanksgiving. I have this story. I am a cancer survivor. I have a wound I can never deny—and I have the healing of it. I can go places I had no entry into, when I could act like I’d never been touched.

[I’m thinking here of Jacob wrestling with the angel. All that the angel finally had to do was touch him—and Jacob limped forever. But we all do. It’s just that some of us fight it, or don’t know it, or deny it. Jacob went everywhere he needed to go, the way that he needed to get there.]

I don’t believe that God gave me cancer. But God moved into the space that cancer made.

The nerves around my neck incision still feel a little sleepy. My jawline tingles, still. I’m not in a hurry for that to recede. I have no need to feel “normal.” I know this is a place I could get stuck in—but I want to fully inhabit where I am, before I move on.

We went to church in Capitola yesterday, before wandering out to the beach and the redwoods. (Big trees, and wet muck between bare toes—a glorious afternoon.) The sermon touched on “side effects.” She said something like, “perhaps leprosy, or insanity, may be a side effect of finding God.”

I’ve been rubbing that together in my fingers, ever since. I’m still not sure how I’d phrase it for myself. I’m not sure whether getting cancer (and going through it the way I did, and am) is a side effect of finding God—or whether finding God is a side effect of becoming truly human. Whatever the conjunction, I can’t separate them. Both happened. The wound healed me.

I know too much about resurrection, not to believe with all my soul.

Wisdom from a street retreat

I took pages of notes yesterday, and promised earlier that I’d post them. It doesn’t seem important right now, to share specific stories. Right now, I don’t care how the man handing out juice at St. Anthony’s soup kitchen looked at me, for instance. Describing exactly how the neighborhood “park” looked and felt like a jail, would only cloud my point.

What I need to do, is to say succinctly what I wrote in the direction of this morning. I need to articulate the lesson I took away from the experience, which none but God sought to teach me.

I purposely didn’t bring money with me, other than a BART pass. I wanted to know how it would feel to be in the city without it, and to be able to look people in the eye and say, “I haven’t got it,” when they asked. (As part of the Night Ministry, I’m not allowed to give money out even if I were inclined to. And I’m tired of lying.) I carried essentials like water, paper and pen, the neighborhood map they gave us. In my jeans pockets, I carried a handful of cough drops—which I ended up giving away—and an acorn from the Ranch.

The acorn was a purposeful addition; I wanted a touchstone. I wanted to be able to ground myself, if at any point I needed to connect (with nature, or deep breathing, or whatever). I never used it.

But I realized, not even until this morning when I was writing: I have been as afraid as I am ever going to be—and it was not in the Tenderloin. My fear of cancer, and my walking through that fear, gave me the freedom to go anywhere. I can be with people, and in places, in ways that I never could have—not because I was too naïve or frightful, but because I didn’t have the experience that has grounded me. I’m not going to do anything stupid, just to challenge my fear. I don’t need to. I’m already safe, everywhere I go.

I realized, I can carry whatever I want to—or walk with empty pockets. Acorns, cough drops, coins from the street, it doesn’t matter. What I bring with me, what I pick up and turn over and share, are rocks from the ground of God.

I was never told, like Margaret, that I would die. I was told that I could. I didn’t, and I’m making myself sick for a year to fight the chance of a much more dangerous recurrence. She told me to go barefoot at the Ranch, as much as I could, when it was warmer. She was right to remind me. But now I understand her real point. I have lived in the face of fear of dying. I have been to some very dark places. I found there healing, grace, fearlessness, and love. I threw my body into this, and I let the learning transform me. I have walked, and I walk now, on holy ground.

May it always be so.

Wouldn’t take nothing for my journey now

Got my hand on the gospel plow,
Wouldn't take nothing for my journey now.
Keep your eyes on the prize, hold on...

I’ve been thinking a lot about last April.

I just came back from a week at the Ranch. I told the story whenever it came up, which was often—talking with a Franciscan sister whom I’d never met, seeing a friend I hadn’t seen since before last spring, bumping into a new acquaintance who’d only seen me at school. “Yes, the Ranch is my other gig… the semester’s over, but I’m not, because interferon makes it really hard for me to focus, and I’m always exhausted. Oh, I had a stage II melanoma last spring.”

I’ve lived with this for eight months, almost. I’ve told it so often, that telling it is easy. I’d say, “I had cancer,” and watch their faces change. They’d be thinking, “oh my God, poor you.” I’d quickly respond, “As far as we can see, they got it,” just to make them feel better. I am not poor; I am grateful to be alive. I would not trade who I am now for who I was then, or who I would be if I’d never had to face this.

