My Sorrow Lies in the Moon

My sorrow lies in the moon
I wake to a tender heart
seeking connection
and there lies my Sorrow,
Full and Patient
smiling down on me with a gentle face
Love's compassion,
I release and breath arrives
I fall more deeply in communion with the Soul.

One the last day of summer...

and the eve of a full moon! There's nothing like a farmers market, fresh tomatoes and a good beer to relax a person into their new home. It is so nice to breathe deeply here, and feel this place becoming more like home every day. Last night I went to an interfaith justice organization, ISAAC (who knows what it stands for!), and was overwhelmed/ inspired by all the amazing people working for change in this city- housing funding for the homeless, early childhood education stuff, and more... After I left the church where me met, I hopped on my bike and soon was racing the incoming storm. Leaves were flying at my face and wind pushed me from all directions. Lightning and thunder were nearing in... only a few more blocks to go...,but the sky opened and the rain poured and I arrived home grateful from dry clothes to put on.
There is nothing like a good storm to make you feel alive! "The time is now!" kinda feeling.
This ministry thing is quite overwhelming and also very exciting for the same reasons. The reasons are that everything is completely new. From facilitating the staff relations (there are three of us), to trying to figure out the answering machine to the church office to re-record the greeting, to how to get to know the congregation (do I invite people into my home, or maintain a more private approach?) There is also the public figure aspect. Again, totally exciting and totally scary all at the same time. After the meeting with area ministers last night, and watching these powerful community organizers speak so eloquently and inspirationally, the executive director and the community organizer came up to me right after the meeting to welcome me in and see if I wanted to have coffee!??! Me?? I'm just... you know... I don't know what I'm doing yet!!!
So, I am still (perhaps you can tell) getting used to the idea of being a public representative of society's morals.

Aside from ministry, I have discovered that Kalamazoo is really a "country-city." I call it that because, to my sadness, everything shuts down on Sunday. That's just when I'm ready to let loose and party! There's also an intact ecosystem in my backyard. Zele (my cat) has communed with the raccoons, and has caught two mice. I went for a bike ride on Monday and after twenty minutes I was biking besides farms with cows. Moooo. People are really friendly here- some charming young women selling veggies at the farmer's market tonight invited me to their bi-monthly potluck at their house after only a few moments of conversation. I can walk around my neighborhood listening to the crickets at night and feel completely safe.
Ah.... So, life is overwhelming and good right now. Good night!

The Child

Last weekend I went home to Seattle for a combo wedding/ camping extravaganza. I think of the bible verse, I was thirsty, and you gave me drink... and that is what this weekend was like for me. I was hungry for wonder, and the earth filled me till I was overflowing. I still am on a high from all the beauty.
Shooting stars- 7 in one night! why sleep in a tent when you have magic happening above you!
In fact, why sleep at all? I love that about stars! I think faith can be pictured as a person waiting up for the stars. Something so far away, so unknown, and yet so important. There is something about witnessing the mysterious "out there" that pulls on the deep "in here". The unknown-yet-so-core-to-our-being parts of ourselves that connect so strongly to the beauty we experience.
And then there was the sun- WARM (I won't say "hot" now that I've lived in Cincinnati for the summer- over 100 "heat emergency days," baby!) and perfect! And the gentle sea breeze to cool if you chance at being slightly over-heated.
Dancing, swimming in the Sound (and later a glorious mountain lake with snow still lingering on the edges!!!)
As I hiked up the mountain, I felt I was hiking back in years. I felt like a kid again, overtaken by wonder. Oh my GOSH!!! That FLOWER IS SOOOOO BEAUTIFUL!! (perhaps you get the idea :)
Or just letting the heat of the sun and the beauty of the mountains fill me up and make me pause and say "thank you."
sometimes my thank you is quiet, floating on the breath. And sometimes it is a loud squeel as I shout from the mountain top or jump into a cold mountain lake.
I have wanted to strip myself of my youth. There are times when I wished I was older, more experienced, more "weighty"- holding my ground, knowing my boundaries, certain about everything...
and I have turned against this excitement, this openness, this love that is my child.
To be a minister is not to kill your child, cassie. No. It is to know it and let it give you life. Openness is the seed to your growth. Take this unashamed love of life and enter your work fully as you enter and receive the beauty of the earth.

Letter to myself

Let go of your need for confidence. Put an arm around your fragile, uncertain, hurting self. And do not let go. There is no such thing as too many tears. You are more important than your job, your passions, and even your calling to ministry. What's most important is that you are able to love yourself even when you don't want to.
DO NOT TRIVIALIZE WHAT YOU ARE LIVING FOR:
Swimming
Supervision meetings with Ruth
Therapy with Leslie
Hope for home
Zele (my cat)
Reading the New York Times

Healing

little moments of perspective grace my days more often... a smile pokes fun at my heavy seriousness... gratitude for a push of the wind or driving in the car with my cousin's voice singing songs of love and struggle. healing is a returning to the self- a self that absorbs all that I have been through. not purging it out but reconciling it within, and still being able to remember was it is to laugh from the bottom of your being, to delight at the sound of music, to find peace in unexpected moments. it takes time to fully accept who i am. not there yet, but piece by broken piece i come to know, and love, myself.

Prayer for a Kitten

Driving South on 75 today I swore I saw a kitten on the highway. Smack dab in the middle. At first, I thought it was a plastic bag, but it didn't fly up with the air of passing cars as plastic bags do. I don't know how it had survived up until then, and who knows how long it lived. I saw its fear, as cars going seventy missed it by inches. It turned it's head into it's fluffy chest, praying, perhaps, for some miracle. Helpless, I continued to drive, only able to call the police and hope for its life. What terror. What smallness, and preciousness of life in the middle of a highway.

Coming Home

I just got home after housesitting for two weeks and interviewing for a job five hours away. As I unpack my car and enter a house I have called home, Zele, my cat, meows and makes her presence known. In her affection, she asks, "Where have you been?" Even though she was fed loyally by my housemate, she looks so tiny, rumpled, unloved...So does the house.
Perhaps it's me.
How much am I what I see?
I crave this house- the dusty brick walls, the natural light and the humid air flowing through the open windows. I crave physical home. Carve space for heart and hearth.
On my drive back from Kalamzoo, I sang with Chris Purenka-a song writer/ singer. She has great songs for being angry, and at 7 am, it was wonderful to be angry in my car, with the windows down. Singing my anger brings me back to my body- to the fact that broken relationship is broken body. To my touch with Fady- to the touch that was soooooo beautiful and it was ours.
How he loved me doesn't just evaporate, it is ripped out of me. Time is irrelevant. It still hurts- having my insides ripped out- and I curl up in soft tears and hot words.
It feels good to be still. Perhaps that's all I know right now- stillness. I sit on the front porch with Zele lounging on a chair next to me. Bags to unpack, essays to write, emails to attend... all await me. But here I am, in the time before all this returning begins. In the time just for me, and my cat, and the lazy afternoon humidity.
It is hard to just sit. I am not good at it! I find similar renewal in running and swimming, but it is not the same as pausing. I lean back and rest my head on the rough brick wall.