happy birthday Daddy.

I did something different this morning for you.
I broke out of my routine.
I rose early on this holy day, your day,
to mark out a new trail,
a new path of life.

And what did I find in this new day?
Deer.  Deer at the gate bidding me welcome.
Hinds feet, high places infused with glory and call.
Encircled by beauty and stillness and life.  

Thank you Daddy for pushing me into life.
Thank you Daddy for giving me life.

“sally, let’s go for walk”

“ok, Janey, come on then”

“wait, Sally”

“get doodlebug’s seatbelt, Sally”

she is something else, I tell ya.  

she is, in Grandma’s words, a tonic that soothes the word and makes everything better - at least for a few hours.  

so this evening we looked for bunnies, we watched a plane fly, we picked flowers.   We talked to doggies:  “woof woof”  and we honked the horns of all the cars we walked by, “beep beep.”   She looked for the parrot we saw last time (I kid you not, a pet-parrot).  she didn’t miss a beat.  

a colleague and friend of mine today that I hadn’t spoken with in quite a while, said that their 11 month year old daughter was the best “spiritual director” they’d ever had.  

In so many ways I think we no more at 2 years old than we do at 32.   

Oh that I might remember all that I have forgotten.  

in the trees waving back n’ forth

in the clouds hanging low

in the breeze blowing

in the butterflies fluttering

in the four legged friend curled up beside me,

five years later, you still call me to life.  

five years later, you still live on. 

As it was, as it is and as it evermore will be, so be it.   so be it.  

so i just had a fabulous 10 minutes.  

and subsequent fabulous 5 minutes googling.

it was 10 minutes that pointed to the adventure yet to be had in this world.  

I know nothing can ever just be what it is - it’s always got to be something more - a sacrament of sorts.

But think of the joy I found in the last 15 minutes because of all I could see in the edible art I held in my hands.  I’m sure that’s why it tasted so scrumptious.  

I just cut up my first mango.  

And the best part was that I had no clue what I was doing.   I didn’t even know if a pit resided in the middle or if the skin was edible.   Mango pulp and juice everwhere.   But I managed.   And  I tasted.   And it was goooooood.

I forget even in the local supermarket how many things I have yet to try and do.  

How I wonder what adventures are still to be had.  What things still to learn.  

And all that from a mango.   I should buy mangoes more often.  

 By the way, did you know that mango trees have been grown for 4000 years and can grow to be 60 feet tall?

So I think I’m aging. 

Tonight I had a thought.

I didn’t say it aloud but my friend beside me did.  

“wine in a plastic cup?”

Apparently this was a “bar” - the real thing, no fancy margarita glasses, no fruity drinks and apparently no wine glasses.   Beer in a pastic cup is one thing but wine?     I stuck with water (and a diet coke that was hideously oversized - see my blog on “bigger” for that soap box).

It was something pretty similar to what my grandma and grandad said when they visited us in America.    “tea in paper cups?”     

you know though maybe aging isn’t so bad if I’m a step closer to my grandma

I’ve been thinking a lot about sight over the last few weeks.    sight as in seeing.   sight as in looking.   I’ve always paid attention to the listening and the hearing in life.   I was trained to be a listener in graduate school.   I’ve have done much listening in my vocation.   And I try to practice listening for God daily in a myriad of ways.   But it’s sight that has my attention right now.  

It started on Iona.   I couldn’t stop looking.   I didn’t want to sit, I didn’t want to write, I didn’t want to color, I didn’t want to talk and I only wanted to walk in so much as it gave me more to see.   I climbed up high to see.   I sat up high to see.    I hiked 7 miles to stand and see at St. Columba’s bay on the south tip of the island (we resided on the north tip of the island).    I was mesmirized sure, by the beauty that I saw, by the surreal-ness of this island surrounded by the wildness and ruggedness of this world.   But I found myself more captivated by “seeing” - being able to see.   by having sight again.   having my vision restored.  

Pilgrimage is more about the stories behind the places than the places themselves.   And what’ so great about those stories is that they require sight.   I reread recently the story of how Cuthbert was called to ministry on the night that Aidan died.   He entered the monastery at Melrose after seeing angels in the sky carrying a soul to heaven.  

I always assumed that sight was a gift.  But I’m beginning to come to understand that though it may be a gift, we have to choose whether we receive it or not.   I wonder how many of us see not angels in the night sky but only stars.    We have a choice as to how much we see.   We have choices too about how we live that effect how we see (it’s hard to see much of anything if you’re living at 75 mph). 