Was talking with one of the Franciscans; we’re going to be exploring spiritual direction together. She wanted my story. I told her, I remember being back up here last summer, while I was on a reprieve from treatment. I remember saying to someone, in July, “Haven’t I survived this yet?” And no, I really hadn’t. While you’re a survivor from the first second you’re diagnosed, and the transformation begins in that instant, living through treatment takes you places I don’t even know if I can articulate yet. (The frustrating thing is that it takes your faculties away while you’re in it, so it’s harder to think, process, and communicate.) I’m still only halfway through. My last injection will be six months and one week from last Friday.

I hate being achy and exhausted and behind in everything. It’s frustrating not to be able to do what I used to do, and what I want to do. But I’m also grateful for this time. I’m able to ask questions, and go places (in myself and around me) that I wouldn’t have known existed. My teachers and friends and community members give me the grace to do what I need to do.

One of the greatest gifts is the utter loss of fear. I remember that first week. While I’m aware of how afraid I was, and can still get into that feeling place, most of what I remember is love. I was scared to death—but I only panicked on the phone with the doctor. After that, I did what I had to do. And my community thoroughly embraced me.

There are still tasks I don’t want to do—but I truly fear almost nothing, now. And I’ve learned so much about the gift of presence. Before last April, I was fearful all the time of being judged, and of not being good enough. Now, the people whose judgements I feared are some of my strongest allies. I know that they’re there for me. I know that they want to support me, and that they love me. I trust them.

I also trust myself. I’ve become so much more open. I’ve been where I don’t want to go again—and I’ve seen, and touched, and held the things that grow there. I brought back some rocks with me, in my pocket. I can go anywhere, now.

Including back into that place, as alone as I ever am, or accompanying others.

I can imagine being afraid, if the cancer recurs. I’ll give myself compassion if I am. But the most it can do is kill me. Death is only scary, the first time you stare at it. We know who we are. We know where we’re going. My whole experience of God has opened up.

God is not a personified image in my head anymore, at all. I realized that, sometime yesterday. God is, simply, love, interwoven into every fiber of the universe’s being. In what appears as a sterile concrete jungle, flowers. In the last places you'd think to look, grace.

[Which makes "Father" even harder to say, and more ridiculous, when God is "Ground."]

I have the faith that only comes from experience. And I escaped with my life. How can I be, other than grateful? How can I be, other than radically trusting? I feel, in the cosmic sense, safe. Completely.

I spent yesterday mostly alone, in the Tenderloin. I was on a street retreat with the Faithful Fools, as a requirement for volunteering with them. It was the first time I’d ever hung out there in the daytime, other than Open Cathedral. I took pages of notes, and I’ll post them later. For now, I’ll just say that I went the whole day without talking about cancer, until one of the RC Franciscans and I rode home together on BART. I only thought about it once, when I realized that I can’t do the week-long Holy Week retreat, not because I’m afraid of sleeping outside (I won’t take a shelter bed from someone who needs it), but because I need access to refrigeration.

I just got to be me, all day. Not me-with-limitations that I had to explain. Not, “I know I look great; I feel like crap.” Not, “I can’t walk this fast.” Just, me.

I really liked it. I’m looking forward to cancer being a story I tell when I choose to, and use quietly when I choose to. Everyone around me knows I had it—either because they’re in community with me, or because they need to know what I can and can’t do. I’m looking forward to simply living in the world, as the person I will have become.

Blessed

I had the wildest, whirlwind conversation I’ve ever had with a stranger (when I wasn’t working), at the downtown Berkeley BART yesterday.

I was on my monthly Kaiser Oakland run, for interferon and a blood test. Refusing to “shop” on Black Friday, I still had Christmas music in my MP3 player. And I felt oddly rested. (The only thing I’d done differently was drink wine with dinner—which I’m not supposed to do.)

So I was out of the house, at least, and in a pretty decent mood. Nothing really over-the-top glorious, though. I got a new BART pass, and went down to the platform. The readerboard said the next train was in six minutes. I sat down to wait.

I hadn’t been there more than ten seconds, when a man walked by, looked in my face, and said hi. Mind you, I was still listening to a choral group sing a bluegrass gospel Christmas song. I said hi back. He kept talking. I took my earbuds out.

He sat at the other end of the bench from me, and told me about being laid off from his truck-driving job three weeks ago. He’d hated the job anyway, and was fine about being laid off; he doesn’t have to “drive past other people’s lives” anymore. He felt like he was getting back into real life, now.

He never asked me for anything but connection. He wasn’t looking for anything but company. He was the happiest out-of-work person I’d ever seen.

He asked what I do.

“I’m a grad student, and a cancer survivor. I’m still on chemotherapy.”
“Oh. Congratulations. That’s a lot. What are you majoring in?”
“God. I’m up at the GTU.”

