I went to a funeral yesterday—not because I knew the person well—I had only met her once, actually, at a program she attended at the Centre. I went to accompany someone else and to be a visible presence of the Society when it seemed like that would be a good thing to do. I later wrote to a friend as I was looking out over the sea, watching gulls dance on the wind currents and light exquisitely bewitch the water:

At the end of all our days, is there anything better than those who knew us well, over time and circumstance, looking at our life and being able to say it was a love story…Different things and people and love made manifest in a multitude of ways…But to live a love story that is reflected and refracted and extended and bounced around by the people/events that populate the chapters…Pretty wonderful.

Then I woke up realizing that it was the 25th anniversary of my first vows in the Society of the Sacred Heart…There’s been much learning, much growing, much loving, all along the way…Not always easy, but forever an adventure…and I am grateful to God for the abiding, the company, the beckoning and becoming that continues to unfold…And augh! Grateful for the people, the beauty, the wonder…

I went to the Gardens later in the morning to give thanks for the life of the woman whose funeral I attended and give thanks for the life lived and things loved…only to learn that someone had violently taken a hatchet to one of the beloved trees that was still recovering from girdling vandalism that happened four years ago. And I remembered all over again something I learned a while back when it came to inexcusable or inexplicable behaviour…when it came to loving someone who exercised the full range of their humanity: To love is a beautiful and difficult honour.

I am certain my own behaviour has proven that for others any number of times over my life…I’d like to hope that the beautiful part mostly won out, but still. It is also true that some of my deepest prayer has been about learning to make that sometimes difficult aspect manifest in ways that bring the beautiful to light for others…even for myself. Because the love story is with others, yes…and also with the self.

The other thing I did while in the Gardens was to take a friend on a virtual tour of the dahlia beds that are beginning to bloom. She oooohed as I walked with my camera flipped outward and shared the beauty with her 2,275 KM away. The diversity of colour patterning, petal arrangement, size, texture, everything…AUGH…Fibonacci gone wild. God gone exuberant. Richard Powers’ line in spades: There are a hundred thousand species of love, separately invented, each more ingenious than the last, and everyone of them keeps making things. (from Overstory)

Sigh. A good and generous sigh…. And a look up from the pages of this incredible story… At the end of the day, I am here at a keyboard and keep saying to myself and to the world within my scope… Let all of it…Let it all… Be. About. Love.

It’s the birdsong that is sung already; it’s the sweat and the protest chant; the gesture of kindness; the ear offered; the riot of stars; the ache of grief; it’s in the challenge to understand and the will to keep trying; it’s in the embrace, in the mirror, in the marrow of life and living, breathing and being, and in the letting go…

Love is the story that has called to me since I was a young child and believed that I might well be able to see inside a rock if I could just let go enough. Love is the story that says Yes, another year together, you and I…Love is the story that whispers there’s more…