I swear, if time keeps going by at this rate, I’m going to fall down trying to keep up.  I can’t believe it’s almost May!  I’ve been doing a lot of…well, socializing, but also a lot of reflecting.  This whole year has certainly been a lot of learning…sheesh.  I can barely even keep track of everything.  As usual, most of of my learning is more eloquently expressed in books that I’ve been reading.  Take This Bread was fabulous…I highly recommend it to everyone.  Also I just re-read Let Your Life Speak by Parker J. Palmer, which is truly a fabulous book.  I’ll leave you with some quotes:

“As often happens on the spiritual journey, we have arrived at the heart of a paradox: each time a door closes, the rest of the world opens up.  All we need to do is stop pounding on the door that just closed, turn around – which puts the door behind us – and welcome the largeness of life that now lies open to our souls.  The door that closed kept us from entering a room, but what now lies before us is the rest of reality…My anxiety about way not opening, the anxiety that kept me pounding on closed doors, almost prevented me from seeing the secret hidden in plain sight: I was already standing on the ground of my new life, ready to take the next step on my journey, if only I would turn around and see the landscape that lay before me.  If we are to live our lives fully and well, we must learn to embrace the opposites, to live in a creative tension between our limits and our potentials.  We must honor our limitations in ways that do not distort our nature, and we must trust and use our gifts in ways that fulfill the potentials God gave us.  We must take the no of the way that closes and find the guidance it has to offer – and take the yes of the way that opens and respond with the yes of our lives.”

Well, that quote ended up being longer than I expected.  So I’ll leave you with that

So, I just came to a really awesome section of my book, Take This Bread by Sara Miles, and I had to share…I’m sorry, I know it’s a lot.  Maybe it’s the wine, or the wonderful dinner with Lauren Gaston, or the incredible presence God has been in my life the past two weeks, but here it is:

“…All of it pointed to a force stronger than the anxious formulas of religion: a radically inclusive love that accompanied people in the most ordinary of actions – eating, drinking, walking – and stayed with them, through fear, even past death.  That love meant giving yourself away, embracing outsiders as family, emptying yourself to feed and live for others.  The stories illuminated the holiness located in mortal human bodies, and the promise that people could see God by cherishing all those different bodies the way God did.  They spoke of a communion so much vaster than any church could contain: one I had sensed all my life could be expressed in the sharing of food, particularly with strangers.” – Sara Miles

“…Sooner or later, if I kept participating in communion, I’d have to swallow the fact of my connection with all other people, without exception…And sharing it meant I was going to be touching Christ’s body…Looking into Christ’s eyes outside of church, through the cheery atheist yuppie with the sports car and the veiled Muslim clerk at Walgreens.  Listening to Christ’s voice in other churches, through the middle-aged woman with the annoying nasal whine, and the self-righteous homophobic radio evangelist, and the conservative African bishop.  I was not going to sit by myself and think loftily about how much Jesus loved me in particular.  I was not going to get to have dinner, eternally, with people just like me.  I was going to get communion, whether I wanted it or not, with people I didn’t necessarily like. People I didn’t choose.  People such as my parents or the strangers who fed me: the people God chose for me.  I ate the bread.  Conversion isn’t, after all, a moment:  It’s a process, and it keeps happening, with cycles of acceptance and resistance, epiphany and doubt…It was tempting to proclaim yourself  “saved” and go back to sleep.  The faith I was finding was jagged and more difficult.  It wasn’t about abstract theological debates…It was about action. ” -Sara Miles.

Love it.

Happy belated Easter   I spent my Easter weekend driving alllllll over the place; but it was really quite good in the long run.

I went to DC with some fabulous ladies…a little Polo 312/Spain reunion.  Incredibly supportive & positive people   Next I headed down to Staunton to be with the family.  Which is *always* a good choice.  My nephews remain adorable, just in case you were wondering.

So the past week has involved a lot of super-dramatic soul-searching, etc, but I think it’s all going to work out ok.  This life seems to take a lot of faith to live.  Luckily I am blessed with incredible, wonderful people in my life to offer love, guidance, and support.  So thanks for all of that   Prayers are still appreciated, as always.

Things just appear to keep getting worse in life.  I know they’re going to get better tho.  In the meantime, thank you to all of you who have offered love and support.  It really means so very much.  Prayers are always, always so appreciated.