And, we were off. He told me about losing faith in God, in the late 90’s. Things got “really weird,” and he was seeing chakras, having "Buddha-Mara" experiences. He ran into “this Episcopal priest” who nudged him back toward Christianity. (I resisted the urge to ask who.) Turned out to be Matthew Fox. Then he looked Fox up online, and found something about him not forgiving the pope who silenced him. Enough of that—you can’t preach forgiveness if you don’t do it.

The train came, and we got on. He asked if I’d had spiritual experiences. Well, I haven’t seen chakras, but… I told him about the man who gave me communion at Open Cathedral. It wasn’t a vision, but a human interaction.

He got it. He stared at me for a second, and he looked at me more closely.

“You’ve been through a lot, and still… I can see from your countenance, you’re blessed.”
“Oh, I know I am.”

We pulled up at the Ashby station, and he got off.

And I’m thinking:

Oh, wow.
WHAT was that?
Just enjoy it,

all at once.

Margaret, I thought about you—and I’d have called you right there from the train, if I’d had your number in my phone. (I do now.) But I don’t think I could have spoken coherently. I’m not terribly sure I can now.

He had to work to look at me; I was wearing a sun hat. Which he said had a lot of character (thank you, MaryEllen). I was only wearing the hat because I wasn’t wearing sunblock—I’m still trying to figure out what’s causing my rash. And I had headphones in, for heaven’s sake. I like Chanticleer, but I wasn’t that blissed out—I was on my way to get the stuff that makes me sick. I was out just doing a chore.

Still. God tossed a human pry-bar at me, and there we were. This happy-go-lucky, out-of-work truck driver, spiritual seeker, incredibly bouncy character, reminded me again how blessed I am. By looking in my face and seeing it.

I had to go to the hospital for my blood test; the Fabiola lab was closed. I said to the tech, “I should tell you that I’m on interferon, and I’m hard to stick. They had to use my hand the last two times. I hate that.”

She gave me one of the easiest pokes I’ve ever had. In my arm, in the usual place. I bled just beautifully. And when I got home, my numbers were still fine.

People kept smiling at me, all day. It was weird, in a good way. I didn’t feel like I was glowing. But something was going on.

I took BART back to Berkeley, and started walking up the hill. By then, I was tired, and had to stop a lot. My backpack held five boxes of interferon (they gave me an extra week, to get me through Christmas), a heavy icepack from the pharmacy because I’d forgotten to freeze mine, and my mostly-full sharps box, which they couldn’t take. It didn’t really weigh all that much—but walking with it wore me down.

I remembered something from an Annie Dillard book I read in college; I think it’s in Teaching a Stone to Talk. She buys the communion wine for her church, and writes about walking all over that small town with the blood of Christ in her backpack.

I’ve always loved that. And it’s no doubt weird to make myself sick to keep myself well—but there I was also, carrying what medical science gives me for healing.

I would have never known that man’s story, if he hadn’t been bursting to tell it. If you look at me, I’m any random student who dresses like a mountain climber, walks slow, and stops a lot. You don’t know what’s inside my backpack, or what’s inside my soul. We only know each other, if we take out our earphones and talk. In the space between us, there is God.

If that kind of random, intense connection happened every day, I’d stop leaving my bedroom. I don’t have the energy to live like that full-time. But this was a gift.

Thank you, man in the BART station. Thank you, MaryEllen. Thank you, competent lab tech. Thank you, Annie Dillard. Thank you Craig, the teacher who introduced me to her work, who drowned in Costa Rica seven years ago.

And thank you God, for all of it.

Thankful

First, last, and always, for life.

For the health I have—and for that which I will recover. For friends, teachers, and mentors who have walked with me through the past seven months—and for those who knew me only before. For old friends I'm back in touch with. For community: school, church, online, on the street. For A., and for her cats. For Max (who does not have TB). For good medical care. For everything that cancer has given and taught me. For realizing only recently that I’m shedding not only my heroes, but the need for them—and that is as it should be. For Bernice Johnson Reagon’s voice. For my own. For work that I love and can do, which keeps me connected to God and the world beyond myself. For the way my legs feel when I come in from walking in the city half the night. For friendly, forgiving drag queens. (How could I have forgotten meeting someone named Ruby Slippers?) For the man in a hospital bracelet who gave me communion—and for the one who threw my demons in my face just by existing. For the grace everyone gives me, to be where I am. For laughter, joy, and normal conversations.

For food, and shelter, and friends who share. For love all around me, and for the grace to see it. And once again, for life.

