centering in prayer

And come forth from the cloud of unknowing
And kiss the cheek of the moon
Leonard Cohen, The Window

Lit candles on my dresser
Turned on angel choir music
Sat on bed.
Softening sanctuary
Inhaled wafting scents
colour and light flickering warmth
Closed my eyes
Opened my pores
Listened to the harmony filling the air around me.

Found stillness
Found stillness.
Stillness found me.
Comfort breaths.


Let go of visitors....
one thought after another
one feeling after another
one discomfort after another
sadness, loss, fear.....
set sail on rippling water

Rippling water.
Blue
Blue
Blue rippling water
tidal rhythm sounds like angels singing
comfort breaths of spirit essences
stillness journey
stillness journey
inside sacred breath
painted the colour of grace

Time moved in a cloud of unknowing
Deep breath awakening
until my eyes opened again
Found focus
Beyond the glowing candles 
Photos of my babies.
Blonde innocence
created by love.

Falling tears of gratitude set in light and angel voices.
I had been kissed on the cheek by the moon.


ps.  The photo was taken from the upstairs balcony of the place where I was staying in Tatamagouche.  Twilight, Friday evening.

Found Blessings

Today, I stood up at the front of St. Paul's United church and delivered the Sunday service message.   As I stood up there, I felt grounded and centred, mostly due to the loving support of my friends and family, some of whom were there sitting in the pews smiling up at me throughout it all.  I absolutely LOVED looking up to the balcony and seeing my son looking down on me smiling.  He knows now that his Momma has her strength back.    My daughter left for summer camp yesterday so she wasn't there but I know she was thinking of me and I her. 

The whole process has been spiritually enhancing beyond my expectations.  It allowed me to travel beyond the line on my horizon to a place I have never visited.  I have "lived" outside of my comfort zone for over a week trying to "get it right......."  and it wasn't until 2 o'clock this morning when I found myself standing in my kitchen practising reading the last version I had just completed with enough energy to light up the street!  

I could write a whole blog post on the process... and how it was intertwined with a whole bunch of other "happenings" that have occured over the past two weeks.....work, home and play stuff.  What a TRIP!  Life has a way of pulling you back up onto your feet in the heat of adversity and kissing you with affirmation and love from the most interesting places.  It has been a week of good energy.  Good strong life affirming energy on all levels.  

I have so much I want to write about....... however that will wait........ for now I want to post my sermon to share.   

PS.......to everyone who has emailed me, checked on me, phoned me, and sent me their kind wishes and prayers....... thank you, thank you.  Know that you were all with me today.  I felt your presence strongly.  I really did.  I sure wasn't up there alone. 

____________________________________________

Found Blessings.

This morning, I would like to begin by reading a blessing written by John O'Donohue.   It's from his book, Bless the Space Between Us.  For the past couple of months I have read it aloud to myself every morning.  It has given me strength and focus to start a new day.  Today,  share it with you......

I arise today

Blessed by all things,

Wings of breath,

Delight of eyes,

Wonder of whisper,

Intimacy of touch

Eternity of soul, 

Urgency of thought

Miracle of health,

Embrace of God.

May I live this day

Compassionate of heart,

Clear in word, 

Gracious in awareness,

Courageous in thought, 

Generous in love.........

God’s abundance.  How do you define that?  It seems like such an easy concept to explain doesn’t it?  Personally, I found it was almost too big to harness. There are SO many paths one can journey on to seek out the meaning….. meandering paths of thought FULL ideas.  

As I prepared what I wanted to share with you today, I searched for it through many angles…from a theoretical perspective as well as one that was faith based ….. I looked at it through the lens of a Mom as well as the other roles I am in my life.  I looked at it through the eyes of a writer too.  And I have to admit, that the more I thought about it,  the more I wrote about Abundance.  Then I would lose myself in the harvesting of treasures AND would write MORE.   

It kind of overwhelmed me.  Which actually made me laugh because I found myself overwhelmed by abundance.  A little ironic don’t you think?   I probably have enough written down for a book!  Who knows?  Maybe I’m onto something.  

But that’s for another day.  Today, I humbly stand up here, as a human being who has been given the gift of spiritual learning through the process of reflection and contemplation, through many discussions with friends and family…..inside spiritually quiet times when I was able to see all of the “found blessings” that make my cup runneth over. Daily.  It’s been a beautifully challenging experience.  I feel richer for it.  

Throughout most of internal travels however, I was missing the key ingredient because I was being too fancy with my brain and it was making me too wordy. Too much thinking, the people in my life say …. I think too much. 

Yesterday, I took a trip to a place tucked into the woods near Norton.  Smith’s Falls.  It was beautiful.  The walk through the woods filled me with a sense of peace.  When I reached my destination…. At the bottom of this resplendent waterfalls, I sat down on a rock and looked up to the top of the gorge where the sun filtered through the pine and sparkling on the tumbling water rushing down the rocks in a formation of its own making. Automatically, I found my breath.  I slowed down, mind and body and let abundance find me.  In a matter of moments….. connected to nature and God’s beauty…..

