The Slow Roll into Re-Entry

I remember that my wise yoga teacher told me once that it is always a good thing to change states of consciousness slowly. I do believe that where I was this time last week and where I sit this morning qualify on several fronts as different states of consciousness, and I am trying to heed her advice, but finding it a little challenging my first morning back into the day job.

The temperature here is 19 F this morning.  It snowed again yesterday, and it's promised to us that it will do so again today, tomorrow and Wednesday. All the things that I left on my desk are still here and more came to join them in my absence.  The loss of my client's husband weighs heavy on my heart this morning as she will lay him to rest today. 

The BE was not only all of its own wonderfulness.  It was a marker for me.  I don't know how many times I said to someone, "when I get back from the BE..." or Right after the BE I will..." meaning that this is the time I will "officially begin to transition from here to there, from now to then.  There is much to be done.  The CPE application to complete and mail, a house that needs some serious curb appeal, and a "marketing campaign" for yours truly for the next gig, whatever it might turn out to be and a visit with the Bishop and his Missioner about how the church might use me in a new way.  Just writing all that makes my stomach do a slow roll that has nothing to do with a week on a boat.

We did make a good beginning this weekend.  The stairway is painted! Much of the credit for this goes to my sweet husband who figured how to get the horrible wallpaper off, which we accomplished before I left. While I was cruising he did the skim coating and mudding and sanding and sealed and primed it. So yesterday we finished it up with the final touches and put on the lovely goldenrod color. Just for perspective...this is a project I started six years ago with the initial wallpaper stripping.  It stalled and sat. Three weekends of teamwork (mostly the R half of the team on this one) and it's done! Thanks be. So one down and...well let's just say "a few" to go on the house front. "Be not afraid," this too will be accomplished.

This project thing reminds me again that I am not alone.  Not alone in this world with my projects and my worries and my tasks, and not alone at all in any sense.  It is one of my biggest faults that I keep somehow managing to forget that.  In the "this world" sense it has some logic of long habit at least.  I did have to rely on myself. But how I extrapolate that to God who has never once asked or expected me to make it on my own, well that's another thing entirely. 

I bought a little silver bird in Mexico to add to the things on the chain I wear on my neck (a cross and a shooting star).  The bird is to remind me not to fear, as"even the birds of the air" are in God's care, so I am. As I think about Lent this year, I want to work with that fear, that anxiety...to release myself more and more into the care of those loving hands of God who have my name tattooed on them.

The Re-Entry from Liminal Space

The "Liminal Space" that was created on the BE as Mary Beth so beautifully put it in her reflection was a threshold space, a space between. And it seems to have been, as liminal spaces often are, for many of us, a very sacred and transformational space. We went away. Not just to a retreat or a vacation. Not just to NOLA or Cozumel on a cruise, but somewhere different. Somewhere where the world is a different place than the one we live in on a day to day basis. And not just because it moves when you walk on it, or seems to never sleep. In this world moving in and out of conversations had an ease to it, a comfort not found in my daily life. And those conversations were incredible. Silly, sublime, sobering, sweet and above all safe. Someone said that the Lido Aft Starboard group was like an amoeba....people came and went, it grew and expanded and moved back in, all depending on the need of the moment. In this world, as someone else has mentioned, there was a quality to the listening. It was tangible. There was attention being paid, there were resonances and ahas. And there was so much laughter. Obviously we are very funny people, we have wonderful senses of humor, collectively and individually. We find much about life that is funny and wry. We do not take ourselves too seriously. We know that sometimes the choice is to laugh or to cry and we choose to laugh. And just as obviously, we have not had the chance, many of us, to laugh enough lately. To find enough joy, to find enough lightness in life. And in this lovely open space, it was there and came bubbling out.

My yoga teacher, with whom I spent a week in Mexico for four consecutive years at her retreat center, would give us the advice to "change states of consciousness gently." Re-entry can be hard from these transformational, out of time and space experiences. Reality can bite. (As does snow on the bare ankles I refuse to cover. I will show off my tattoo!) Coming home to all the things that were there before, jobs and relationships and all the issues we left behind, when we are so wide open can be hard. People keep asking me, "So how was your cruise?" And I say the usual and expected answers and find myself tearing up. I keep wearing my talismans...my heart and my bracelet, my scarf and my Cozumel cross...as if to have these things with me will keep me connected for longer moments to how it was. My body is still holding on to the sea as I am still rocking and woozy if I sit too long in one place....I find I almost treasure it as a reminder.

But life is here. There is a decision made on the homefront, we merely await completion of paperwork for a final moving date. And L is struggling. He is in desperate need of prayers right now as the system is messing with him....yes, yet again, and I think there is pretty much no hope of an appeal despite the fact that I feel that there was such a miscarriage of justice here. I fear so much that we may lose him in the worst possible ways. Last night he told me has stopped drawing. My heart broke for him. We both had tears for a moment before he reverted to the gangsta' persona we are seeing far more of than we wish lately. And once again, I placed him in God's hands.

I am coming through the place where the shields are needed most. It's bumpy and a little scary. But I remember how much I feared the sea until I had the courage to go and face her on Friday morning. And how I realized then that not only was she beautiful, but that she was going to protect me for three days from going anywhere or doing anything but taking care of myself. And in that moment she became my friend, too.

There is so much more to say and ponder. But life and tasks call. To be continued.....

Grace Abounds

I'm home. A day later than planned, but this too is part of the grace story. There is so much to tell....but I have been up since 3:30 and can barely string two words together. Suffice it to say that there is no place I could have been, nothing I could have been doing, no-one I could have been doing it with, that could have been for me a better gift to myself at this particular point in my life. I so feel that God has given me this fabulous gift in being there and getting to know people on a different level...to hear stories of courage and transformation and hanging in there and sheer toughness....to laugh and be silly....and twelve...to be in solidarity... to feel cared for and caring resonance that echoes deep in my soul.

My first stop on arrival home was Soul Sisters Bible Study...the SS's asked me if my soul was fed...oh, yes, indeed it was. Thank you all.

Off to the BE

This will likely be my last post before I'm off to the BE. I'm heading off in the morning for the three hour drive to the airport, where I will hop the plane to catch the taxi to the hotel where I will meet some of my blog sisters! We will, I'm sure have a whomping good time there and the next day seeing some of NOLA while gathering more RevGals up until departure time...then it's off for self-care on teh Boat.

But before self-care there are a few miles to go. I still have an article for the local paper to write before bed tonight, and my bedroom looks like a suitcase exploded in it. We are a long ways from ready....and a long ways from sleep. But at this point it doesn't matter! Cuz there's a Boat full of RevGals in my future and I heard a lovely British voice on the phone tonight that I've only "heard" in writing before. It's all feeling real at last and I'm feeling very fizzy. So I'll catch you all on the far side. Blessings on your week.