The salt of the earth

Our wireless is wonky. My laptop crashed. And I preached this morning. Here it is.
***

All Saints' Chapel, CDSP
Matthew 5:13-18

“You are the salt of the earth.”
I grew up hearing that expression.
I remember my mom and my grandma saying
that this or that person was the salt of the earth.
I knew it was a vaguely good thing to be,
but I got stuck on the literal language.
I never quite got what it meant.

I went looking, and I found these references:

--an online Catholic social justice magazine
--a movie made in 1954 about a miners' strike,
for which the writers, director, and producers were all blacklisted
--a song from a Rolling Stones album
--a documentary about Palestinian Christians, made in 2004.

And, of course, the biblical reference.
I found information about the way salt was used
in the ancient Middle East,
both as a purifier and a preservative.
I thought about how salt is both a necessary and an everyday thing.
Touch your finger to your tongue.
Taste your tears.

Our bodies carry the same salinity as the ocean.
That is how basic salt is,
to the life of the planet
and to us.

The expression, when it refers to people,
can mean a few different things.
Salt of the earth is the finest kind of human being:
strong, dedicated, honest, hard-working, committed to justice.
Someone who uses their capabilities to make the world better.
It can refer to a humble and unpretentious person.
Or my favorite, and I confess I got it from Wikipedia:
Any person of interesting character, usually of the lower class.

Today we celebrate the feast day of Pope Leo I,
also known as Leo the Great.
The last definition I just read, does not apply to him.

We don't know much about Leo before he became Pope.
He was born about the year 400.
One tradition says he was born in Tuscany.

We do know that the Western Roman Empire was a mess.
It was beset by invasions.
The economic and political system was totally inefficient.
Still, Leo managed to grow up and get a good education.
He was ordained deacon,
and was responsible for looking after Church possessions,
managing the grain dole,
and for generally administering finances.

Again, this is not an ordinary person.
He did well enough to be unanimously elected Pope in the year 440.
He is known for his work to consolidate the Western church
under his own authority as the Bishop of Rome.
In Africa, Spain, and Gaul, he limited the powers of one bishop,
confirmed the rights of another,
and selected candidates for holy orders.

He also negotiated with Attila
when the Huns were about to sack Rome.
He persuaded them to withdraw from Italy.
His negotiations with the Vandals were less successful,
but he did manage to save the lives of the people of Rome.

Leo was a writer.
We have 143 letters and 96 sermons written by him.
They cover many doctrinal points, and the entire church year.
His work was all about purifying the church, doctrinally,
and preserving it against attackers.
He was a clearly powerful person,
both spiritually and temporally—
though I'm not sure I'd call him a diplomat.
He was smart, strong, capable,
and forceful enough to consolidate power under himself,
and to save his people on at least one occasion.

Leo is best known to us for his influence
at the Council of Chalcedon.
The council was called in the year 451, to deal with the heresy
that after the Incarnation there was only one nature in Christ,
and that nature was not consubstantial with us.

Leo's answer was a letter to the patriarch of Constantinople.
It became incorporated into the Council's definition of the faith.
I'm going to read you his core assertion.
Forgive me; it's a little long:

For not only is God believed to be both Almighty and the Father, but the Son is shown to be co-eternal with Him, differing in nothing from the Father because He is God from God, Almighty from Almighty, and being born from the Eternal one is co-eternal with Him; not later in point of time, not lower in power, not unlike in glory, not divided in essence: but at the same time the only begotten of the eternal Father was born eternal of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary.

Without detriment therefore to the properties of either nature and substance which then came together in one person, majesty took on humility, strength weakness, eternity mortality: and for the paying off of the debt belonging to our condition inviolable nature was united with possible nature, so that, as suited the needs of our case, one and the same Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus, could both die with the one and not die with the other. Thus in the whole and perfect nature of true man was true God born, complete in what was His own, complete in what was ours.

Okay. I can't stand here and pretend
that it was easy for me to understand what I just read.
How about you?
Is it easy for you to relate to someone
who uses that kind of language?
Can you wrap your mind around that sentence structure,
let alone the vocabulary?
To me, it may as well have been in the original Latin.

I used to be quick like that.
Like Leo, I have lived by words.
I read for fun,
and I still attempt to write for sanity.
Now, words just circle around me.
I make occasional grabs at them as they float by.

We call it chemo-brain.
Most of you know that I was diagnosed last spring
with a Stage II melanoma.
It's potentially a very serious skin cancer.
We caught it before it spread.
I had surgery which may well have cured me.
But the secondary treatment is a year of interferon therapy,
to kill anything that may have been left
and to keep it from coming back.
I started with a month's worth of IV infusions over the summer,
and I inject myself three times a week now.
I'll be done at the end of June.
I'll get my body and my brain back then.
The worst side effect is fatigue.
I’ve been so exhausted for so long,
that I don’t have the concentration to comprehend what I read.
I look fine,
and I hear that many times a day.
But I feel run down and beaten up,
and I usually have a headache.
I don't have the endurance it takes to study like I used to.