I realized that….

Abundance is the collection of bountiful feelings we experience when connecting with nature and with others in a way that provides us with the nutritious gift of grace.

It’s about learning how to open your senses to a new awareness that no matter what may be happening in your life, or what you are observing God provides these gifts as blessings.  Bread for the journey is bountiful.  It is up to us to share the fullness of our hearts.  

It’s about recognizing all that we have to give and receive is more than enough and then some!  Just like the story of the fishes and the loaves.  There were twelve full baskets left over!  We have much to give……and then some.  

Jean Vanier, who lives his values and beliefs every day through the L’Arche community where he resides, wrote an amazing thought provoking book called Becoming Human…… In it he explains….  "When we tell stories, we touch hearts. If we talk about theories and speak about ideas, the mind may assimilate them but the heart remains untouched. It is the story of a specific person that is the way to the heart."  I firmly believe he’s onto something!   This is the gift of abundance.

Heart stories……. Connecting….. feeling loved, significant, humbled, affirmed, forgiven, listened to…….. Think about how you feel when someone really and truly listens to you…. From their heart.  Is that not abundance?  Think about how you feel when you are able to put aside all the busy demands, the list of TO DO’s….. when You are able to give your full attention to someone in need…… to listen.  From your heart. What a learning gift.  A simple human gift, which opens our eyes to the faces of God.  

As a counsellor and facilitator, I have been blessed with the opportunity to connect with many hearts.  I’m a storykeeper.  As a person who loves to write and to interact with others, I am a storyteller.  Both sides of the coin.  I can’t tell you how many times I have met with someone in their home, in my office, in the hospital, in a coffee shop and was left feeling enriched beyond words.  As a human being, I too have been blessed with many people in my life who listen to my stories too, and the same feeling abounds.  We share.  We tune into abundance and we are changed forever.  

Not long ago, I had the privilege of sitting in a hospital room with a young man who was dying of Crohn's disease. I was shocked at how skeletal he was.... how unbelievably sick he had been since I had first met him a few years back. His energy was very low. His lips parched and dry because he was receiving all his nutrients and food through a tube in his stomach. He was too weak to digest it any other way. In the hospital for 4 months at the time of our meeting, he had suffered through 3 painful surgeries and admitted that he didn't know if he had the strength to go through another..... another had been scheduled.

At first, I didn't know if he could physically handle my visit, but I was there to help him get some extra money by applying for a disability pension.  He needed the money and greeted me with as much energy as he could conjure up.

This man was a preacher.   Before he fell too ill, he’d led a parish church in a rural area in Northern New Brunswick.  Despite the constant pain and ill health,  his faith was still very much intact.

He spoke of the kindness of the hospital staff......how they arranged for a private room for him even though he didn't necessarily qualify. He lit up when he talked about his best friend, who had been visiting when I arrived and praying quietly with him....how they had studied together to be preachers....how they used to go fishing together. He talked about how blessed he was to have three children and how heartbreaking it was for him to realize that he probably wouldn’t  be around to see them grow up to be adults. He pointed out the flowers that arrived in the middle of a snowstorm the day before (a little miracle he called it.) He smiled broadly. 

He then lamented on how much he missed the ulimate freedom of going for a drive into the country all by himself. And as he reflected....as this man with such poor health, and with no money reflected....he told me how rich he was in so many ways.

2 hours later, I left his hospital room far richer too than I had been when I arrived. I left with the sound of rural parish church bell ringing inside.  A heart connection. They never fade. 

Father Henri Nouwen who also lived in a L’Arche Community wrote about the diversity of people comparing us to mosaic stones. Each one of us is represented by a tiny piece of colour, beautiful on its own, but much more revealing of the face of God when seen as a design together. 

Our community lives and breathes suffering and struggle. It lives and breathes love and compassion. It displays the faces of humanity, shaded by the lined scars of adversity....and a longing for connection and validation between human beings.  Community, he writes, is "where humility and glory touch." And to me, that is where prosperity dwells. You see it abundantly in the welfare office where I worked for many years. Out in the margins I saw, heard, felt and was deeply moved by humility and glory touching.  

A couple of summers ago, I was inspired to write a story poem about a scene I witnessed  in the alley by the Community Kitchen as I sat in my car.   I was the only one who saw it unfold.  I listened with my EYES and I knew in an instant I was richer for the experience.  

A scene from an alley 

Under puddle grey skies they emerge,

in large numbers

filing out through the heavy metal door

lighting up in unison --

An after dinner toke on a full stomach.

The best tasting cigarette of the day

besides the first one with morning coffee.

But sometimes there's no sweet aromatic coffee.

