Little Miracles

While I was on the trip which my older daughter's 8th grade class took to DC, there was an incident that led to one of those little miracles of life.  There was a girl on the trip who had recently had surgery and had to be confined to a wheelchair for the duration of this adventure.  On Sunday, a wheel on the wheelchair had some sort of malfunction and that particular wheelchair could no longer be used.  The trip leader and several others were tearing their hair out trying to find a replacement but to no avail.  Rental shops were not open on the holiday weekend and so forth.   I was in the front of the bus so I was privy to the whole drama.  Suddenly I thought of our wheelchair at church and then managed to locate and call the nearest Episcopal Church to where we were. Not expecting to get an answer to a phone call on the Sunday afternoon of a holiday weekend, I was hoping to at least get an emergency phone number for the rector.  I was not especially looking forward to this call as Sunday afternoons are not good times to call clergy for things that on a scale of 1 to 10 in terms of emergency rating falls at a -5, but I was willing to do it.  The first time I called, there was no answer but the recording did have an emergency number for the priest.  Good sign, I thought.  However, I had to call back after obtaining pen and paper.  The second time I called, much to my surprise, a woman answered, Sister Lydia.  Sister Lydia "just happened" to be in the office picking something up.  She could not have been more helpful.  The long and short of it is that they did have a wheelchair at the church and she was not only willing to wait for our school trip leader to pick it up, she negotiated a drop off time on Monday, which was Memorial Day.  Blessings to Sister Lydia of St. Paul's K Street in our nation's capital!

Train Adventures continued

I was on the phone today with someone who asked about the man on the train so I am posting.  I have not encountered many people who can talk nonstop for 6 hours but that day on the train was an exception.  I finally decided to "practice empathy".  So I thought, here's a guy who has not seen his kids in a long time.  He and his ex-wife have a hostile relationship.  He is a recovering alcohlic (stated in a very colorful way - saying he ends up hanging from a tree when he drinks - sipping an orange juice) and a nervous wreck (not stated) about walking into the upcoming situation.  So...that was more or less the end of it.  I did have to laugh when we arrived in Toledo and he stared out the window saying: "I've never seen any place so f..ing flat in my life!"  He was a character!   Everyone including my unintended buddy, did eventually fall asleep.   It was like a giant slumber party!  The night ride was magical.  I did actually sleep but woke up when the train slowed, coming into cities where it had stops.  It was a bit like riding the Polar Express without the snow, just lots of mysterious old fashioned buildings and lights.  I'd wake up for a bit, let the magic soak in and return to my fetal position on the two seats I had.  I rode the Amtrack bus from Toledo to Ann Arbor with a woman who worked with Caesar Chavez in the 1970's in California.  Now SHE was interesting!

Back home, I am returning to the sabbatical routine that I had going before embarking on my trip out east.  The weather is gorgeous; it is good to see my family.  
 

Train Adventures

When I left Baltimore to go to New York, I took the Megabus for $9.00. I spent the night with my niece and then headed once again on the Megabus to Boston for yet another $9.00. I am now on the train going from Boston to Ann Arbor, the cheapest way I could find to complete this significant loop I have been traveling for the past ten days. It has been a long time since I have traveled by train and I must say it is great. The scenery fed my soul as we followed a river for a good bit of the way. I saw herons and other birds on the many ponds and lakes we passed. It was very serene until this 40 something Robert De Niro wanna be, in every way imaginable, started yammering with two guys in the seat across from me. His very colorful language, with a very strong Boston accent, flooded the train car. I found all of this to be fairly entertaining until he took a look at the book I was clutching and said "Great book, you're reading. I've read it.". "Really?", I said, impressed that he had actually finished an entire sentence without using the F word. As I contemplated the rather absurd thought of this guy reading Marcus Borg's "Reading the Bible Again for the First Time", I suddenly had a very unpleasant epiphany. I glared at him with my very best power thought: don't you even think about sitting next to me! When I heard him going on with the guys about having to ride the f--ing train all the way to Michigan, I started plotting ways to fill the extra seat with all kinds of immovable objects. Lord have mercy. This could be a very long night.

