So much for a nice afternoon drive amidst those great trees with my camera and my dog - it just started pouring … oh well one of Dad’s favorite hymn keeps singing in my head even more appropriately than this morning, now:
…Through cloud and sunshine, Lord, abide with me.
The words are stuck in my head.
I was sick all day on Friday - And I might add I actually allowed myself to be sick and stayed in bed - don’t do that often. My dear friend and colleague and assistant David was accepted as a postulant for holy orders on Friday. We elected a bishop on Saturday - a two -year - gruelling process. So we had a party last night.
And today it’s the sign declaring my freedom that lingers in my head. Sometimes it is the young hearts and minds and manage to say what needs to be said most succinctly.
The search is over … perhaps one search .. but I find myself still singing, the U2 classic: but I still haven’t found what I’m looking for.
Is it finished? or perhaps the question is what is finished?
"Fear makes me shrink, while under love’s sweet rule I not only advance… I fly."
-Therese of Lisieux.
Preparing to fly.
Forget about Dancing Queen … I was almost home and I saw Dancing Man. It was so surreal. So surreal that it makes me wonder if perhaps he was an angel or if my head was just fuzzy from cold medicine but any which way Dancing Man has a story to tell.
He was walking. He was wearing a little jogging suit. And he had music playing in his ears. He would walk a few feet and then he’d do this jig — he’d dance. Now keep in mind that Dancing Man was doing his thing on Old Hickory Blvd near I-65 at rush hour. Dancing Man was doing his jig on the High Street.
I was actually somewhat mesmirized by Dancing Man. He was so alive. You could see joy dancing in his body as light spinned out like a disco ball. And he was doing this with cars and cars and cars and cars passing by - not fast but very slowly (it was rush hour). He didn’t care.
I couldn’t help but think as I watched Dancing Man about what my friend Ali said today on her blog about whole-heartedly wearing her skin. Dancing Man was whole-heartedly wearing his skin without any shame.
Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us.
As we let our light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our fear, our presence automatically liberates others.
Nelson Mandela, Inauguration Speech, 1994
Whole-heartedly wearing my own skin. working on it. definitely working on it.
May I, like Dancing Man, one day be free enough to twirl in the middle of rush hour spinning beams of light on the world around me. And may I one day be as comfortable in whole-heartedly wearing my own skin as Dancing Man.
So maybe we should remember Dancing Queen after all. The party is always better when the dance floor is full. And even Dancing Man looked pretty daft on his tod.
I’m knitting for numerous reasons I think. Everybody keeps asking me what I’m knitting and I’m not sure. It changes daily. But that’s not what is important. What’s important is that I’m knitting.
And knitting, it’s a good thing.
Granted perhaps my knitting isn’t so good yet, but it’s good that I’m knitting.
I’m knitting.
Especially when they are the perfect shade of greenorangeredpink. I am reminded of how beautiful this world is this time of year in Nashville, TN.
And today I added to the beauty of this world. I added beauty to the world while making plans for myself (we’re still celebrating the little plans in life
while praying for discernment on the biggish ones) … I bought a ticket home for Christmas; a ticket to England.
I hit purchase for my ticket and it gave me this fantastic option of planting a tree!!!! How cool is that. I get a ticket home for Christmas and I get to plant a tree. OK so it was at an additional charge. And it didn’t exactly say that I was actually planting a tree but it did say I was contributing to the beauty of the world and planting a tree sounds much better than helping stop "global warming" and counteracting the emissions that my transatlantic flight will produce.
But whatever you call it, I was really chuffed (and still am really pleased with myself) that I could do something good for the world today; something beautiful.
I planted a tree. And I will be a "Terra-Pass" carrier as I fly.
I love trees. I could write a book on why I love trees. Hah! And today I planted one and made plans to be home for Christmas.
somedays life just seems dark and twisted and despite my faith in the goodness of life, the goodness in life, the goodnesss of the Giver of Life … I just seem to laugh and shake my head cause it seems so twisted and obscure.
ohhh for the day when all shall be clear … when we shall see clearly!
So it’s a title to a book. Actually its correct title is "Necessary Losses."
I’ve been thinking about this phrase for 24 hours now. And I can’t decide if I like it. If I agree with it. I might like my title better.
Necessary Losses? Ok, OK, OK so perhaps moving from your child hood home; putting away your sandals; leaving high school .. perhaps they are necessary losses to name a few. But it just seems that some losses are unecessary and untimely.
I’m not sure we were made for loss, just as we weren’t made for death. We were made for life. We were made to live in the Garden, to live in paradise, where life grows not dies. So are all losses necessary?
The book opens with the line: we begin our life with loss… (loss of the womb). And this (not that I’ve read much more of the book than the opening line cause in this case the title in and of itself seems enough for me to ponder); this line seems to make sense with me. No wonder loss pains us so much. It’s a part of existence. It goes back to the beginning.
Yesterday I stood in a sanctuary and remembered something Ihad lost. And though the loss perahps was a good thing, the way I lost seemed unecessary. My brother lost one of his dogs this week, that seems unecessary to me. Friends I have spent considerable time with recently, struggle with what seems so clearly uncessary loss. And even I find myself looking around and finding that I have lost some of my own life through the clouds of grief and the dark of night.
Necessary or not. Good or bad. Premature or timely. Little or Big. Loss is everywhere, written all over our stories. From our beginnings to our endings. And it is so difficult because regardless of what it looks like, it’s loss of life we mourn. And it is life for which we were made. And even if good comes from loss, it doesn’t remove the pain of the loss.
But even with that I can’t help but think that if loss is so much a woven part of our story then musn’t recovery also be another thread? Recovery, healing, growth, salvation, restoration whatever you want to call it: so much of our days are spent recovering lost life.
Life is our business. Life in the midst of loss. Life woven throughout loss.
And it is still life is what we’re offered even when we stand in the middle of our loss.
No wonder it’s the question many of us sing (or at least download) … How to save a life? 
Buford…
was there any four legged female in the neighborhood that hadn’t been humped by Buford? but for that matter Buford’s creativity in getting out during the "heat"ed season was almost admirable… the blinds and screens were perhaps easy; but the hole in basement door and in the fence, Buford was something else, determined to say the least. The jump from the 12 foot window, had us all a bit worried at the lengths and schemes Buford could come up with during the day so he could makes the rounds.
Buford found his way into my world under neath my brothers arms one Sunday evening (in lieu of a guitar I might add) accompanied by this great story of being rescued from the pound. Of course my my brother knew that my bleeding heart wouldn’t turn this puppy away from our shared flat. (Note: I just recently learned 8 years later, that Buford was actually purchased at a pet store in the mall and the pound story was part of the plan to win me over to another dog).
Buford for all his jumping and pulling, was the first dog to sit and pray with me. I would sit on my bed and he would hop up beside me and lay his head down until I was done. In fact Beatrice learned from him, how to pray along side me.
I havent had much time to think the last day or so but today I remembered that our dogs really are family. In fact I would hesitate to say that Buford and Beatrice were Matthew’s first family of his own. And today even with some family gone and some family added; today sitting on the couch playing with my neice, listening to Matthew strum and Brenda sing, there’s a big whole in the Chambers Family.
And so I learn one more thing about death. Death is death, four legs or two. Someone’s missing. Someone’s gone. We face a hole in our life. And it hurts. Even with four legs, it hurts.
Buford was put to sleep on Thursday afternoon, October 19th very suddenly because of a`cancerous tumor on his back.
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