Some facts are just harder to accept than others

For all my friends who suffer- with grief, with loss, with illness, with tragedy, with the unanswered

According to those people who research and calculate such things, it was probably April 7 A.D. 30, that Jesus of Nazareth was crucified outside the city walls of Jerusalem.  The gospels do not agree on exactly what time or which day of the week that occurred, nor do they agree on who was or wasn’t there.  But one thing was very clear from the gospel accounts, Jesus was killed. Sometimes the most important facts are just harder to accept.  That God should will the death of Jesus is perhaps the single hardest fact for of Christianity for me to believe.  The virgin birth, changing water into wine, walking on water, feeding the multitude with just a loaf of bread and a fish, making a blind man see with spit and mud, make a lame man walk just by a word, and a bodily resurrection – those stories give me pause and to be honest with you,  one can still practice Christianity and not accept those things as factual.  Truth and facts are two entirely different things.  One does not preclude the other.   But the crucifixion is non negotiable.  It happened.  

I heard Barbara Taylor Brown say once in a Good Friday sermon, “Good Friday is the day we receive no answer and must suffer that silence with the crucified one-wondering what it says about us, wondering what it says about God.”  Physical pain is not the worst agony of the cross.  The betrayal of friends who were silent and ran when he needed them the most, a good friend selling him out for money, a close friend saying he never knew him. Those are nails driven through his heart.  But to me the worst agony is the complete utter silence of God.  God did not act that day.  God did not appear to be there.  God who by a single word could have made the pain bearable that day – did not speak.  I have always wanted to know where were the angels?  At the end of the day, the only one who speaks is Jesus.  Jesus screams at God that day, asking essentially, “Where are you?”

But I think that maybe God did speak that day.  “Jesus became victorious over his suffering that day by refusing to avoid it or to even lie about it.” He made suffering holy that day.  We are not supposed to enjoy suffering.  We can hate it. We can do every thing in our power to end it. But we cannot avoid it. We do not have that choice. Jesus is not outside of our suffering but in the very heart of it with us.  And maybe that is what the gospel said to us that day,

“When God is silent, people of faith cry out.  When people of faith cry out, it is God who speaks.”

Christianity is the only faith in the world that believes in a God who suffers.  It is not a terribly popular idea.  Jesus didn’t die just to pay a bill we owed God. The power of God in the cross is not to end human pain, but to enter into it.  God took the carnage of that day and worked with it to change it.  He held on to it for three days and returned it to us ALIVE.  God doesn’t prevent suffering rather He goes through it with us. 

There is a story that one day in Auschwitz; a group of Jews put God on trial.  They charged God with cruelty and betrayal.  They appointed prosecutors and defenders. They heard both sides of the argument. At the end of the proceedings, the verdict came back unanimous. The rabbi stood up to make the final pronouncement.  “This court finds God guilty as charged,” he said and “Now let us go pray. Amen.”

Living in a Good Friday World

However much you may wish it to be true, there is no express train to Easter. The only way to Easter is through death and dying.  We live in a Good Friday world.  And truth be told, Good Friday is a better match for my soul.  I don’t have anything against lilies, pretty dresses, deviled eggs, or trumpets or a glorious sunrise.  It is just that suffering and pain seem to be so much more a part of our world than resurrection.  "Good Friday is not hard to believe, but Easter, now that is hard to wrap your mind around. "

But before we even get to Good Friday, Holy Week starts with Palm Sunday.  Despite the icy, cold rain and dreary skies yesterday, you could still feel the excitement in the room.  The children were all lined up with their palm branches, getting ready to dance down the aisle and sing Hosanna! Hosanna! One little one just cried and cried when they were ushered from dancing back to the nursery to wait on mom and dad. In my most mean momma voice, I insisted that Davis wear a tie.  I told him since he never gave me the pleasure of watching him dance down an aisle, he would most certainly dress for the occasion.  He rolled his eyes and put on a tie and said,  “Mom, you really gotta let go of that.”  My brother in law told me at lunch yesterday, that at his church, they passed out the crosses on silver platters.  He thought he was sampling an appetizer.  I asked if he asked to have a little blue cheese with his heart of palm.  Truth be told Palm Suday is a bit of an appetizer but waiting on the champagne can be hell.

