Cometsgirl

This morning I joined the online service of Morning Prayer that St. Mary’s Episcopal Church in Cypress, TX, has been offering daily since day one of Hurricane Harvey.  This day the service was held in the narthex of the church, where many parishioners and friends had gathered before journeying out into the community to help other parishioners, friends, and strangers tear out and down their flood-ravished homes.

The Rev. Alan Bentrup, Curate, offered these words toward the end of the service: “We pray for us as we leave this place; give us a strong back and gentle hands, that we may love and serve our neighbors, and grow closer to You, to each other and with the world.”

In a blog written this morning by St. Mary’s Rector, The Rev. Beth Fain, she wrote about her personal losses from her flooded home.  “It’s just stuff….connected to our hearts.”  She encouraged those who help clean out the homes of their friends, neighbors and strangers, to remember that “each item of stuff holds a memory, and that each item tossed in the front yard or placed in a garbage bag or dumpster is a little goodbye for the person you are helping”.

I would add to Alan+’s prayer, give us a strong back, gentle hands, and a loving heart as we tend to those who are in the midst of loss.

Often we we are asked to have a strong back. To lift a heavy load, to stand up with and for those who cannot do so alone, to take on burdens for which we feel are more than our backs can carry.

Often we are asked to have gentle hands as we soothe an injury or hurt, place our hand on someone’s back, or walk hand-in-hand with one who needs both care and shared joy.

Often we are asked to have a loving heart when that may be the least thing we are feeling toward a person or a place, a moment or a lifetime.

How is it possible to respond to all these “asks”?

I WILL WITH GOD’S HELP.

I’m still clicking (donate to Episcopal Relief and Development)  and praying my way through this day and the days to follow.

Use your God given gifts to serve others. 1 Peter 4:10

As Hurricane Harvey, and the ensuing flood waters literally engulf the Texas Gulf Coast and the city of Houston, I have a much different vantage point from those experiencing the torrent of flooding first hand.

My lens looking in is seen from a distance.  I’m many miles and several states away from the chaos.

My view also has the filter of another flooding event not so many months ago. In the same location, but no where near the extent of this storm. My best friend and I were caught up in the April 2016 Tax Day flood complete with rescue by kayak in the middle of the night.  It took thirteen months for her home to be rebuilt, and now just three months later it is under water once again.  This time a much greater volume of water has flowed into her home, and into the roads and rivers of the area.

My friend is in the very midst of this catastrophic flooding.

While I’m experiencing this flood virtually and not in person, I am flooded by emotions – some by my recall of the 2016 flood, and now of this flood from afar.  Fear, concern, wonder and worry- even hope. And… a wish to be there with my friend and others.

Mostly helplessness. What can I do?

First of all I can pray.  And pray again and again.

Then I can click on Episcopal Relief and Development and donate.  And then click and donate again.

In an email I received yesterday from the Geranium Farm of The Reverend Barbara Crafton, she states:

Becca Stevens of Thistle Farms in her daily reflection this day says:

Finally, in an op-ed piece by Danny Heitman in the Wall Street Journal is this: “The tragedy of Harvey has reminded me that compassion for catastrophic suffering shouldn’t be a momentary impulse, but a commitment of months, maybe years.” While the news, along with all the heartbreaking photographs, will die down and turn to new and more newsworthy events, this experience for so many will never completely die down.

So I’m clicking and praying.  I hope you join me.

 

I wanted to return to Iceland before I left. An Iceland journey in 2016 left me wanting more of this amazingly “alive and dangerous” place. Iceland is alive in the sense that it is in constant renewal- whether by volcanic eruptions, glacier calving, or underground thermal energy bubbling up.  Dangerous because of its rugged and unfamiliar terrain, its remoteness, and the two-lane highway with one-lane bridges that encircles the island.

At the end of our 2016 trip, my friend and I declared ourselves BRAVE WOMEN for having successfully, and safely, navigated this foreign land.

It took bravery just to embark on that trek.  Having survived severe flooding just weeks before, we took a leap of faith and took off for Iceland.  And, as the trip neared its end, I knew I wanted to return.