It's made from grains of yesterday

Bitter tar-like substance from the bottom of an urn.  

Sometimes morning begins

starring at the underbelly of a bridge

in backbreaking pain,

where no coffee is brewing

where the only smoke is a discarded butt. 

Sometimes morning begins in

a sock stinking room shared by 10 damp strangers

Shivering under an unknown blanket,

worn and used by others prickly and unwelcoming transience.

Coffee there is weakly tepid

Served in a stained unfamiliar mug. 

At first glance, I see

Weather worn faces seemingly the same

Dazed, angry, bone weary aged.

Empty discards in oversized pants from Sally Ann

in threadbare shirts, wrinkled from sleep

tattered, torn faded colour 

Surrendered souls

Who have seen the bottom of a bottle of cheap whiskey many times

Who have felt the biting winter winds many times

and know it feels the same as the hard slap from the back of a hand.

They've felt them both and know they are the same. 

Strangers lost in a fog of mental illness, no luck, abuse and a lifelong hangover.

Numbed on the bare boned skinned knee open wound existence. 

But tonight,
as they emerge and converge for an after dinner smoke
Gathering in an puddle filled alley
hidden by a brick building,
where the shelter and the kitchen
make it a meaningful destination,

I look again and see some familiar faces.

People who have visited me in my office.

Human beings I have seen around town.

The man with the marionette monkey

who makes it dance for money every Saturday at the market.

The woman who collects bottles and cans from the dumpster behind my office building

The mom and her two kids whom I've shared a coffee chat with in her home.

The guy who sleeps on the bench in the park downtown

A few whose names I don't know,

but have seen in the lobby of the welfare office

.Many I don't recognize.

Many are lost in a schizophrenic fog.

Some gather together to talk, while others stay within themselves

lost in the periphery of the marginalized.

Marginalized by the marginalized.

Our society breathes hierarchy like dragon's breath
 

One small statured man walks gingerly and awkward

trying to pretend he isn't completely drunk

Another with a shaved head whose eyes dart in paranoia paces.

And another, and another............same look.......same space....
 

Sober --stark, real, cold, wet reality. Who wants sober? 

I change the lens I am using in a blink

I change my gaze and what do I see… 

Right in the middle of this ragamuffin group?

Is a little boy

about 4 years old

with a red ballcap

and red crocs on his feet

glides by on his scooter.

Whoosh............his colourful presence

captivates.

Like a taste of watermelon on a hot day. 

In and out he sails,

splashing through the grey sky puddles

twisting and turning his scooter

past the sad adult faces too hurt to pay attention

Oblivious to his joy

He oblivious (maybe) to their sorrow.
 

The scooter skids and the little boy yelps.

All eyes turn to him.

His mother, incapacitated by a full leg cast lurches forward

Her maternal response stymied by immobility.

Her face shows concern.  Love.  Fear. Her boy needs her. 

Out of the blue…….

A found blessing friendly face intervenes.

He tends to the little boy,

then with a twinkle of dare, he playfully takes the scooter

and turns the scene into a circus romp. 

He's a smiling clown makes the little boy laugh from his belly

His scraped knee forgotton as he watches this man balance on a wee scooter…

Those worn out adults on the sidelines, thirsty for relief begin to cheer on the clown.

Set in the midst of grey puddle despair

A community of smiles grin the grace of abundance.
 

It left me wondering if Jesus was close by taking it all in.

I think He was.

He always is, isn’t he? 

Out in the margins, where true prosperity dwells,

Where humility and glory touch?

Jesus is there taking it all in.

 

The Bible says, “For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.”   This includes both sides of the coin……. having the chance to spill out a slice of your story to someone who is listening with their whole being and being the receiver of a human story as you listen with your whole being.  Human stories.  Heart connections.  As the extension of God’s love, we have it to give and then some.  And when we do, our whole community prospers.  

This week, I hope you have a chance to see abundance from a new angle…. And to feel the fullness of its discovery.  May you listen and be listened to as you share a slice of your stories.  From the heart, where treasures dwells.  May you find the blessing of discovery gazing into the eyes of another face of God in your life.  

blue moons...........

Full moon over the Saint John River, Dec. 2009

taken from my driveway.

An ancient folklorist once said that a blue moon has a face on it that will speak to anyone whose light it shines on.  Tonight, under the second moon of the month, on the last night of the year we have an opportunity to converse with the moon.  Howl at it too if we want to.  Or maybe just lift our glass of cheer and toast its constant presence.  For no matter how sunny, cloudy, or thunderous the world around us becomes, we can rely that silly moon to be right up there in the sky.

