Under the Crust

Good morning, friends. If I could I would stay seated here today. At this table by the window and write some things down. That would be my work. This is where my greediness shows up. Instead of appreciating the 15 - 45 minutes I can choose to take before walking across the street to turn on a different computer and start the work clock I think about how I wish I could be here all day.

Alas, I need that job so I can sit here with you. So gratitude for this time and for my job and my paycheck and my health insurance.

I've been having hard conversations with folks lately. Which doesn't mean that they're not ultimately good or growth filled or rich or something to build on. I went to see a therapist for an initial visit on my lunch hour last week and then came back to work. I wanted to throw up returning to work and trying to get back into productive mode. My skin was tingling and my brain was fuzzy and yet, life goes on. I need that job, that desk, those assignments so that I can go to see the therapist and round out the healing that I'm pretty sure I want, that I'm pretty sure I'm called to this season.

Dinner with another friend I've had for a long time. Towards the end of the conversation she was referencing relationships being like a loaf of bread with a heavy crust. We don't know what's going on for other people under the surface. We just don't know from the outside what we're all working on or through. Amen.

Came home and read a piece of a Glenda Hope sermon printed in the Network Ministries newsletter. I'll have to dig it up and post it here later. Basically talking about how before we can heal we need to first be reassured of God's unrelenting Love. We need to be strengthened knowing if and when we descend into the depths we will not be destroyed.

Thank you, Glenda.

Thank you to everyone who sits alongside while I'm living this life of contradiction, while we're all living these lives of contradiction. It's a love filled miracle and it's got it's painful, confusing moments. I no longer feel the need to have it be one thing. So I pray to greet it all, to be the guest house Rumi invites us to be, and for discernment to hold onto what's worth keeping and to let go what needs to be released.

I teared up on the prayer line last week as Marletta prayed for me. So fierce, so protective, so loving, so faithful. Pray for me and stand to the side, this is my work to do.

Thank you to all the folks I feel so strongly doing just that.

Praying for all of those looking for meaningful, sustaining employment and the health insurance and paycheck that goes with it! Praying for R., for Sara B., for my sister, for everyone.

GUEST HOUSE

This being human is a guest house
Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they are a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out for some new delight.
The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.
Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.

-Rumi