After I pinned my cross to my sweater yesterday, I thought about him, and how very disappointed I was to still be wearing wool on Palm Sunday, and just how badly my brackets were busted and I was not going to finally beat Davis and Vance at bracketology this year. He and I met the week before Easter on Palm Sunday. That year, the bulbs were already blooming and it was not snowing and my brackets were in much better shape than yesterday.

He and I were about the same age, lived in the same town, raised in the buckle of the bible belt south and shared a mutual hatred for that school in Durham. He had three teenage kids, one of whom was serving in Iraq.  He had cancer everywhere. He told me his church friends had told him to be happy- he was going home to be with Jesus.  He wanted to shoot them all, I think I probably encouraged this.  He knew that mounting one more battle on cancer would only add to his pain and suffering and would not change the outcome.  He had the thing that everyone wants but no one wants to pay the price -  he wasn’t afraid to die.  We talked a lot about heaven and who would be there and who would not.  He said he had read somewhere once that, “you can safely assume you have created God in your own image, when God hates all the same people you do.  And besides imagine how boring heaven will be if you like everybody.”  He taught me that goodness does not protect you from suffering. He died that week.  I was with him the day he died. His son had gotten home the day before  and was holding him when he drew his last breath.  Those same church people gathered round his bed that day to sing him goodbye and to pray him home.  They were none too happy about it either.  They just didn’t know how they were going to celebrate Easter that Sunday without him.  He was a father, a brother, a husband and their pastor. And to be honest, I didn't know how you have a funeral on an Easter Sunday either. 

And as I drove past his house today, I thought that perhaps that is what Good Friday teaches us.  To pray no matter what my mind may be screaming.  The older I get, the more I am realizing that the more I love, the more I will mourn and that the people I love will cry too.  We will also dance in aisles and sometimes scream in pain in the same day.  We live in a Good Friday world.  A world where pastors are buried on Easter Sunday, children grow up without parents,  mothers bury their children, sisters face cancer, friends betray us, husbands leave us, mothers die too young, people go hungry, children are killing children. And the proper response to a Good Friday world is Hosanna, which literally means “pray, save us.”  So as we walk through Holy Week, holding pain in one hand and hope in another, know the only way to Easter is through Friday and it is not an express trip.

When Jesus is a black woman in my kitchen

​You left the front door open again and did you bring them  eggs?

She's standing at the stove with her back to me, left hand resting on her hip, right hand stirring slow a big pot of something that smells like pork and molasses and ​a bit of clove. Her carmel skin glows softly in the afternoon sun, a sun that stands out against the brilliant Carolina blue sky on a cold day in March. She's opened the false balcony to let the breeze in, and when she first spoke it was because she sensed me in the doorframe, and I had interrupted her low hum of  Precious Lord, Take my Hand..​

She doesn't look up from the pot but keeps on stirring, lifting her left hand off her hip, jerking her thumb toward the table, upon which is a large bowl, some flour, a yeast starter, eggs, heated milk and butter, and a larger wooden spoon. Don't just stand there, child. Rolls need making.​ Get to it.

My arms are folded. A burden on my right shoulder weighs it down. "​You have a key, you know. I made you one. You didn't need to see if the door was open."

She turns, halfway, looking at me at a slant. True, but we both know that you've been leaving that door open a lot lately, so there's not much point of that key if just anybody can walk in here.​

"It looks like Anybody did."​

She laughs. ​Don't forget who gave you that wit, child, and don't forget who teaches you how to use it. I've already had to shoo away that old devil  crouching at your door. Now, rolls. Get to it!​

I cross over to the table, unshoulder the ​burden I have carried with me, a tangle of heartaches, words, shames, grief, worries, anger and pain  I push it with my foot against the wall, free the space around me to move. I stand before the table for a few minutes, motionless.