So much of life is temporal..........a collection of fleeting moments strung together haphazardly.  How we respond to the events is basically the only thing we have any control over.  Personally, I abhor New Year's Eve and the celebration that happens at midnight.  I wish I had the capacity to program my brain to the light and fluffy dryer cycle in order to sail through the night in some sleepy bliss.  Wine helps.  But, you have to find that happy balance thing with wine.  Too little and it doesn't work.  Too much and you become a soppy mess of snot........ desperate to grab hold of the karoke microphone.  Ick.  Light and fluffy would be nice............ there are drugs for this state too I realize.  I just wish sometimes I could naturally fall into that blondish mindframe.

Unfortunately on nights like New Years, my brain is my enemy.  I get stuck in a groove of reflections and the fear of how quickly time is passing.  EVERY single YEAR!  Even though I will thankfully be surrounded by friends who know this about me.......... it is still so difficult to put this one stupid night into perspective.  I like it over.  Tomorrow will be afresh.

However, tonight............. I have a blue moon to converse with.  You do too. Let its light shine down on me.  Let its light shine down on you. I don't know about you, but I've got a helluvalot to say to it concerning this past decade. 

Happy New Year.  May we all take a good step forward into the mystery tonight. Change is in the air. Bring.it.on!

a privileged punter on a pilgrimmage at the Greenbelt Festival.

On many levels, the Greenbelt Festival felt like a reunion even though I had never attended the festival before or travelled in this area of the UK. Most of the people I had the heartwarming pleasure to have connected with, I met there for the first time. It should've felt more like a crashing of a party....of feeling like an outside observer. Instead, there was a sense of homecoming the moment I met up with Pip and together joined a group of like minded people, veterans and devoted Greenbelters for dinner the night before the event.

Perhaps because I had read so much about it, captured in emotional descriptives and pictures on websites and on friends' blogs.....people I had always felt a kinship to, there was a sense of homecoming to a place of familiarity. One of the most comforting observations shared with me on the Friday morning during a walk through the site before the festival even began was that I fit right in. Thank you my Harbour friend for settling me in and sharing your beloved place. Your smiling kindness and words reinforced the driving intuition I had internally maintained whenever I pictured myself there. Deep down, right to my toes, I knew this odd little misfit me would fit. Your kindheart helped me feel this right from the start.

Greenbelt is an experience unique to every single individual who attended. Given the vast array of options, no two people would've walked away from the Festival with the same pocket of souvenir moments. 20,000 hearts and minds arrived, ready to take part in the feast on some level, and left with their own personal perspectives, their own "Greenbelt moments..."

Our eyes, ears, hearts and minds may have the fundamental sameness to their functionality, but are wired so very differently because of personal needs and interests. How we were touched, what we reached out to touch and most strikingly what we tasted in an attempt to quench our particular thirsts was uniquely blended. Then, there was a level of kinship, a place set in the twinkle of eyes and in the upward curve of smiles where two festival goers met.....it was a bonding place of knowing and understanding. It was also an sole pilgrimage amongst a sea of others.

Since returning home, I have tried to describe what it was like, what it meant, what impressions were left on me, how it impacted my thinking and how it seeped into my feelings and it seems to me that every single explanation has been different. It's like I settle into an angle of repose only to have another handful of sand added to my positioning. And I am moved again. My perspective changes within the shifting sands inside me.

Despite that, there were moments which took me up beyond the concreteness of what I can put into mere words that are as crystal clear to me as the brightest star in the night sky but whether I will ever be able to lasso them for others to understand remains a mystery. Breath takingly thin feelings too delicate to touch with worn hands need to be nurtured and handled with care. Those moments .... the thin air ones, however were the key to being able to say to any other Greenbelter..... I get it. I totally get it. I have been moved forever.

This morning, I sit here still wrapped in many layers of contemplation because of having the privilege of attending Greenbelt and meeting so many beautiful people, many of whom touched me with their kindness and interest, and with their ability to share some of their selves with me.....good deep stuff. Sometimes it happened late at night after a long day experiencing so many feelings during the events or simply walking around the site. Sometimes it happened with strangers whom I met at a talk or in line waiting for the next concert.

But, when I stop all other thoughts and focus on the heart of my experience at Greenbelt, I picture myself standing amongst new friends who welcomed me into their space and kept an eye on this punter on a pilgrimmage at the back of the Performance Cafe, feeling loved and included. No matter how busy they were volunteering and creating a space so welcoming for so many, I was always, always greeted with interest and enthusiasm. Sarah, Katie, Anderson, Roger and Paul..... you are all angels for giving me a place to catch my breath as well as to have it taken away. xx Thank you.

Greenbelt is a sense of belonging like no other......... I feel blessed to have experienced it through my own ever changing lens..... my gaze is beautiful.

you see its getting late....

Do not judge me until you've walked in my shoes.
Do not assume you know how I'm feeling.
You havent even asked.
Or maybe you don't even care.
I thought you did.
Do not expect me to understand your actions when you havent expressed them to me.
Do not toss worn out cliches at me and think they are comforting.
Or maybe it was meant as a dismissal?
Did I miss something?

I want you to care, but i can't make you.
I can only wish.

