My dearest friends,
How are you? I’m just saying hi.
I’ve written this newsletter in my head a thousand times over the past two months. I have no real reason for the absence of writing. I believe I was craving stillness in a time of monstrous change; to just freeze and see what happens. Upon each cycle of creative drought and replenishment, I realize the same lesson: the longer one stays away from the pen, the more intimidating it is to return. This is just to say that I have done it, I returned after a season of blistering love and providence.
Right away, my core urge is to skip to the part where I say thank you for everything. I thought I would feel much more alone by now; but I don’t. I feel loved and heard, grounded in fertile relationships, expanding identity and harmonious mission. This note could just be a testifying list of touches, birds, verbs that have been so graciously revealed this summer – all in order to frantically confess, while I still have breath, how truly grateful I am.
We are entering a season of tending and mending. The trees flutter in tones of turmeric and jasper. Their leaves wither and shed, and yet we do not dare to doubt spring. “Healing” is an annoying term, so I’m speaking to that sentiment instead as “trust”. During this time, I feel like I’m learning to walk all over again; taking baby steps and glancing behind me to affirm the Spirit is still watching.
Especially so in our moments of sputtering blindness, we are nudged by the presence of God. We are asked to have confidence in this Love, to trust that this life has been crafted in Perfect hands. Through learning to be still, tending and mending, I am reminded that what you love is your fate.
These months have borne countless lessons. Two weeks ago, I called my brother in absolute grievous shambles. Surpassing all of my unfaithful expectations, he stopped what he was doing to actively listen. The brother I had not spoken to truthfully in years opened himself to heart-to-heart integration without any warning. Hearing me fully, attuning to my sorrow with tender awareness, he proceeded to respond in a way that stunned me. Just then, he spoke as the older brother I always wished he would be.
He told me this:
“Don’t shit where you eat”.
Ok. Yes, his words are inconspicuous and difficult. They require patience, discomfort and brutally honest contemplation. But the general notion is ancient: how many times do we offer a hand to a scorpion just to wonder why we are stung? Our hearts trespass into spaces without a shared, common language yet we feel wrongfully dismissed.
This call was a miracle of grace. It had been the longest conversation we have had in years, lasting over an hour. I am astounded how deep pain can inspire a Love which overcomes all divisions. Because of this and the joy that comes with tending and mending a fraught relationship, my brother’s Spirit-provoked words have been my most treasured lesson.
And so we move forward, armed with the grace we could not have known how to ask for.
In my first newsletter, I wrote very plainly about a desire to sit with dying people. Less than a month into my fancy hospital job, I inquired into a volunteer opportunity existing in the Palliative and Spiritual Care departments. The program is a fruit of the “No One Dies Alone” initiative – simply, volunteers sit with terminally ill patients who are without family or friends. According to divine time, I completed my training for this at the beginning of September. I’ve been setting out on these visits once a week for about a month now.
In another essay, coming to you this Friday, I write about the corporal acts of mercy and the experience of sitting with one particular dying woman who has since changed my life. I look forward to sharing this and subsequent bits of spirited joy, despair, grace, and all the rest.
Thank you for being here. :)
Beautiful read & excited for the one on Friday!