Temper the eggs with milk and butter, then add the yeast.​​

I look up at her. She's not looking at me, but down at the pot that she keeps stirring, slow, beginning to hum again.​  Rock of ages cleft for me, left me hide myself in thee.

I don't know how I forgot that." I mumble, whisking the eggs fast as I slowly add the milk and butter.​

You've not been baking for a time now.​ She keeps stirring, keeps her eyes from me. Sounds like you've forgotten a bit. Been spending all your time doing instead of becoming.

I keep trying to be this person of grace and this person of conviction and you keep not talking to me---"​

Well, I'm talking now, so you may want to spend time actually doing some listening---​

I am thinking of just not forgiving the whole thing, of just giving up, of just not trying to make it work anymore.

She stops stirring. She slowly pulls the spoon up from the pot, bangs it twice on the lid, rests it on the lip, and turns to face me. Now, why in Heaven are you thinking of doing that?​

"Something about how I keep forgetting. If I belonged somewhere, then maybe I wouldn't forget as much." I reach for the salt, the sugar, and the yeast starter and begin to whisk them in.​

Looks like just bothering to talk to Me has you remembering already. So, why are you really thinking about it? You'll do anything but settle in Me.

I pause for a moment, nibble my lower lip. "I want to fit somewhere. I'm tired of having to defend my disjointed spirituality to everyone, I'm tired---"

You're tired? ​She snorts. Honey child, do you know what it's like to have your own tell you that they're tired of talkin' about all the right they're doing when they ain't spending a lot of time doing right? When I came to you that Ash Wednesday, did I ask you to settle down?​

"No."​

Did I ask you to defend your path to anyone?​

"No."​

Then why do you feel so burdened with always doing my job for Me? Why do you feel everybody you meet has to know exactly what you believe? Why do you think it's your job to be My Spirit? Were you there when I asked Job, 'Were you there?'

"No."​

​​No.

She turns, picking the spoon back up and starting to stir, slow, once more.  You'll do anything but actually settle down in Me.​

I'm about to object, but she's raised her left hand. She's humming again, deep and low, and she's not listening to me right now. She wants me to listen to her.​

I start to add the flour, a cup at a time, stirring firm with the wooden spoon until it seems too much to keep on with. "Why can't I stir the pot? Why do I have to knead the bread?"

I let you stir the pot this summer, if you'll remember, but you kept forgetting to come back to it. You let the bottom burn one too many times. So it's back to bread for now. You need to work those hands into some dough. You need to feel it again.​

I close my eyes. I don't know if it's frustration anymore, if it's annoyance or a graceless heart. I just know that it's a ball of tensioned resistance.

The first few minutes are awkward and disjointed. I am pushing dough across a table, worried more about it than I am the tangling, but there is a moment when I feel something give way, and she stops humming There is a Fountain​ and begins Rock of Ages and I find the dough in my hands beginning to turn elastic, to slowly feel like the loosening tightness in my heart, the uncoiling and unraveling of worry and doubt and anger over things I don't even understand.

That's it, child, that's it. Keep going. Slow. Purposeful.​

"Our Father, who art in Heaven ..." it comes back in a whisper, in the quiver of fingertips and purposed focus. It comes back, the way of seeing, the way ahead.