Maybe I'm going about this the wrong way.
Maybe I need to ask....
How are you?

I've always believed we are all equal in the eyes of God. Why then do people feel they have the right to stand back and unleash the power of emotional manipulation on others as a means of judging? It seems to me that we have become individuals who react from a place of our own pain instead of love.....it's become our "go to" resting centre in our souls. Do our own feelings of rejection and abandonment feed our reactions to others? What is the problem here?

We minimize, criticize....where is the empathize? Is it too much to care?

You should....
Why don't you.....
Get off your ass.......
Stop whining.......
What's your problem.....
You think you have it bad.....what about me?


Here's a quarter, call someone who cares.



or worse.

thunderous silence....

Is it because we are so undisciplined by our own blinding woundedness that we can't take on other's emotional pain? Has the world reached their empathy saturation point? Our emotional literacy is dyslexic.

Its not that I'm wishing for human beings to become softie bleeding hearted touchy feely blatherers. That doesn't work either. It only pours more salty tears into an open wound and blends it into a more ruminating mess of pity. A pity party leads to nowhere. A touch of sympathy is fine when it's timely and appropriately shared. Too much and it sends someone into a pit of emotional quicksand. Everyone remains stuck in that kind of helpless pit.

Kindness.....lets hope it hasn't become extinct because if this global place has lost the ability to grow in kindness, we have lost our way to the place in our hearts where we can love one another. I don't want to live in a place like that and I certainly don't want to be around others who have lost the ability to be accepting of the important people in their lives who may be suffering.

I used to love singing this song around a chapel campfire (it came to me while i was writing this piece...out of the blue, like a little loving tap.....the memories and the harmony still offers a hush of comfort to me even after all these years. I can feel their kinship even though they are far far away......

"Think of your fellow man
Lend him a helping hand
Put a little love in your heart

You see it's getting late
Oh please don't hesitate
Put a little love in your heart

And the world will be a better place
And the world will be a better place
For you and me
You just wait and see"


So..........how are you? I genuinely want to know.

the spot

Is it the process of creativity where we learn to seek out the boundaries and then to cross over them? What if we all stopped at the very idea that what we want we cannot have? What happens if we simply accept these otherly proposed boundaries as the unchallenged status quo rather than to challenge the very line drawn in the dirt?

Swallow hard. Don't allow any drop of conformity escape to join a variation on the rules. Stay within what is acceptable. Don't thrust your unique thoughts onto rigidity. Performing through conforming, where all sing from the same songbook, where all speak the same words, where all ask for the same thing on the life menu........seems cult-like doesn't it, or at the very least a middle school mentality at living life? A missionary position with no creativity stretching allowed?

I want to leap outside this structural window when everyone's looking and begin to paint the outside of the structural boundaries in shades of blue, in streaks of orange.........I want to take my bright red magic marker and write boldly in big loopy passion. I want to run freely on the outside of the boundaries to slurp up the cherry sweet juices to feed my imagination. I want to be the one to push deeper into the wildness where fear teases and tickles all of my sensations so I can feel more alive. I can do that freely in my writing.......in my creative process.

Can I transfer it to life? Can I be that bold?

Boundaries have meaning..........and are all twisted up in a set of long held rules of conformity. We live and worship in a world which foists a heavy hand holding the conscripted orders that are seen as "good for us........" Some are realistic.........they are for our own good. But others? Untolerable, unacceptable...........challengeable.

We need to be open to manifesting our imaginations as the way to seek out the moments where one yells out for more, where one feels the pleasure of the frontier.........the open fields where love yearns to be consumed. Creativity has the capacity to push the boundaries beyond what is considered "meant to be" to a place where we begin to consider "what can be....." It is there where heightened stirrings fill us with what you are looking for.

It's all in how you see it in your imagination. It's all in finding the field to romp in.

love

"We are not called by God to do extraordinary things,
but to do ordinary things with extraordinary love. "
Jean Vanier

This is the quote I used to end a workshop I delivered on Saturday morning. I had been asked to facilitate a panel discussion at an annual conference for volunteers who are involved on non profit housing committees in their communities. Many in the audience have actively worked on the committees and have successfully helped others move off the streets, out of rundown rooming houses, away from squalor high rentals into dwellings that were more humane, and had more potential to be turned into a home. My 2 hour workshop was on the topic of "how to deal with challenging behaviour.........."

My role was to be the "host" as well as the warm up act (an small group discussion exercise to get them engaged in the topic ) and the wrap up act for 200 delegates. Amazing! 200 delegates arrived on a Saturday morning at 8 am to hear what I had to say. Little ol' me! So, in between the presentations by the panelists, I pulled and linked their key points by using them as "teachable moments" weaving the session together. At the end, I gave them all a communications "tips" sheet.................and handout of key points to remember when confronted with someone who may not be on their best behaviour! The panelists, three of them, brought with them deep knowledge and stories of their experiences working and running programs for individuals who potentially be challenging...........we covered the gamut...........mental health and addictions were key players.