If I didn’t already know Leo's point:
that Jesus is both fully human and fully divine,
because that is what redemption requires,
I wouldn't even try to understand him.
I need the reality of God shown to me in less intellectual ways.
I need my Incarnation a little more obvious.
Right now, I need my God with skin on.

You are the salt of the earth.
You are the finest kind of human being.
You are utterly common.

I'm doing my field ed at the San Francisco Night Ministry.
The daytime component of that is what we call Open Cathedral.
We do Eucharist outside,
in downtown San Francisco,
every Sunday afternoon at 2.
It's specifically intended to be church
where people who live on the street can feel welcome.
Anyone can come. (That includes all of you.)
And anything can happen.

If you're on Muni or BART, you get off at the Civic Center station.
Walk through the farmer's market, go behind the fountain,
and you'll find us.
We don't always start on time.

So that's where I was, a week and a day ago.
The service had started.
It was a cool, damp, sunny, busy downtown Sunday afternoon.
The last couple of times,
I've been in charge of welcoming people as they wander by,
looking curious.
You don't often see people doing church outside.
I looked out and saw a man walking toward us.
I don't know how old he was;
I'd guess about 50 but I'm often wrong.
Living outside can age you pretty quickly.
His clothes were rumpled.
He was shorter than I am.
At first glance, he looked like he'd had a difficult life.

He stopped just outside our circle.
I walked around, and said hi,
softly as I didn't want to scare him.

He wore a hospital bracelet,
and he dragged a suitcase on wheels behind him.
In his other hand, he held a basket of grapes from the farmers' market.
Just like this one.
And without speaking, he held it out to me.

[hand basket of grapes to lector]

The blood of Christ, the cup of salvation.

I responded as one of the nine lepers.
I took a grape, and ate it.
And I didn't realize that he had just given me the Eucharist,
until he had walked away
and it was too late to thank him.

But I give thanks for him now.
I don’t know his story.
I don't know his name.
Clearly he’d just been sprung from an overnight hospital stay—
but I don’t know where or why.
I don’t know if anybody visited him.
I don’t know where he was going,
or what awaited him there.

I give thanks for him, and for Leo,
for saints both in history and walking on the street.
I give thanks for those who did the intellectual work
of hacking out the relationships
between who God is and who we are.
I give thanks for people who can articulate their faith
in ways that I can't.
(If I ever could.)
And I give thanks for those who speak with open hands,
and a basket of grapes.
Who would never show up in a well-dressed church,
but whose response to grace is to share what they have.
Who may never speak a word about what they believe,
but who simply and quietly live it out.

Wow.

I was given a gift yesterday, that I’m still completely amazed by.

I gave the giver the link to this blog; she’ll probably read it again. I don’t want to embarrass her too much. I’ll keep it brief: I’ve met this person twice; we both feel like we’ve known each other a long time, and she offered me a key to her house.

She did it to help me with fatigue when I’m sick again and commuting a lot, and probably just because she wanted to. She listened to an impulse she’d had all day, and followed it.

You want to know how to be open to the universe? Hang out with the people who hang out with me.

Tired celebration

Three classes done—actually, two forgiven—and another to finish by the first of August (unless I need another extension).

And a video to do when I get back—but I'm not even thinking about that, yet.

My teachers gave me so much grace. I'm thankful.

I ended up not going to Alameda tonight, and I'm okay with that—if only because I have to drive to Oakland next week for a head/neck surgery follow-up. Gas is expensive; money is an issue.

Sweet dreams.

Grace upon grace upon grace

I mentioned yesterday that I’d had lunch with a friend. She taught my Monday morning class, of which I’d missed the last month. (I’d left in the middle of it when I’d had three calls from Kaiser in the space of an hour; and either had appointments or was recuperating, the rest of the term. Once I missed because I dearly needed chapel.)

It was a GTU class, taught at PSR. I’d cleaved to my core community, and to the faculty who knew me well. I’d let everything go, that I could. She knew where I was, and I knew it was okay that I was tending to myself. But I hadn’t kept up that relationship.

A couple of days ago, she tagged me on Facebook. She wrote on my wall, asking how I was. It was a brief, and loving, note. I answered with a paragraph about where I had been, was, and would be. I felt… safe. Her note came out of nowhere, and it freed me of the shades of guilt I’d felt for not staying in touch.

It was a kind, gracious, channel-opening exchange. I was grateful; I was also busy, and I didn’t think much more about it. Then yesterday, she asked me to lunch. I was packed (took me days) and not in a huge rush to leave, so I accepted. I’d always liked her, though I’d missed so much school that I hadn’t known her well. I said yes to connecting, before I left for the Valley and she goes overseas.