Now, with just 18 days before I return, another flooding scenario is playing out. Is it something about Iceland? Or is it just timing coincidence?  Whatever the case, “and then there’s Iceland” has taken on new meaning for me.

It represents something akin to “oh, and there’s that to consider- there’s that to think about – there’s that to deal with – there’s that looming out there threatening to create upheaval and uncertainty”.  Sounds a lot like Iceland itself.

So as I continue my preparations for this return trek, I’m mindful more that ever of taking a leap of faith. Kierkegaard felt a leap of faith was necessary in accepting Christianity due to the paradoxes that exist in Christianity.  Stretching that concept a bit, a leap of faith for me is about trusting that God is in the midst of the events surrounding my life, and that I trust that things will work out.  It’s always possible that the working out of things is not quite as I envisioned, but that nonetheless, they work out it a way that always has God’s presence.  And I need to have trust and faith.

I am anticipating this view once again- that of just seconds from landing at Reykjavík International Airport.

Traveling mercies.

I’ve been thinking about waiting. There’s a longing about waiting.  For both something to end and something to begin. I’ve come through a long season of waiting, with hope that I would make it through the waiting period, believing that something better would come.  And so the waiting has ended.  And never in my imagine would I have believed what the “better” could and would be. Honestly, I was not certain I would make it through this extended wait.  It was years long. It was like being in the desert, and now the desert is in bloom.

I think we are often asked to wait.  We are to have patience.  That’s not one of my better features. In Romans 8:25, we read “But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.”

This is definitely a reminder for me, because there is always waiting ahead. Travel. A phone call. A diagnosis. Conversations. Sluggish internet. Even 4:00pm when it’s time for my carefully crafted cappuccino.

This day I have proof of the result of waiting – right outside on my deck. A long-ago plant mystery was solved with the preliminary identification of the plant and then the harvesting of seeds to confirm the identity. This is a particularly special plant to me, having grown it for 30 years in the place I lived before my move to the mountains. I was more than distressed when I feared it did not make it to my new home, and set upon a path to identify and subsequently to grow once. again.

Each year I plant seeds harvested from the previous year, and then I am forced to wait — For the sprouting of the seed, the growing of the plant, and finally this day- two blooms! Definitely a reward for my waiting and for whatever patience I found for the wait.

May Sarton says “Everything that slows us down and forces patience, everything that sets us back in the slow circles of nature, is a help.”

 

I asked “am I better?”
The answer was “you’re bettering”.

That’s a word to ponder. It turns out it is a real word.  I had thought it was a kind of made-up word that stood for “not better, but getting there”.

I found a definition of bettering – “improve on or surpass; changing for the better; in less discomfort than before”.

So I am, in fact, bettering.

It’s easy over time to add layers to our lives– good and not-so-good layers.  Sometimes the latter color, or hide, the former.  So I look at bettering as a sign that some of the negative layers are being peeled away so the more positive layers can see daylight, even see sunlight.

Adding layers is easier that removing. Not all underneath is made of goodness.  Unlayering uncovers both goodness and “not-goodness”.

Hard stuff this uncovering.  And one has to be made of hard stuff to do the cleaning up and out. Am I?

Well, yes and no.  But I have help and that’s what is making the difference for me to be bettering.

“God is in the helpers.”  Anne Lamott

Is it possible to “go home again”?
And what is the home to which we aspire to return?
Just what is HOME?

I traveled recently to my birthplace. With enormous interest in a project a museum curator in northwest Colorado is undertaking, my sister and I returned to Colorado for a few days.

We were both born in Colorado, but neither of us live there now. My sister yearns for Colorado, her home. I’ve been thinking about what I call home these days. It isn’t Colorado.  I love that I was born and raised there, and my heart and soul are touched deeply when I return.  But I don’t really yearn for it.