You know when you feel sharp and focused and ON? Do you know that feeling?? This is where I was on Saturday morning. I had written out my intro..............knew what I wanted to say and then was able to speak from my heart...........away from the podium, "off the cuff," and animatedly. And it worked! I did it! This is basically what I shared................with a few more antecdotal bits added in.............

"Our good fortune is to be an integral part of helping people in our communities regain their footing, to grab onto hope again. The frontlines is my career "home." No matter how far I've roamed to work on various projects and initiatives, I always end up back to the frontlines. It's like I have this BIG elastic band around my waist. I tread away and then BLING, the elastic band flings me back.

I have had the pleasure, frustrations and joy of working primarily in the margins of our community where possibilities dwell. It's a real, harsh, vulnerable, knee scraping, soul scratching, vibrant place that never sleeps.......that is SOAKED in a sense of the scrambling of people trying to fulfill their basic needs. And, I love it. So often I meet someone in their home.........I have travelled all around our region.........into the woods ( :) ), down dirt roads, into rooming houses, rundown apartments, places which I can only say would be labelled as "nowhere".

My role is to help..........to provide information, to teach a bit and I know that I almost always leave their homes feeling like I've learned way more than I have provided. So often after visiting another human being, or meeting with them in my office I am left with this overwhelming sense of humility because i know I may have been the first person to hear their story from beginning to the present..........to have been the one to hear it and to know the person was comfortable enough to share it with me is an honour.

Over the past day during the conference, I have talked to many people about what they felt was the importance of volunteerism (this was mostly a crowd of volunteers who sit on boards for housing committees in their communities). In his keynote speech, Peter Short drew many pictures for us...........and thanked us for the work we do.........how sometimes its just so difficult to find the motivation to leave our own homes for meetings in the middle of a snowy evening.........but you know what............do you know what picture came into my mind when he was speaking.............it was one of myself putting my coat on, bundling up and heading to a Home and School meeting...........wondering WHY I was doing this..............and then walking into the library of my son's school to be greeted by the warmest caring group of people who were there like me to make a difference.

The energy and the compassion felt when surrounded by the people who volunteer is all the motivation I need.......and I know you "get that........." You know this................Volunteerism is our best attempt at grassroots politics........its where community grows from...........doesn't it?

I consider myself a storykeeper and a storyteller, which is why I love writing..............which is why you'll always see me with my pen in hand and my black journal..............oh and a cup of tea nearby...........I love hearing stories and I love telling them. It's how I learn best....right in the middle of a damn good story. Its the most important thing we can share with someone else............a story.......

One of the most important lessons I've learned as a storykeeper and storyteller who finds her career home on the frontlines about human behaviour is that desperate hearts spill out desperate feelings which lead to desperate behaviour. But behind the desperate behaviour....behind that ugly mask is a vulnerable human being in need of love and validation. So in need of recognition. Peter Short spoke of this didn't he, and then he validated our work.............how good did that feel??

We have that chance to offer up this feeling moment for someone else too..........as people helping people, we have a grip on the dreams and hopes of some pretty darn vulnerable people, some of whom are desperate like we have never personally experienced before.......and some of their behaviour thrown our way is UGLY! Behind the mask of behaviour lies the vulnerable human being in need of love and validation.

WE all matter............we ALL matter.

This morning, we will look at how to deal with some of those challenging behaviours...............with this in mind. The beauty may be hidden behind the actions, but it's there. It just needs to be validated. We all need that...........

I shared stories................entertained.............spoke of passion and compassion...........even threw in a lesson on Transactual Analysis at one point............managed to teach them the basic tenets of Glasser's Choice theory.........that all behaviour is our best attempt at filling one of five needs.....Survival, Love and Belonging, Power/Self Directness, Fun, Freedom.

Yes, there I was walking around the front, engaging a large group in a ballroom of a hotel.....with my tone of voice, my enthusiasm, myself.

After 2 hours of listening, doing, thinking..............I left them with the last thought..........

"We are not called by God to do extraordinary things, but to do ordinary things with extraordinary love. "

Then, God provided a personal life unfolding lesson on just those words.

While I was delivering this workshop, my husband and my son had a ride in an ambulance together to our hospital. I got word as soon as I stepped out of the ballroom.....to call a friend. Before I knew it, I was sitting up in the emergency room awaiting results of a CAT scan on my husband. He had awaken with double vision, a headache and numbness on his left side. We both thought it was stress, because well we have both earned some numbness. But, it turned out Jamie had had a minor stroke. They found a very tiny bleed...........a pinprick on a blood vessel is how a friend explained it. This was causing the symptoms he was experiencing.