Anam Cara

One of my favorite books on Celtic spirituality is John O'Donohue's book Anam Cara. Anam Cara means soul friend. I have spent five days with a friend I've known longer than any others, since second grade! She is a true anam cara. What a rich time this has been - just the two of us talking about old times and current times. While I sometimes bemoan the fact that my soul friends are spread all over the country in Baltimore, Boston, western MA and Seattle, I feel blessed to have these rich relationships in my life as I know there are many people who do not have any friendships with this kind of depth. Friendships take time and so I spend as much time as possible talking on the phone with my friends which is in reality not that much time. I am busy; they are busy so it is often hard to find time to connect. Nonetheless, for my own spiritual and mental health, I want to make this a priority. They are circles of love without which I cannot survive.

On the Road with The Daily Office

For those of us who try to read the Daily Office on a regular basis, travel can become a problem, at least for me. My copy of the Office readings is large and cumbersome. On this particular trip, in which every ounce made a difference, I finally decided to investigate the online version from the Mission of St. Clare. I love it! They even have an app! Everything is right there so gone are the days of flipping around pages and hauling large books. Thanks to the Mission of St. Clare, I can easily keep up with the Daily Office while on the road.

Saint Mary

Following a 3 day whirlwind tour of DC with my older daughter's 8th grade class, I headed to Baltimore to visit my dear friend Mary. As I step into her world, I am flooded with memories of living in a poor neighborhood in which I had a woman who was constantly fighting with her boyfriend in the row house on one side and a family in which I could hear the children being abused in the row house on the other side. I lived in that house for 10 years trying to be a presence of hope in a challenging situation. Then I burned out. I will never forget the day I sat on my back step looking at the garbage in the yard next to me, smoking a cigarette and thinking "I can't do this anymore". It was then that the journey toward moving to Seattle started. My close friend Mary has stayed. Of course, I would never have expected her to move as she runs a system of homeless shelters that she started in 1978. Project PLASE now houses hundreds of homeless from the mentally disabled for whom PLASE was started to Aids patients who have no place to live. Mary works constantly, always trying to raise money in a decidely unfriendly environment. She still lives in the home she purchased more than 30 years ago in west Baltimore in a neighborhood that is a couple of blocks from the area where season one of "The Wire" (television series about drug dealing and homicide) was filmed. In one of our conversations, Mary was once again bemoaning the fact that she was yet to see "The Wire". I told her that she lives in the midst of "The Wire" so there was no need to watch it. This was confirmed one morning during breakfast as I watched young men in the vacant lot behind Mary's small urban yard. Every time we sat at her table there was a fair amount of activity in this space. I thought "How terrific. They must be working on an urban garden." I finally asked Mary what these guys were doing. She casually said "Oh, there's a lot of drug dealing that goes on back there." I thought to myself about how I have definitely lost my street smarts. Mary is amazing. Despite the fact that she has lived among the poor and, in this case, dangerous, for all this time, she has never had anything happen to her. Her shelters are mostly in poor areas. She is a holy woman who attends daily mass and has worked on behalf of the poor and neglected her entire adult life. She is one of the most content people I know. Sharing her friendship is a gift and a blessing. She is a saint.

Belonging and Behaving

Having finished Diana Butler Bass' book Christianity After Religion, I am struck by her claim that the majority of people are drawn to religious communities in which belonging and behaving are the top priorities. By that, she means, churches in which people value each other in a deep and meaningful way. In these communities, people do not attempt to wear masks and conceal what is going on in their hearts and lives.

The behaving part has to do with the community's involvement in significant works of service.

What people actually believe is at the bottom of the list. This is true of all religious communities whether they are Christian, Jewish, Muslim or anything else. In fact, the religious communities that do not honor and respect other traditions are in the decline.

She, of course, is talking about Western civilization. This is something I have certainly observed in my conversations with people both in and out of religious communities. The way people treat each other is vastly more important than the details of any belief system. Churches that do not offer opportunities for community service have little chance of surviving.