Thursday, August 28, 2014

Two weeks and an Era


 

14 August, 2014

6:50 AM

On a corner of the dining room table in NYC. However, I feel compelled to say that this sad skeleton is not the place where I came to know the Society for three years, where I also lived for a bit more than four years... Or, on some level, maybe this has always been its skeleton and as things age and diminish, more of the skeleton is exposed--like in humans. Hm...in a way, the community I knew was people...and this time is about place...but in its own way, this building has been a living organism for over forty years...accepting without question and accommodating for untold numbers of residents and guests who stayed for greater or lesser amounts of time--but each leaving a mark of presence...stories that have become both a part of the pattern of its skin and in some cases, stories that have caused a crack or two, testing the limits of what these constructed confines can accept before something has to give.

The laughter that has filled this place, the multitude of languages, the prayer, the mourning, the keening, the death, the blessing, the difficulties, challenges, conversations, verbal sparring, and the Love... It has experienced a life of great meaning, this place, and now its body is tired and sore.

It helps me to believe that what I am doing here is helping anoint this space...helping to prepare it for death, for evolution, for whatever it is that will come...and this anointing happens by the care I take, by attitude and disposition, by my spirit.

I find myself returning to my understanding of Love...and how deeply that spirit, that feeling, can go... and yet, for Love to be as large and expansive as it can be--that is to say, for Me to experience an ever greater fullness of God, for this Love to be the home I know, there must also be within me a spirit of freedom and detachment... I met the Society in this building...among many women who are now gathered to God and keeping watch...In fact, I met death here in the living room...I was welcomed here, found a place here, and was sent forth from here a better person, a kinder person on some levels, wiser, more authentic, because of all of the challenge and all of the grace.

It is this mix of prismatic light that I pray fills me, inspires me, and grounds me, as I work to free this space from what holds it bound and honor the the incredible swirl of spirit that has embraced it for so long.

----

28 August, 2014

I am back in Halifax now, having arrived utterly exhausted last night. I am back from the loving embraces of folks at Xavier; back from a slowly emptying edifice that seemed to close in on itself; back from the morning jokes with the guys at the parking garage across the street; back from washing my hands at least ten times a day; back from the conversations and laughter that can happen with strangers; back from a friend driving down an avenue, seeing me on the sidewalk, and calling my name through her open car window as she crammed into a parking spot; back from clamor and echoes against bare walls; back from dust and the well-settled accumulated whatnot of longevity; back from the memory of my first grand adventure, working for the New York Public Library; back from a City that has always had room for me, for who I am.

And yes, it is a bittersweet mixture that fills me here...listening to the seagulls, doing translations, and unpacking the final two boxes that were sprung at last from their month and a half long purgatory in a warehouse somewhere.

The doors needed to close. I could see that. And fittingly on this feast day, I believe too that "Our hearts are restless until they rest in thee, Oh God..."

In thee, Oh God. Not in a particular address or a city or a country. In thee....a home so much more expansive, accommodating, liberating, diverse, endless, fascinating, and freeing than any other I can imagine.

 

Thursday, August 7, 2014

For God

by Lyn Mason, 2006

For God, In Gratitude


It would seem

that you

delight in me.

 

Thank you

for that.

 

I too

find joy in you

and love it

 

when you

play hide

and seek

 

just to watch

my face

when you open

 

deep inside outside

wide your love

and sing

 

in the voice of a snapdragon,

in the challenging grace of change,

in the heart of an embrace,

 

Here I am

Here I am

Here I am.

Kimberly M. King, rscj.

Monday, August 4, 2014

So Begins a new Adventure...

 

And so begins a new adventure...with games of Scrabble and laughter and cooking in a new kitchen with someone else who also was unfamiliar with the treasures hidden within drawers and behind cupboards...Have you seen a wooden spoon? Ah...and oil...where do you suppose...?

And it begins with a library card and long wanders and small discoveries that delight--the rose entwined lamp post, the morning sun that streams in my bedroom window, the big purple sign that might actually spell out the name of a store but for me says "If you can see me, you are turned in the right direction to walk to the majority of the places you might want to go."

And it begins with writing...(this from the other day)

2 August, 2014

3:15 pm On a bench in the public garden, having had a day of walking and good adventure. Went with A and M down the the farmer's market--such a delight. M and I sampled our way through on the most delicious bites of things--little tastes, no more, but they were just the thing...they were beautifully enough to be bright gifts for the senses. A bit of cracker with gingered pear jam and a lovely peppered strawberry preserve that begged to be enjoyed with well paced hope and concentration. It is good to be back in a nook and cranny city where you can walk with a purpose and also step aside into a thought, into a twisting bit of greenery, a welcome bench, an interesting statue or bit of architecture, or step back to lean a while against a wall or post and watch what passes while letting the mind and heart 'see into the life of things' ...things that are immediate and things that are further afield.

 

Too, it begins with gratitude...when I was leaving Saint Charles, I made a point of standing in the classroom where I taught last year and giving thanks for the life that filled that space...the life of the mind, the life of the heart and spirit, the lives of each of my beloved students...and I stopped in the library...and gave thanks for the light that fills that space...for the learning and the growing--both for the students and for myself...for the joy and yes, for the magic...because extraordinary things happened there... A boy understood how an author made people fly, a tiny woman engaged the imaginations of class-fulls of students, and countless students found a book to enter and explore...there are so many stories... Stories with pages, stories of friends who love me, stories of students being who God is calling them to be...and they are all worth reading and re-reading...

And it begins with gratitude for the present moment and what is to come...the 'unknown what lies ahead' and the 'lo más allá.'

Yes, thanks for it all...for this life I have been given to live with my being and shape with love given and received...as grace and growth and joy and challenge...thank you.