January 5, 2018…
Legend has it that I was
born quacking like a duck; I’ve been told that I was an observant child who was
easy to entertain, except for all of the questions; that I was independent,
curious, and creative; that I read early and would make myself laugh by
repeating lines that tickled me in some way.
Lived and remembered truth tells me that I was also extremely sensitive
to what was happening around me and that my early school peers didn’t always
appreciate my preferred sense of solitude.
I met “my people” in eighth grade and have been blessed with deep and abiding
friendships ever since. Friends of all
sorts and stripes, friends in all corners of geography, friends that teach me
about so much that is good and worthy in this world.
What I live now,
forty-eight years on, has brought me so far beyond anything I dreamed for
myself as a child. What a privilege and
reason for deepest gratitude that all I can remember hoping for has come to
pass. I have work that means
something. I have a place to exercise my
voice and share it with the world. I
know what it is to be loved. I have seen
faraway places. And learning something new is everyday glory
for me…
From even before I had
a vocabulary for things related to God, before I had attended church, before I
chose to give my life to the discovery and revelation of the love of the heart
of Jesus in the Society of the Sacred Heart, God has shielded me, prompted me,
strengthened me, marveled with me, challenged me, been with me, and in the large, the little, and all, has never left
me alone. God is my constant, my draw
onward, my awe, and has saved me over and again in a multitude of ways. Looking back, as a friend recently wrote in a
message across a couple thousand miles, I can say beyond any suggestion of
doubt, “Prayer took place, and I was there.” What Love lies within that…
To that, and for these
years, I say simply and with all of the truth I know, Thanks be to God for this
gift of breath and being.
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