Since Saturday, the symptoms have almost gone away. He is being cared for by a group of nurses and our doctor who have been fabulous. It has been very traumatic, very stressful and shocking. Shocking! Today we are waiting to see the neurologist to see how things stand and I'm hopeful he will be coming home with me today. His vitals are all good..........he's walking, talking, has full strength in all limbs. His thoughts are clear.............and his eyesight is still a bit blurry. We are both anxious, understandably, but we will weather this.

When you live "away from home," away from family, you tend to develop friendships that are deep and supportive. You nurture them and they nurture you just like family. We have lived away from our families for our whole marriage.......20 years and have developed strong bonds with our friends..........they know we can be counted on to be there for them like family and we rely on them as well. It is the extraordinary love thing Jean Vanier spoke of...........

Our friends have flooded us this weekend with support and love.........it has left me filling many cups with tears. I can safely now say that almost every single one of my friends in this city has seen me cry or at least heard me on the phone. Their offers have been phenomenal........dropping everything and coming to our assistance.

I am supposed to be getting on a plane tomorrow for a week away. It's a very meaningful (to me) little trip across the pond...........one that I am wholeheartedly looking forward to and in fact have been bouncing off the walls with my energized enthusiasm (don't be scared Pip!). My friends and co-workers are well aware of this....... they really havent been able to miss it. And so.......we have been overwhelmed in such a good way with offers of help, food and support. It has turned the whole trauma into an awareness of the many blessings we have living and embracing us daily.

Something happens............life as we know it stops for a breather.........forces us to evaluate quickly. A shedding of redundant stuff we carry around slips off. We are left with the gifts of love and belonging, of encouragement, and of the knowledge that many many people in our lives, people whom we spend our weekends with, our holidays with..........our beautiful friends are there to pick us up and perform the ordinary things with extraordinary love.

I'm finishing this blog post off sitting in the family room of the pediatric ward in the hospital. Yes, they put my husband on the kids ward! Its the perfect place for him.......he's always been a child at heart, with an office of wind up toys, a penchant to play road hockey at any time, and a desire to organize a party just for the hell of it. Anytime I've told someone where Jamie is housed right now they laugh and say........."that's perfect!" As I type this, my son Max and his Dad are sitting together watching the ballgame, having dinner and catching up on the day. You'd think we were sitting in our living room at home........

We are going to be fine.................more than fine........because love always makes it alright. It matters. It's what matters.

feeling alive.......

Talking a walk together across the river.

Will you join me?

"God's calling is found in the place

where one's deep gladness

meets the world's deep need."

Frederick Buechner

How do you find a way to respond to this call? Much contemplation, prayer and discussion will help you explore God's reflections. Sometimes we stumble across our calling when we are least expecting it. Sometimes we spend our whole lives searching and expecting God to drop a line or send an email only to realize it's up to us to simply go out into the world and find where gladness and calling cross paths on our own. Knowing it's out there is impetus enough to take part in the treasure hunt. We don't need to wait for God's green light. He gave it to us by giving us life. That is our green light.

Where and when does gladness sweep over me? Where do I feel the most resonating sense of "this is what I'm meant to do when it comes to helping meet the world's deep need?"

It envelopes me when I see the anxious timid man who has never felt unconditional regard lift his head to look me in the eye for the first time with half a smile and an admission that he has never told anyone his story before.

I am honoured.

It touches my glad heart when I'm visiting a woman in her cold unheated home, and who lives too far away from her family and any help from the services in the city, and she lets her guard down to let her tears well up and spill as she admits to suffering from a broken heart over the loss of her daughter 20 years ago.

I am suffering with her.

It holds my hand when I listen to a telephone message from someone I hadn't seen or spoken to in 5 years........calling to thank me for helping her a long time ago..... She just wanted to let me know.

I feel valued.

God's calling filters through to all of us in different rays of light........we all have something to offer others and in so doing, we find that we have received more in return. If you follow God's calling, you will always be shifting through the stretching towards understanding the meaning of life. You will never feel the same way again. Viktor Frankl said it best.....

"We can discover this meaning in life three different ways: 1)by doing a deed, 2) by experiencing a value, 3) by suffering."

This is where a calling dwells........ May I add one more word to end the quote?

"We can discover this meaning in life three different ways: 1)by doing a deed, 2)by experiencing a value, 3) by suffering" ................... Together.

I am more alive when I can help others feel more alive.

I am more alive if someone allows me to help them feel a sense of gladness.

I am more alive when others help me feel more alive.

It is the circle of life......... and I want to be a part of it.

This is where gladness and calling meet for me. How about you?

blessings

If you live the life you love, you will receive shelter and blessings. Sometimes the great famine of blessings in and around us derives from the fact that we are not living the life we love; rather, we are living the life that is expected of us. We have fallen out of rhythm with the secret signature and light of our own nature. John O'Donahue

I was drifting through my notes and various websites to find just the right quote to jumpstart my post tonight and there it was......waiting for me to find it. A blessing in itself........a quote about blessings by a beautiful human being spirit who has his loving eye on many of his friends..... keeping them in his sights, remaining beside them all.

