Awake...alert to possibilities
Enshrouded in hope
Prodded by pinpricks of daring
A voice variously whispering, singing, shouting
Yes, you can!
Aware that only if I let go of
security...certainty...routine
Will I ever FLY
Yes, we're here, after 24 hours of travel time and nearly 40 hours without real sleep. Last night the bed at the Wildebeest was so welcoming and I slept until 9a.m. for the first time in years. No apparent jet lag...and a slow,pleasant day today, doing a few errands, catching up on email, reading, and talking with people here. For those of you in Carolina who continually complain about our roads being under continual construction (and I am one of you), after riding down a main road near here and watching our driver doing potholes and serving into the non-existent shoulder the road countless times, I pledged never to complain about our roads again. The people here would think they were in heaven driving I-85...while we Carolinians mutter under our breaths and curse the NCDOT. All a matter of perspective, I guess, but we Americans have so much for which to be thankful- and too often aren't! Tomorrow we head to Rwanda to visit with friends and meet our newest grandmothers the...
Funny how it sneaks up on you, grief. You go along just fine for weeks, months at a time...sometimes even for years, and then, BAM! out of the blue it hits, knocking the wind right out of you... hitting you between the eyes...pummeling you relentlessly until you are against the ropes, begging for mercy. That's how it felt last evening. It began as I was listening to a young man on YouTube singing "Bring Him Home" from Les Mis, a song which always stirs deep emotions. And then, a little later at bedtime, at the end of an emotional day in which I had presided at the memorial service for a young man of twenty- one who had been part of our congregation... as I turned out the light and lay down to sleep, I found myself weeping, sobbing in a way I had not done in a very long time...my body wracked with the spasms of weeping- for the family today, for my eldest son, dead now these twenty-one years... feeling once again that deep bereftness which comes from ha...
It washed over me like a tsunami, the wave of overwhelming grief. Totally unexpected. Taking me totally unaware. And there I stood, my tears co- mingling with the water of my morning shower, as I was bathed in the mellow strains of Annie Murray's "I'll Be Home for Christmas" wafting up from the CD player in the living room. I hadn't felt this way in many years... and yet the grief was so raw, so present, belying the fact that the loss had happened 37 years ago. It was Christmas Eve 1978 and our family was gathered at the home of my parents for our traditional Christmas Eve celebration, before going to the Candlelight Service together. This had long been a highlight of the holiday for all of us- my parents, my sisters, and their families, and we were all eagerly awaiting the arrival of my youngest sister, to complete the family circle. The kids wanted to eat so the gifts under the tree...
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