She greeted me with a big hug, and, “The Lord be with you!” We spoke the Eucharistic dialogue. The conversation that followed was a sacramental whirlwind. Her wallet was lost, so she fed us both on the $10 in her pocket. And told me the story of the Holy Child of Atocha, who had given bread to starving people in prison. Hence: this child had made off with her wallet, to do good where it was most needed.

I would have panicked about my missing wallet, and cursed my own idiocy in losing it. I don’t see grace in that sort of thing. She showed me: it’s perspective. Grace is in the eyes through which you choose to see.

I showed her my ear, and my scar. She touched them; lightly, gently. All she said was, “Beautiful.” It was a spiritual healing, as much as a reminder to live. To take these scars as gifts, and to walk into the world with the empathy and courage I know they’ve given me. To be the healer, and human, that I’m called (and gifted) to be.

It really was a conversation with the communion of saints; and not only because she invoked them. They were imagined, and they were with us. It was astonishingly easy to meet her in that place.

So there we were, talking about lost wallets and miracle children, mothers and godmothers and grace and the Great Time; creating, apparently, a Celtic “thin place” in a Mexican restaurant on Euclid. We talked about everything, with the exception of class. That never came up, even once.

This morning, I got an e-mail from her saying that I’d passed my oral exam, and she was releasing me from the conditions of my incomplete. Not only that, but she gave me an A for the semester.

It wasn’t an exam; it was a lunch date. One that I’m glad I said yes to—and maybe that’s one of the lessons, to say yes to random gifts (and to keep working on not being afraid of people). But I never expected this; it didn’t cross my mind. And now I have two less papers to write. Alleluia.

The work I had done was good; the grade she gave me was in line with that. So there is an element of academic work here, along with the soul work I’ve been giving myself wholeheartedly to for six weeks—which is really where I’ve needed to be. I take it also as a sign of the universe telling me, "You've done well."

She showed me something I’m still sitting with: celebration as a grateful response. Seeing with blessed eyes, the profusion of gifts that is this life. Walking in gentleness, generosity, and joy. Loving without expectation—and without limit of space and time.

Forgot to mention

I spent about an hour with my advisor yesterday, talking about all of this (before I knew my CT was clean). She asked if there was anything she could do. I asked for a healing Eucharist.

We're adding anointing into Friday's Rite I. CDSP chapel, 11:30 a.m. If you're in the area, come.

This morning I was innocently in chapel

…and it made sense to me.

The readings always go straight through my brain; I forget them immediately after they’re done. It wasn’t the sermon—I was playing with the preacher’s toddler son, and missed much of her weaving of Bonhoeffer with the whole idea of being pregnant with the reign of God. But neither was it the hymnody alone. The presider sings well, and I respect and love her as a teacher—but she didn’t do anything in particular that arrested me. Still, somewhere in the Eucharistic prayer, I looked up and I realized that I was in a deeper place with Jesus than I’d been, really ever.

I didn’t label the presence as “God”—it was specifically a Christ-thing. Not even so much about resurrection, but a patience, an empathy with all of our humanness. I’m pasting too many words to the experience, now—it was just a deep, quiet sweetness, a soft rejoicing, a gift that didn’t need explanation.

Yet here I am, trying. Jesus came to church, in my seminary chapel in the middle of the week. Who knew?

Bless the Lord, my soul,
And bless God's holy name
Bless the Lord, my soul,
Who leads me into life.

Alleluia, Christ is risen.

Road to Emmaus

Painting by He Qi, snatched from here.

I don't have time or mind to focus my thoughts; I'm just back from the Ranch and have a pile of work in front of me. This story captivates me, though, and it's been floating around in my head all week. When I think about my community, I see a kaleidoscope of Christs. Do we ever really know, who we're walking with?

Grace upon grace

I’m at the Ranch this week; it’s spring break. I’m working here through Thursday, then I’ll head back south to the Apostle in Exile’s house and the Diocese of San Joaquin special convention.

I had a paper due yesterday, in an online class that I’d fallen off the bus in, participation-wise. I was decent, barely, until I got sick—then was behind in so much, I couldn’t organize myself well enough to catch up. I worked all day and finished it, turning it in just under the wire. This is after tech trouble had sent me into town, in search of wireless access so I could e-mail the instructor, in an absolute breathless panic. He wrote back, giving me grace—and this is one place where I absolutely didn’t deserve it. (He doesn’t tolerate late work, ever, and I knew that—and respect him for it. Again, I haven’t been participating in this class for awhile, so he’d have had no idea that I was on top of anything.)