There are two ways through life, the way of nature and the way of grace.​ She lifts the spoon out of the pot, tastes the broth and lets out a low, deep sigh of pleasure. Oh, child, I do make all things beautiful in their time.​ She turns then, looks me square and places her hands back on her hips. We going to talk about it?​

​When did I begin crying? Perhaps somewhere around asking to not be led into temptation. I try to form words but she shushes me, makes the difference up between us, comes to my side and wipes away my tears. Now listen here, Kahtleen, listen here: did you do wrong?​

"Yes."​

Did you ask My forgiveness?​

"Yes."​

Did you go ask forgiveness of those you wronged?​

"Yes."​

You readin your Bible?​

"Yes."​

You sayin your prayers?​

"Now."​

Then, mercy, child, mercy! I do not condemn you. You leave that burden right there at My feet and you take a song away.​ She kicks at the bag against the wall softly with her foot. This is My way, sweet child, walk in it! I did not ask you to go behind or before or to either side, but in My midst. You're not ready to stir the pot again just yet, but you still remember how to bake. So bake. For right now, what I want from you, is to bake.

And she stands on her tip-toes and kisses my forehead. and then takes my burden by the handles and pulls it, effortlessly, over her shoulder. She lingers for a moment over the pot on the stove, turning the heat down just a bit to let it simmer. It smells like the true things. She smiles softly and then begins to head out the kitchen door.​

"Wait!" I stop kneading. "Does the pot need stirring? Will it burn?"​

Peace! I know what I'm doing. You keep kneading. The pot will take care of itself. You'll know when it's time to stir again.

And she's gone, through the doorway, or I think she is. Instead, she pops her head back in, all smiles and green-glass eyes, I'm going to lock your front door on my way out, by the way. Just thought I'd remind you. She winks.

Then she's gone. Her scent lingers in the kitchen and I realise her scent is the scent of that pot on the stove and so I knead and keep kneading, slowly beginning to sing, ​Amazing Grace how sweet the sound...

GLENN JV BASEBALL VS MT 03-14-13

When God Ran

I would have told the story from the cow’s perspective.  We are all familiar with the parable of the lost son and the layers of metaphor in that tale.  To be honest, I am not sure that we have quite figured out what Jesus meant by telling that story. 

So, it was about this time of year, about ten or eleven years ago, that I walked in and sat down and thought about that cow.  The spiritual director I had been seeing suggested that I try this.  Evening prayer, that is, not thinking about a cow.  As I recollect, it was probably a Tuesday or Wednesday.  It was the middle of Lent.  Growing up in the buckle of the Bible belt south in a thoroughly low Protestant tradition, this was going to be a stretch for me.  In retrospect, the suggestion was probably made to me so I would consider breathing and just being still.  I tend to shy away from those people who talk about conscious breathing; I start to worry that a long discussion about the healing properties of aromatherapy is around the corner, and that will lead to a discussion on diminishing my carbon footprint, and then that will lead to a discussion about only eating organic food and then the power of going gluten-free, (which reminds me, I really must share the story of gluten free communion wafers one day), and by that time I am hyperventilating again because all those voices of anxiety, judgment, doom and guilt start screaming.   But, these conscious breathers are probably on to something, if you try to follow your breath for a while, it will ground you.   Drinking a glass of cold water or plunging your hands in ice has the same effect too.  So does a harsh slap in the face and while eating six peanut butter cookies in less than six minutes might not be the healthiest choice, it has been known to ground me a time or two. 

Rituals are very calming to me and rituals attached to ancient history even more so.  As I sat down in the nave, I didn’t notice that I was the only one sitting in the nave and everyone else was sitting in the choir.  My first thought was, “Wow, what church has a choir sing on Tuesday evening with so few people attending?”  My second thought was, “churches everywhere really are the same after all, the choir really is a sacred cow.”  I was also kind of impressed that two priests showed up, vested.  As, the priest stepped down from the choir and across the crossing, toward me, I thought, “how very kind he is to come a personally welcome me.”  Still obsessing over the architecture and the ascetics of the place, I had failed to realize, I was the only one sitting in the nave.  While, I suspect, the priest was welcoming me, he also was coming to tell me that it was the congregation sitting in the choir and the service would be held there and I was welcome to join them.  He also kindly said I could sit in the nave and just watch.  I suppose that I may have tipped him off that I might not be Anglican.  Since, then I have learned to pass for a good Anglican and once I even passed for a Catholic for an entire weekend. I fooled a priest, who was shocked to learn I was so thoroughly Protestant.  Jokingly or maybe not, he told me I would come home one day.  And thus began my love affair with the Book of Common Prayer and Anglican spirituality.