After I returned I spent some time thinking about where I call home.  Colorado is where I’m from. Texas is where I was for several decades.  And now Georgia is where I live, and where I call home.  It helps that the part of Georgia in which I live is in the Southern Appalachian Mountains and that it has always felt like being in the Colorado mountains.  The word “in” here means when one drives up into the Rockies and is not standing miles back viewing them. But I had not actually called this place my home until I returned from Colorado and spent some time thinking about home.

I did love being back in the Colorado mountains.  Their beauty puts a smile on my face, a lump in my throat, and a hum in my soul.

And I absolutely loved the joy my sister experienced.  There was a smile on her face, and little lilt in her step.

I think the issue here may be how to find home where you are. I see myself holding my home of origin as a place that formed me. Now that I live elsewhere, I am called to make this home. And so I pretty much do so, but still, at times there is longing in my heart for more.

      Fearlessly breathing with the wind
      Home is where you set your spirit down
      I’m at home in all this beauty
      Everything about it moves me
      I may be from another place but home’s where I am now
      Where I am now.

I’m caught up in a song these days. I listen to it over and over. When driving. When in the dentist chair for hours. And just today, while flying. I love the melody and the singer’s voice. But mostly I love the words.

“I want to wake up;
See where I’m going, yeah
Chase what I’m dreaming;
Run away till I out run all my pain
I swear I pray everyday
But still nothing’s changing
Feels like my life might need rearranging
You say that You’re here and right now is a test of faith

So open up my heart and have Your way
I’m sinking in my thoughts so pull me from the waves
My head’s above the water. You’re my sweet escape
I need you just so I can breathe
Now I can breathe, Hey I can breathe
I can breathe, I need you just so I can breathe

You said this feeling
Would only last for a season, yeah
But I’m still here and I’m wondering
Why I’m not the same
I prayed every day
That’s when You changed me
I’m not the same cause You rearranged me
You said You were here–that was my test of faith”

So open up my heart and have Your way
I’m sinking in my thoughts so pull me from the waves
My head’s above the water. You’re my sweet escape
I need you just so I can breathe
Now I can breathe, Hey I can breathe
I can breathe, I need you just so I can breathe

La’Porsha Renae

I’m not certain just whom is being sung about. An individual, or God. I think I hear both. But I’m drawn more to it being a call to God. “Feels like my life might need rearranging”; then “I’m not the same because you rearranged me.”

I know about feeling like rearranging is in order. I also know about going through rearrangement. Actually, I’m in the midst of it. I have all kinds of help. All listen to my words and my heart. And I am helped. Yet, there is another listener I’m learning to speak to. And then to listen in the presence. Then I can breathe.

 

 

At last- the reason for the trip – FOUR VOICES concert.  Four voices being Joan Baez, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Indigo Girls.  Oh my- just seeing those names written together…

Disrupted by weather and air travel, given an anything-can-happen day– here we were in Raleigh, NC, outdoors at the Art Museum of North Carolina for this night of the Four Voices Tour.

Thinking about all it took to get to this night and how eager I was for this moment of music by these amazing women singer-songwriters….  it feels like nothing could stop this experience from happening.  

And so nothing did stop it. The concert happened!

Lining up hours before the doors opened and the concert began, fans carried lawn chairs, coolers, blankets, and sometimes each other.

There was obvious intention and eagerness as we watched all these souls from our parked car.  

You see, we didn’t need to race ahead to stand in line, because we had reserved seats.  I’ve left my years of concert lawn-seating behind.  However, we did realize at the last minute that we might want something to sit on in our reserved seats, so ever the resourceful women we are, we borrowed bath towels from the hotel. Worked like a charm.

As we entered the museum grounds and made our way to our seats, it was immediately clear that we had some amazing seats!  No more than 50′ between us and the stage.  And the rows were elevated so there was no chance the person in the row in front of us could block our view.  Wow!

And so, the much anticipated and longed-for concert began.  And for the next two hours, these four women sang – together, separate, together again.  And some of the time we sang along.  

All the voices rose up as one, to celebrate the joy of making music together, and through song, to question injustice and inequality. We stood, sat, sang, clapped, rejoiced together as one glorious body.

It was the best concert ever!