From the journal…

In the Public Gardens on a bench by the dahlias. Lunch is wrapped in a cloth napkin in my bag, tucked in among crosswords, a novel, and assorted writing implements. This journal was in there, but is now flopped open on my thigh. Somewhere I am remembering that the column width of writing on papyrus was based on the width of a thigh…Could simply be an urban myth, too—but honestly, who’d go to the trouble of making up something about the column width of ancient writing?? Anyway, I am here after a lovely mellow morning that was also somehow…hmmmm…resonant.

I came home from Saint Andrew’s echoing with stories that had been shared with me. I was approached by a woman I know but had not seen in a long while and I asked “How are you?” She said “I could say Fine. But you? You I’ll tell the truth.”. And I heard the story of her recent grieving, her children in Ontario, why she had to return to Nova Scotia without them for her sake and for them, and what it means to hold the paradox of extraordinary pain, sorrow, beauty, and thanksgiving in each breath, sob, and heartbeat. From someone else, I heard about a one time best friend and her having spent years wondering whatever happened to her. I was able to suggest a way to begin finding out and she went away thinking she might explore that. In another moment before liturgy began, I was approached by one of the ministers and invited to help during the liturgy. After communion today, there were chairs on the side and people standing behind each chair. If people wanted to, they could come over and sit in one of the chairs, offer a petition aloud or within themselves, and others would receive the petition, praying for a moment with hands on the shoulders of the ones who approached. No one had any idea if people would want to do this or what people would think. I was surprised to be asked and at the same time, it felt like it fit in with the rest of the morning. On the way out, I ran into a friend who spoke of today being the 19th anniversary with their wife and what communion had meant to them today.

What gratitude I feel to hold these sacred elements of life and love that have been shared with me…What gratitude that people found me spacious and open…and what gratitude for a groundedness, a sense of deep, abiding Home-ness, that opens that space for others…

So often, I have something weighty in my pocket—a stone, a slider—something solid and substantive enough to call me to presence. It’s a beautiful thing when it feels like that on the inside too…when the centre weight sits solidly within, simultaneously drawing down and opening up and out…creating space for the resonance of love, of life, of the Holy Is.