I have never mastered nor will I ever master the finer points of breathing and I can not even claim to have mastered the art of praying the Psalms, (I always get confused about when to stand, when to cross myself, what is said in unison, what is said in response, who leads and who follows), but I do find comfort in the rite of Evening Prayer.

The gospel reading for that particular night in Lent was the parable of the lost son.   Everyone knows that story.  Disney made it iconic with the Lion King.  But that night, the priest asked a very odd question.  In the story, who most represented you, who most represented God, and who had the most to lose?  My answer- the fatted calf.  No, I did not share my answer aloud, as we always did in Sunday School growing up.  I was trying to blend in.

We can all relate to being lost and being found, the depth of parental love, sibling rivalry, anger at being unfairly treated, not getting what you deserved, and maybe even just how far God runs.  But it was the calf that lost the most.  I wondered and still do every time I hear that parable, if the calf was angry or if she tried to run away, or if she bit the father, or if it hurt when she bled, or did she imagine she would grow up to be momma cow and or does the cow tell us that the price of life and ultimately love is just that- death to self and what you thought life was going to be.  The most striking and frustrating thing about the parables of Jesus is he does not tell us the meaning. And perhaps that is the point, the message of the Gospel is that you have everything you need to be fully human.

When God ran.  I think that might be a more fitting title than the lost son.  God ran that day as the father running to meet his lost son.  God may have run that day as the cow but choose to stand still at some point instead.  And at times we have to be the cow that chooses not to run.  As older sons, we sometimes need to see “God” running to us so we can invite him in to have dinner.  As lost sons, we sometimes need to remember that it is “God” inside of us that causes us to come back home for dinner. 

Secretly, when I go into church, I long to see Jesus jump off the wall and run down the aisle to greet me.  I suspect we all do.  And it can be hard to see God running or even to be Jesus running to someone else.  So, then next time you see a billboard asking you to eat more chicken…remember God ran.

When you feel invisible

It happens sometime between childhood and adulthood. Probably starts at different times for each of us though.  But I noticed it today.  I was talking with a (gee-I don't know what to call him-I don't have any polite names), human, that is as nice as I can get.  This human knows me quite well, probably  wishing he didn't but he does.    Any who, I was speaking in my grown up, professional voice making a simple request and he ignored me.  At first I thought, he didn't hear me.  No he heard me,  he just didn't see me.  I was invisible to him.  And then there are times when Davis walks right past me and I speak to him and he doesn't answer and I must be invisible.  I walked up to Vance after the ballgame tonight and said I am ready to go and he kept on talking.  I must be invisible.  I spoke to a man about a serious matter and he didn't answer. I was invisible.

You can not name the builders of the great cathedrals of Europe.  You look through their descriptions and at the bottom is says builder unknown. They completed things knowing they would never see the completed work.  There is a story of a workman who was carving a dove in a beam of a ceiling that would be cove rd by stone.  He was asked, "Why are you doing that? No one ever see it."  He replied, "God will."  They trusted that God saw everything.  They trusted to build a mammoth work they would never see finished.  They showed up day after day to work on a building that would take 100 years to complete.  They gave their whole lives to building something they would never see finished and never have their name  on. 
One writer says, "no great cathedral will every be built today because so few have that level of commitment and that degree of sacrifice." 

So, my invisible friends, you know who you are.  And I want you to know that God sees you.  God says: "You are not invisible to me.  I see every tear of disappoint when things do go when you want, I see every cupcake baked, every socks you wash, uniforms you wash, and no sacrifice is too small for me to notice." You are building  a great cathedral and it will not be completed before you die and you will not get to live there, but if you build it well, I will.  Invisibility is the cure for the  self centered.  It is ok that they don't know and don't see.  I don't want Davis coming  home from college and saying to his friends, "You are not going to believe what my mom does.  She irons linens at 4 am, bastes a turkey at 5 am and rolls out pie dough from scratch."  Even if I do do those things, that is not what I want.   I want him to come home and I want him to tell his friends you are going to l ike there.  We don't work for them, we work for Him.  They will never see, not if do it right.  Let's build a cathedral of our own.  Our families.