Paper’s done, and in, and I think I’ve learned some things about the value of my own work. About respecting myself enough to do said work, to begin with—and to do it well. About not panicking, and about forgiving myself. About trusting other people to be gracious.

And I didn’t fall apart completely, even once.

It’s been a good experience. A learning experience, that I actually did learn from. I’ve been in panicky places in academia, at least once a term since I’ve been here. I think, finally, I don’t need to go there anymore. I think I got what I’ve been needing, from this.

This may have something to do with the God-time (kairos, seriously) I’ve been in for about the past week. A conversation last Tuesday had some deep effects on me. It may be me (gasp!) growing up. What I know is that I’m together, in a place where I desperately wasn’t.

Alleluia!

(And yes, my feet STILL hurt from trampling death. I hope they do, for a long time.)

I don't know what to pray, but I need to.

I was in a car accident on the freeway yesterday. I’m skittish about sharing the details online; suffice it to say that all parties are physically fine. What happened was the lesser of two potentially very bad things.

This could have been so much worse. It’s only by grace, that it wasn’t. That is precisely why I’m shaken.

(And even though I know that, it also gives me pause. What do you say, when an accident results in catastrophe?)

Thank you, Paul, for praying for me offline, and to the Apostle in Exile for caring for me. We are all, physically, fine—and that makes me want to collapse on my knees. The tension in my body will dissipate. The flashbacks as I’m going to sleep, will stop. I will feel solid again. My car door sounds different, but still does what it’s supposed to do. The other car has only a significant scratch. The other people were so damn nice about it, as was the CHP officer who was already there.

This could have been so much worse. I’ve known people, for whom it was worse. My college roommate was killed nineteen years ago yesterday, when the car she was a passenger in slipped on black ice, on a twisty highway near Forks, WA. I still carry her family in my heart; she was from Olympia, and for a long time I was very involved in the spiritual community she'd grown up in. I have another friend who survived a freeway accident, but was paralyzed. They didn’t deserve that, any more than I deserve this.

We are all fine. I don’t know what to pray, but “Thank you—and surround everybody with the grace you give me.”

What started out as a quick reminder

…in case you, like me, need these from time to time.

There is always enough love to go around.

I’m not speaking glibly of intimate relationships; I don’t have the authority, experience, or chutzpah to do that. I don’t want you to be hurt by what I say, if you’re troubled about your own situation. But this is what happened to me:

A friend, whose caring I trust, did something yesterday that was actually pretty wonderful. But it inspired this weird jealous twinge in me. I knew it was irrational as soon as I felt it, but alas, the feeling was there.

After I got done saying to myself, “What in hell was THAT?!”, I breathed. I had an impulse to focus on loving them more—and I followed it. It worked; the twinge went away, and I felt more open, more loving, more the person I want to be.

I know what it’s like to really not have enough love. I remember that pain, that frustration, that terror. If that is you, right now, thank you for having read this far—I probably wouldn’t have, when I was there. What I can share with you is faith, that you will find a friend you can trust enough to start letting love in, and you will start daring to love back, and over time you will be transformed. You will give, what you’ve been given. You will be able to love yourself, and love the world.

I can say that because it happened to me—and because I believe with all my being that we were created to be whole.

Our wounds are not separate from our wholeness. A Catholic friend said recently, “We are all wounded. And we all are part of the Resurrection.” It struck a deep chord with me. I wanted to escape the wounded parts of me for a long, long time. When I really started healing, I didn't anymore. You don’t grow out of pain, or out of hurt-child reactions. You grow through them. It is that growing, which transforms us. You will remember who you are, and who you were. That is where your love and your empathy will come from. That is the gift you can give.

There is always enough love to go around.

God be in my sleep, and in my waking

I’m still half-asleep as I’m writing this; I’ll edit it later, if necessary, when I have time.

I’ve had a series of dreams, lately, that are not of my usual surreal variety. These dreams are direct, and clear, and I can’t miss the presence of God in them. I just had another, which I’m still waking from. Usually, the implications are deeply personal, and I wake up with some kind of epiphany that applies first to me. The last one or two times, I shared them with a friend (who reads this fairly regularly), then wrote the epiphany here. This time, it’s universal from the beginning, and I’m just going to tell it.

In my dream, I was writing the soteriology paper that in waking life I need to finish. I took a break from it, and rode my bike around the block to clear my head. (This would never happen, in reality.) It was very early morning, there wasn’t much traffic.

There were, however, two young men lying on the sidewalk, at a particular intersection. They were signaling something to the cars that passed by. I thought they were being idiots, and they were in my way. (It didn’t occur to me that I was crossing on the wrong side of the street.) One of their arms was flung over the (whatever you call the dip between the sidewalk and the street, that makes it easier for bikes and wheelchairs to cross). I waited one light-cycle. I think I told him to move; in either event, he didn’t. So when I got the green again, I ran over him.