I had a pilgrim who struggled this year, struggled with sight.   I was so frustrated because there was nothing I could do to help her see more than just farmland and ruins.   

It happens over and over again, I know.   I suppose it’s no wonder that one of the most well-known hymns contains the phrase “was blind but now I see.”    The essence of the Gospel.   The essence of the gift Jesus offers.   But as Frederick Buechner says, maybe the greatest gift is being able to receive the gift itself.  

I’m sure CS Lewis is right … on that day when the Kingdom of Heaven crashes into earth and finally we’re invited into life as it should have always been and life as it will be forever and ever … there will still be some who sit in a circle, eyes closed, refusing to see anything more than what has always been.  

I’m home.

Last night as I crashed into my bed for the first night in almost 3 weeks I couldn’t help but think: it’s so good to be home.

This morning even though I was up shortly after 4am while walking Bugs, I thought again: it’s good to home.

Sitting in my chair, in the quiet, Bugs on one side, a pot of tea on the other, a world of possibility outside my window: once more, I thought: it is good to be home.

But then I remembered:

it was good to be home with family in England.

it was good to be home driving through the Peak and the Penines

it was good to be home on Lindisfarne.

it was good to be home meandering as a pilgrim once again.

and it was even good to be home, on Iona - though it was my first time there.

It is good to be home - no matter where home is.   

So somehow it would seem that in actuality I came home long before last night at 8pm. 

I always tell pilgrims that part of our call is to leave home in order to find home.  

So maybe in spite of all our images and ideas of this thing we call home - maybe, in actuality home has very little to do with the external world of places and people - maybe, home is an inside, personal thing - maybe it’s a place we find within.   Maybe those outward, physical endearments (as wonderful as they are) are the expression of an inward, spiritual place.  

This cool guy in the 3rd century named Augustine said basically that we’ll never be home, until we find our home in God.   

it is good to be home. 

I read today that there are 3.5 million homeless people in the US.   And homelessness is expected to increase yearly by 15%.  

Today, I’m thinking that those numbers hugely under estimate, how many people are in actuality, regardless of physicality,  ”home”less.   

it is good to be home. 

If only you could hear me singing those, Do Doo Doooooo, Do de DoDoDoDo … far more entertaining perhaps that John Williams conducting a symphonic entertaining, but perhaps not as inspiring.  

SI saw Indiana Jones today to psyche me up!  Get me ready for the adventure before me.    It’s the “blind leading the blind” pilgrimage this year … to places I have never been.   Places that in some cases require two ferries to even get to. 

Maybe that is what makes it seem more like an adventure.   Maybe it actually makes it more like a pilgrimage.  Maybe it’s me and I’m ready for adventure now.   And maybe it’s Scotland.   There is just something about Scotland that seems to echo the call to a life of adventure and a life of romance.    

You can keep up with us at www.stepoutofthetraffic.com..   You can even download our pilgrim’s path and musings on the pilgrimage page.   I can’t promise anything quite on par with stories of crystal skulls, temple of dooms or lost arks.    But maybe last crusades and adventures to find the Holy Grail, in it’s many shapes and forms.   

Doo Doo Doooooo, Do de DoDoDoDo…  

“So let us go on and take the adventure that shall befall us.”
-Queen Susan, in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.

The coolest thing happened today.

I was completely honored. 

One of my alums was back in town and we had lunch. 

She asked after lunch if I would stop and have midday prayer with her?

I was floored.

I was honored.

And the student becomes the teacher.   And the disciple becomes the rabbi.

Thanks Sarah.  

The season finale of Grey’s - just watched it.  

Extraordinary: the word that healed.   the word that brought hope.   the word that brought life from death.    

Be extraordinary.   Meredith’s mother had told her before she tried to kill herself.   Be extraordinary.  

Meredith spent a lifetime of trying to be extraordinary vocationally as a doctor and as a surgeon.  

But as she figured out in the finale:  be extraordinary - has nothing to do with surgery.    And everything to do with life.  

I get it.   BE extraordinary.   Not do extraordinary.  Not earn extraodinary.   Be extraordinary.  

It has nothing to do with surgery. 

And learning this - I mean really owning this: heart, soul, body and mind - sets us free to try this - to practice it. 

This must be what Jesus was talking about when he said, I came to bring you life - better life that you can imagine …  extraordinary.   be extraordinary.  

leap. love, trust, believe, hope, live and fly.