Overcoming spiritual ADHD

I partially attended a Lenten retreat yesterday.  I knew I could not stay the whole day, but planned to stay till the lunch break. Turns out, I was underdressed for the occasion. I was dressed to go from the retreat to the ball field and it was on 38 degrees outside, so I looked more like someone going skiing rather than attending church.  I saw no one else in jeans.  Most had jackets on.  I calmed my inner critic by reminding myself that my sweater was purple and I don’t think anyone could tell that I was wearing my son’s t shirt and they were my really good jeans.  I also noticed everyone was carrying a bible.  Again, I don’t know what I was thinking by not bringing a bible to a Lenten retreat. But, I was secretly relieved to know I have a bible app on my cell phone. 

So, when the retreat speaker announced that it was National Unplug Day, I quickly shoved my phone under the table cloth.  But, then I sort of got all panicky, because I was going to miss the first inning by attending the first half of the retreat and Vance had promised to text me updates.  Quickly I moved my phone to lap and threw my napkin on top of it. 

Again, I don’t know what I was thinking she was going to speak on, but I can assure you that distractions and spiritual ADHD was not on my top ten list.  The theme of the retreat was “Building a Temple in your Heart and Soul.”  Somehow, Lenten discipline did not come to mind when I read the theme. I was thinking more along the lines of beautifying your life.

Turns out the speaker and I have much in common.  I love all things Anglican and she is Anglican.  Actually she is a priest.  She cheats during Lent too.  She and I both thought the origin of the word Lent (in reference to the Church), had something to do with lentils.  Typically, Lent is a season of prayer and fasting and many Christians give up meat during the Lenten season.  She only recently, (and I just as of yesterday), was astonished to learn that is not, in fact, the origin.  I felt a little relieved to know that she also thought it was a reference to beans, given the fact she was on faculty at Duke Divinity School, ordained and held a PhD in Church History.  I didn’t feel so moronic. 

The word Lent is apparently derived from the Old English lencten, which means "lengthen."  It refers to the lengthening of the daylight hours that occurs in the northern hemisphere as spring approaches.  It is in this period of transition from late winter to early spring that the season of Lent falls.

So, in the middle of Lent, the lectionary reading for today is tale from the wilderness: Moses and the burning bush.  Secretly, I have longed to have a burning bush moment. I think we all have.  I want God to grab my attention in some profound, miraculous way and tell me exactly what it is he wants me to do.  I don’t necessarily long to be a prophet or take on any world powers or make water out of rocks, I just want to know that God speaks to me and at least has a general idea of what exactly it is I am supposed to be doing with my life and would like to clue me in once and while.

Turns out it takes seven minutes for a bush to burn.  Some Jewish rabbis have a different take on what the real miracle of the burning bush was.  Moses had to stop and look at the bush for several minutes to figure it out it was not consumed.  The miracle was not that God spoke from a bush or that the bush didn’t burn up or that God even spoke to Moses at all.   The miracle was that Moses stopped and looked at the bush long enough to hear God. 

And maybe that is the point of Lent.  The giving up of distractions and stopping long enough to see the miracle.  I suspect bushes are bursting into flames all around us; we just don’t pause long enough to see that they are not consumed.  Life is not an emergency.  Life is meant to be lived slow enough to see bushes bursting into flames.

Grateful for my burning bushes and the grace to slow down to notice:

The hymn that opened the daily office today:  The Gift of Love.    What we sang in church today:  When I Survey the Wonderous  Cross to the tune of The Gift of Love.