I could have avoided him, easily, but I was being edgy. He said, “Ow,” but he didn’t get up, or do anything about it. I knew that what I had done was wrong, and I was totally surprised at myself. (In reality, I never would have done this.) What I said, in the dream, verbatim:

“Whoa. I just ran over some guy’s wrist. And God still loves me.”

Okay, I’m writing a soteriology paper. I’m thinking about salvation. But really, now. In my dream, I should have gone back and apologized to the man I ran over. I was so struck by the Presence, that I didn’t. (Yep, I’m thinking of the nine lepers, too.) In my real life, both waking and sleeping, I’ve been having experiences right and left that are this immediate. I can’t look at my own life right now and not see God. But I knew right away, this gift was not mine alone.

We can all be—excuse me—complete fuck-ups, and God still absolutely loves us. All the time.

I can say the words, and I can tell you how I know them—as surely as I know anything I can see or touch. I wish I could share the certainty. I think I was supposed to share this story; so perhaps something in it will find you, if you need to know that you are loved, where and how you are.

God is in, and with, and for us all.

Grace

The wildest thing just happened.

I prayed for healing for the people who hurt me, before I went to sleep. I felt like I ought to, and I honestly could; it wasn’t any kind of a self-sacrificial thing. I did it at the same time as I give thanks for all the blessings of this life. I didn’t pray for me, but for them.

I had a dream last night, in which they showed up. When I woke up, I was able to love them, without feeling tangled.

Am I still angry? Still hurt, still grieving? Yes. But it's gentler, now. Love embraces everything else—and it's not any kind of spiritual/emotional martyrdom; it's real. It's not even that I'm forgiving them; I'd be short-circuiting too much, if I tried to do that now. I love them, because they're held by the same God as me.

I'm used to pure surreality in my dreams. They're not that way, anymore.

If you make a conscious decision to open yourself to God, know this: You will be different.

Epiphany

…or the latest in a series that shows no sign of stopping, for which I am both grateful and breathless.

I volunteered yesterday morning at my church; our administrator’s on a rare vacation, and we needed phone-answerers. It was a beautiful, crisp, sunny day in the city, and the drive back and forth across the bridge wasn’t bad at all, with a new favorite CD in my knockoff iPod. I got a preview of our Advent set-up, and I love it. Chatted with my rector a little, and did a bit of the MDG work I’m so jazzed about. Did some of the homework I’d brought with me.

Caught a quick lunch at Brewed Awakening (a wrap and carrot-orange juice), and raced up the hill to a counseling appointment. She asked me how I was.

I answered, “Back to feeling capable.”

Yeah. Back. to. feeling. capable. You’d have to have known me longer than this fall, to know how huge that is. I was a poster child for self-doubt, my whole life until recently. I could imagine capability, but never felt I had it. Being at the Ranch healed me of the anger and burnout I’d gone up there with, and helped me find some peace that is deeper than all of my brokenness. I came back here with the energy to do soul-work, and I’ve done it; focusing on courage, rather than competence, but knowing I was showing both. I was really knocked off my feet, at the beginning of this month; enraged and hurt, but I couldn’t even cry for two weeks. Then I spent most of Thanksgiving week at my best friend’s house, crying a little, laughing a lot, and regrouping. (She is family, in every sense that counts. If you, like me, have reason to look, you will find it.)

I had something to “regroup” back into. And I did it. I was a complete slug for about a week; couldn’t focus on my work, couldn’t create anything. Now, I can, again. I have my head back, and my heart. I feel strong, and I’m joyful.

I’m not done with the anger or grieving—but it’s work I can wrap my hands around. It doesn’t overwhelm me anymore, and I don’t resent its presence as work I have to do. There are layers under layers, and it takes time—but I know there will be an end to it. Through this whole ordeal, I never doubted my own intrinsic, whole self. Dear God, that’s tremendous. I’m rejoicing, not only in the sense of capability but in the return to it—and in the already taking for granted that it’s there.

Thank you, all of you who pray for and with me. Rejoice with me.

Alleuia, amen.

In My Name

I’ve been singing this all day.

In my name you say you kill
In my name you turn with rage
In my name, impose your will
In my name these wars you wage
But I say to you, this is all you shall do
In my name
You shall love

This is all that is real
You shall love
You shall touch, you shall heal
Through the darkness of fear
This song is all you’ll hear
Through the labyrinth of anger
Through the screaming, empty hunger
Through the hatred for the shame
You shall love, you shall love
In my name...

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