Just Faith, Everyday

God pours light into all things—everything is holy. Everything teaches us more about the God who created us. Why would be put ourselves and our selfish desires—willfulness that does not fulfill God’s call to us as co-creators—ahead of that which brings us closer to the Creator? The diverse ways God is present to us calls us to do more. As Richard Rohr, in “Christ Since the Beginning,” points out through Ilia Delio’s words, “ We are created to read the book of creation so that we may know the Author of Life. ” Delio echoes Aquinas as well, something Rohr also points out and connects: “ God brought things into being in order that God’s goodness might be communicated to creatures, and be represented by them; and because that goodness could not be adequately represented by one creature alone, God produced many and diverse creatures, that what was wanting to one in the representation of the divine goodness might be supplied by another. For goodness, which in God is simple a...

I pray for my brothers and sisters out there in prayer--those who celebrate Passover, those starting the Holy Triduum today, and a host of others who cannot celebrate their holy days because of this virus, a human frailty, one which we cannot escape. I share with you my feeling this morning of Holy Thursday that Jesus' words to his friends "Stay here and keep watch with me" mean something quite different now, and will never quite be the same from this point forward. I share this in light of the fact that in 2014, I miscarried during Good Friday, and that experience has never left me the same: the pain I felt as I kept watch was a sharing in suffering, but it was also my suffering. I felt the story I'd only until then celebrated cerebrally or spiritually--I'd felt it in my body. When all three elements of my existence came together, I saw in a whole new way what it means to su...

I’m covering myself up with this beautiful plaid Pendleton-like blanket I inherited from this old couple who’d lived across the street from us in the 70s and 80s, named Bill and Margaret. They took a shine to me and my sister, making us ice cream sodas and showering love. It’s obvious I’m wrapping myself in that comfort, covering up with this woolen blanket, fringe falling off, a woven memory. The chill of early Spring brings on the physical need to cover up, but the emotional toil of what’s happening equally brings on a need. For many the blanket comes in prayer and spiritual communion; for some yoga, meditation, creativity. Of course, our comfort can come in all these things, and we’ve been given a unique opportunity to practice even more, in a way we would never have before. Tangled up in life’s busyness, in our self-importance, we’d not see the beauty of taking significant time with our selves. I think in some cases there are those who struggle with the quiet and with who they’re...

Lately life has been about anxiety, and scheduling everything to within an inch of its life, about trying to keep up with all of the humans in my life, about trying to make time for the human in me, the soul in me, and I am striving, striving toward that goal. Then we have the problems of the world looming in on us as a community: illness and strife in many forms. Incompetence at all levels where we would normally trust our experience and our well-being. The kinds of things that make anyone want to fundamentally question their experience and existence and purpose. It’s exhausting. Having said that, it’s also life-molding and life-changing. Something is happening to our synapses and our souls when we engage fully in our experience, when we learn how to draw boundaries and consider how to communicate and share in life’s great pageant. And I am learning to pray not merely over these moments but through them, to become fully aware of God’s presence in even the more difficult moments of lif...

Seems like whenever I go and visit the place I called home for 24 years, some kind of song from my youth gets lodged in my head as a part of the experience. It’s not every time, but happens more often, maybe because now I’ve been in this place I have made into a home 23 years. Something is happening in the balance of my mind about place—calling for music and beauty to fill it in. When my uncle died suddenly in 2008, the song that wouldn’t leave my ears was Pink Floyd’s “On the Turning Away.” It made sense to me almost immediately at the time, and stayed with me through the wake and funeral, through the long delayed train ride back to Georgia. Other times I’d link onto a song just to accompany the moments—beach, park, family visits. This year for Christmas it was The Cure’s “Pictures of You,” and like “On the Turning Away,” it made immediate sense to me. It came in strains and solidified itself on the plane back, when one of the in-flight offerings was a 40th anniversary Cure concert in...

Being in the presence of deep and abiding pain side by side with utter joy and openness is a disconcerting experience. Or perhaps it’s awakening, sobering. On a trip to Little Five Points and the Variety Theatre I witnessed both, and felt a bit like I was a traveler moving from the depths of hell into a kind of heavenly door, just witnessing what was before me, attuning myself to my experience. We’d gone into Atlanta to see Foy Vance, and had to our surprise gotten there early enough to have a pre-concert drink and a quick bite. Anyone from Georgia who’s been to Little Five, as most lovingly call it, know the atmosphere is like a pumped up Athens, and the bar/coffee shop we dipped into was a perfect example of that: Java Lords, connected to the side of the theatre. Dark and cozy and strange in its decor, there was something about being in the space that felt both like a circle of hell and a party all at once. A couple of older gentlemen were overtly aiming to get full on drunk for the ...

Sometimes goodbyes just suck. There, I said it. I do know I learn something which each of the many, many goodbyes I have said in my life: the ephemeral of it all, the desperate need we should all have to cherish, the deeps of the darks and the brights of the lights—all of a piece. When I think of all the goodbyes my family alone has said, across ocean and continents, I still feel humbled, even as I feel my farewells with the pain of a thousand needles. That saudade , that old friend I want to kick out the door when she comes ringing. Sometimes I wish I didn’t know what I know when it hurts as it does. Still, every mile, every encounter, every sharing, every gift, every holiday and illness, every loss and gain—all of it—matters. Molds me in ways I have yet to understand. And that will have to be enough. Is enough. Is the best and worst gift, awe-inspiring.