The opening hymn for the Lenten retreat:  Morning Has Broken.  The song on the radio as I drove to Davis’ ballgame: Morning Has Broken by Simon and Garfunkel.

Lenten roses in bloom outside churches.

Churches that still do bells and smells.

A cat at the bottom of one of the drawings of the Stations of the Cross.

Daffodils beginning to bloom.

Sharing dinner with friends, smoked chicken ravioli in pink sauce and a very  good Pinot Grigio.

Drinking hot chocolate at baseball games.

Vintage shopping with a friend and finding that one thing you have been looking for.

The friendliness of a small town Southern church and glad there are still small town Southern churches.

Labyrinths.

Pussy willow.

Bluebirds sitting on the porch.

Liturgy.


May you notice all of your burning bushes this Lent.

All is grace,
Kathleen

In praise of pansies and other miracles in the winter

In praise of pansies and other miracles in the winter

For Yvette

I almost missed them.  Almost.  I was trying to talk myself off a cliff again.  You know the cliffs I am talking about.  It started like this morning as I was watching Davis pack his bat bag and throw it into the backseat on this first day of March.  I was in one of my mental spirals again.  You know the kind of cliffs your mind will fall off sometimes.  My spiral went something like this:

How much longer will I have Davis and will he come back home once he leaves the nest and how do I best mother this child-man and teach him to pour out his one wild life and how do I even pour out mine and am I supposed to really go to graduate school and just how far does forgiveness go and will I live in this house for the rest of my life and what am I going to fix for dinner and I am weary from not enough sleep this week and can I really do my job and will I ever get back on a yoga mat and I really do need to loose ten pounds and I am late for rounds and what if I have gotten it all wrong and what if I mess up and Davis gets sick and all of the dreams fly away and what if my heart is broken wide open again and how do I make the one life I have work and how do I teach Davis to live his life out loud and to make the most of his one wild life and will he recover from his eventual heartbreaks and will he get back up and try again?

And then I saw them.  Sitting there on my back porch with their bright yellow and purple faces shining and smiling right at me.  I had ran past and didn’t notice in the middle of dangling off the cliff.  Then I noticed the brilliant bluebird sitting in the palm of St. Francis and eating and not caring where his next meal came from because the bluebirds know they are so important that the God of the universe feeds them.  Twenty-one days from the first day of spring and spring shows up at the end of winter on a cold, dreary day in March.  I suppose if pansies grew in Palestine, he would have loved them too. 

I think that is the greatest gift a friend gives you.  A friend will give you back your true self.  Friends are so important that the same voice that calmed the storm and raised the dead and told the lame to walk is the same voice that said – “Greater love has no one than he lay down his life for a friend.”  Friendship is one of the greatest gifts a human can receive.  It is bond that transcends common vocations, common hobbies, common interests, and common histories.  It is often a bond stronger than marriage can create. 

“Friendship is being with the other in joy and sorrow, even when we cannot increase the joy or sorrow. It is a unity of souls that gives nobility and sincerity to love.”  Henri Nouwen

I suspect it is the greatest gift we ever give another is our very own self.  It is a paradox.  When we make our own life – our joy, our pain, our hope, our wounds, our loneliness available to others, especially in moments of crisis and especially when we don’t feel as if we can.  When we say,  “I know what you are living and I am going to live it with you.  You are not alone.”  When we do that - we become Christ.   

So for today she gave me back my true self.  The self that is not meant to be anxious for anything, the self that is to have the courage to love the world all over again and again and again, the self that lives in deep gratitude for the gift of this one wild life. 

And I am grateful, ever so grateful for friends, for the souls who will welcome us home, who create space for us to heal, who transform the cold of our hearts.

May all of you, my friends, be as blessed as I am with good friends.

May you all learn to be a good friend.

May your journey with friends bring you the place in your soul where there is kindness, love and belonging and may this change you. 

Treasure your friends.  Be good to them. Be there for them.

All is grace,

Kathleen