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This quote was the opening to yesterday's meditation reading. I'm still chewing on it and decided to share it:

Be patient to all that is unsolved in your heart and learn to love the questions themselves, like looked rooms and books that are written in a very foreign tongue. Do not seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. - Rainer Marie Rilke

The Power of Red

Three days in Sedona, AZ has left me virtually speechless. The Red Rock of Oak Creek Canyon and the surrounding area radiates the divine presence. My tour guide made eye contact in similar manner. As we drove to the Grand Canyon, he asked us to look at the fields of nothing spotted with brush. He then reminded us that in a little while we would see beneath this surface -- the Grand Canyon. Life mimics this discovery. How often do we see a barren, scrappy human and fail to travel far enough with them to see the beauty and complexity within.

Happy Birthday to Me

The cons of spending your 31st birthday traveling solo.

The rewards of the same adventure.

Stopping. Frequently. Can. Be. Annoying.

I'm a calendar girl. My entire work day revolves around my Outlook calendar -- and I rarely make exceptions. However, this week was different. To make a long story short, I rearranged an entire day to accommodate one of our rural city officials -- and then she canceled. In a parallel time line, a friend called to ask me to stop by the funeral of a young man who found little peace in this world. You guessed it, the funeral was at the exact time of the canceled meeting. I went. How could I not, the very universe was ordered around this event. I did all the usual funeral rituals: sit in the back, speak kindly and and gently to the family, sign the guest book and return to work. The funeral home was packed with sobbing young people. Together they were comforted and together they were devastated.
Fast forward a few hours and I took my mother and two of my favorite people to the nicest restaurant in town. The couple dining with me are in their early 80s, sarcastic, irreverent, curious, and fully alive- for they embody peace. Together, we ate too decadently, chatted too loudly, and laughed until we hurt.
A young man's funeral and an elderly couple's celebration remind me to soak up life, live big, love more, and unschedule some time for chance encounters.

Clash

I spent the weekend with my delightfully, spunky, 87 year old great-aunt who wanted to see us "one more time." Overall, I adore her, but our god compasses point in opposite directions.

She told a story about her son-in-law that broke my heart. (Basically, he manages a christian bookstore that refuses to hire homosexuals-- they even ask about sexuality on the job application. When an applicant complained, the son-in-law "witnessed" to the young man. Time passed and the young man returned to thank him for setting him straight and tell Roger that he was no longer gay.) My great-aunt ended the story with a commentary on "that lifestyle". She was not talking to me, but I was close enough to hear, but I said nothing. My deeply entrenched southern manners prohibit me from correcting someone so elderly, yet my activist side wanted to scream.

I grieve for the church- the institution of hope and grace has been raped and smothered by well-meaning christians. I do realize that the church has always been used for both good and evil, but today I grieve anyway.

To be cliche, we have made god in our own image and instead of vice versa. Theology like this creates dangerous dichotomies: good or evil,black or white, holy or profane. Aren't most of us both good AND evil, liberal AND conservative, prejudiced AND accepting, faith-filled AND doubtful... You get the point.


Just wondering... How does a well-mannered southern lady change the world when she cannot refute her elders? Do actions really speak louder that words?