Blessings......it is an overused word I'm afraid, but when those little tealights flicker out of our OWN enlightment, our own recognition of them while living the life we love, well then it feels as it should. Uplifting.

It's funny how we can trudge along in the slushie bits of life and forget to remain aware of those flickering tealights. It's so darn easy to do. We can get all caught up in the groaning hills, the unrelenting obstacles so quickly. I have, especially when I'm entrenched in living the expected life. This week for example could easily be looked and frowned upon as one ripe with burdens. Given that this part of the world has been wracked with one life interupting storm after another, it would be very easy to do. Yesterday for example on the day when LOVE filled the air, there was a feeling of deep penetrating frustration all around. I was so struck by the looks on people's faces and the heavy way they dragged themselves around town after enduring yet another snowstorm. The trees were covered in heavy ice weighing them down, but it seemed like it was the same with the people. It's been a long arduous week of coping...........barely.

Sometimes daily strife is such a burden that the ability of recognizing and acknowledging a blessing seems outlandish. And yet, the blessings are there. They don't go away. It all depends on whether or not you decide to see them........to feel them.

Blessings......are gifts of holy fortunes which surprise you when you're the least expecting it. They can be disguised as just about anything. That's what so intriguing about them. But no matter how they are disguised...........they always lift you up to a place of joy. Tonight, I feel like I've been showered with bouquets of blessings which began arriving at the beginning of the week and simply just continued. They are gifts that can assist you in finding the rhythm of our uniqueness and in energizing the "light of our own nature." Blessings are markers which accompany caring compassion, which in turn offer us a chance to acknowledge what and whom we are grateful for. Friends and family............

I have much to be grateful for. More importantly, I have many people in my life who everyday with just their presence, be it face to face or across the miles who are my true blessings. Tonight, I want to recognize them all. Tonight, Iwant to say thank you.

An invitation

"Come to me, all of you who are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart and you will find rest for your souls."

The weather worn man whose voices trip him into believing he will be safe and warm under the bridge on a January night.
The woman who lives alone in her apartment and can't find the bravery to leave it
The young child who wills herself to sleep while listening to the screaming tirades of hate coming from the family room.
The old woman lost in dementia, forgotten on the 4th floor of a beige hospital wing.
The heartbroken father whose making a new life on the outskirts of town.
The overtired, worn out new parents of a colic baby whose crampy belly makes her wail all night long

The stressed out business owner who is trying his best to keep all of his employees working through a recession
The mom with a chronically ill child.
The poverty trampled family living in that shack with no running water or electricity.
The orphan whose parents have died of AIDS.
The addict whose desperately searching for the next fix.
The runaway teen whose turning tricks to find illusionary love.




The invitation is for them.



The abused, neglected, addicted, disabled, sick, tired, mentally ill, .....the fearful.

The lonely souls lost in the sea of humanity.
The lover yearning for the heartache to go away
The workers with young families to feed who have been laid off at the mill.
The survivors of a hurricane, tsunami, drought, earthquake....
The human beings living the waking nightmare of war, trying to stay alive.



He sends the unconditional invitation to everyone.......shouldn't we go and do likewise?



Hope feeds the hungry soul. Faith sustains it. Humanity passes it on.

one day we meet.....imagine

what would it be like if we were to meet?

would there be an awkward moment of transition from virtual to reality?

would the air be gobbled up with an onslaught of sensations and thoughts?

a hushed lack of focus as real flesh fingertips touch for the first time.

pinch me

is this happening?

what would you sound like?

is your voice how I expect it to be?

how do you think I sound?

what would we say first?

hi

hi

can you believe this?

there you are in front of me

here we are........in 3D!

yeah.....amazing......

you look and sound EXACTLY like I imagined!

i love your accent

what accent? you're the one with the accent!

me?

And if we met, I know what we'd do first.

We'd go for a walk

in the woods

down a street

in the neighbourhood

along the river

close to a shoreline

it doesn't matter where........does it?

our ambling, rambling stroll is a moving setting to finding our way

to one another

And while we walked, we'd talk.

Not in cliches or small doses of facts.

Rather, we would JUMP right into the big bold open heart stuff filled with our stories, yearnings, dreams, questions....

Of course we would..........we do virtually.......reality would be no different. but it wouldn't be all serious. levity would be present too as we laugh over funny words and terms common in your own world but not mine.

silly snogging slang that has to be explained.

time would flow fast as we try to slow the pace

clinking pints

skipping stones

stoking a fire

enjoying a meal together

sipping cointreau

and the conversation would ramble on

filling the air with the warmth of friendship.

hi

hi

can you believe it......it's really me. it's really you. hello friend.

i wonder how you imagine it?