How You Makin’ It?
Food for thought on a very busy week:
Living Wage Calculation for New Orleans city, Orleans Parish, Louisiana:
(http://livingwage.mit.edu/: “The living wage shown is the hourly rate that an individual must earn to support their family, if they are the sole provider and are working full-time (2080 hours per year). The state minimum wage is the same for all individuals, regardless of how many dependents they may have. The poverty rate is typically quoted as gross annual income. We have converted it to an hourly wage for the sake of comparison. Wages that are less than the living wage are shown in red.”)
There’s a lot of red on that grid…some perspective as states and Congress debate a minimum wage adjustment to $10.10 an hour…
Do Justice
I am ever so grateful that I was assigned The Wolf Shall Dwell with the Lamb: A Spirituality for Leadership in a Multicultural Community, written by Eric H. F. Law, during my studies at Loyola Institute of Ministry – New Orleans. It has been an invaluable source of wisdom as I bear witness to the ways Unitarian Universalism is and is not welcoming. I gratefully commend it to ministers and lay leadership.
Law is an ordained Episcopal priest who grew up in Hong Kong, then immigrated to the United States when he was 14. He has a lot to say about external and internal culture, both the breadth and depth of hospitality. Law offers a helpful paradigm for understanding how to get beneath the surface of what limits our ability to welcome multiple cultures. He writes:
[E]xternal culture – [music, food, dance, art] – constitutes only a small part of our cultural iceberg. The larger part is the hidden internal culture that governs the way we think, perceive, and behave unconsciously… the “instinct” of our cultures…The cultural environment in which we grew up shapes the way we behave and think. Implicit in this cultural environment are the cultural myths, values, beliefs, and thought patterns that influence our behavior and the way we perceive and respond to our surroundings.
Most of the time we are unconscious of their existence.
They are implicitly learned and very difficult to change…Internal culture is like the air we breathe. We need it to survive and make sense of the world we live in, but we may not be conscious of it.
Internal cultural difference is not a matter of different ways of singing or speaking or dressing. It is a matter of perceiving and feeling.
Some of you may remember the scene from Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (2007) when Harry Potter sees a strange reptilian horse pulling the carriage and asks “What is it?”
Ron Weasley: What’s what?
Harry Potter: That. Pulling the carriage.
Hermione Granger: Nothing’s pulling the carriage, Harry. It’s pulling itself like always.
Luna Lovegood: You’re not going mad. I see them too. You’re just as sane as I am.
While being called as sane as Luna Lovegood was perhaps not particularly reassuring to Harry Potter, I hope that the image can be useful for Unitarian Universalists.
The carriage of our faith does not pull itself. Unitarian Universalism swims in the waters of implicit culture. This faith, our congregations, and each one of us have internal cultures.
And as Law explains:
The same event may be perceived very differently by two culturally different persons because the two different internal cultures highlight different parts of the same incident… To discover the unconscious, implicit part of our culture is a lifelong process. Some of us go through life like a fish in the stream and never know we are living in water… “When whites and people of color recognize that there are cultural differences in their perceptions of power, they take the first step toward doing justice.”
To Eric Law’s multicultural list I will add other layers of internal cultural perceptions of power differences that usually receive only external attention:
* cis- and trans- gendered,
* the gender spectrum from female to male,
* the spectrum of abilities and mobility,
* the sexual orientation spectrum,
* the class caste from poverty to the 1%,
* the ageism that saturates our lives from infancy to elderhood…
Law believes that “because of cultural differences some people are perceived as lions and wolves and some as lambs and calves” unconsciously, setting up “an uneven distribution of power before groups even meet.”
He writes:
If the church is to become the holy mountain on which people from diverse cultures shall not hurt or destroy each other, we must respond to the call to do justice.
Doing justice in a multicultural environment requires us to understand the consequences of these cultural differences in power perceptions. Doing justice commands us to reveal this unconscious and disproportionate distribution of power. Doing justice compels us to develop new leadership skills that can confront injustice. Then we can create a just community when people from different cultures encounter each other with equal strength.
Our call in this time, as a people of faith, is the same one found on the cover to The Hitchhikers’ Guide to the Galaxy, namely, “Don’t Panic.” Realizing that our perceptions will be strongly influence by our internal culture, let us look around at life outside of our stream and honor that the water we live in is not the totality of the human experience.
Let us welcome grace into our midst, offering mercy to ourselves and to each other as we discern how we are together and how we wish to be together. May we bring our whole and holy selves into a community committed to collective liberation, to radical inclusion, to equity and compassion in human relationships.
Beloveds, let us do justice together, faithfully.
Company at the Bedside
On a good night these days our Little Bean (aka, Little Night Owl) will unwind herself very, very slowly towards sleep, slowly-but-steadily, mostly on her own. We have always accompanied her as she falls asleep, and it’s neat now to see her, at 1-and-a-half, sometimes able to navigate the journey herself. Keeping her company while she’s unwinding and heading towards sleep has been reminding me lately of the field of music thanatology.
On a recent trip, our kid’s sleeping place, next to our own.
While I was a Chaplain Intern (for a summer) and then year-long Chaplain Resident at a hospital in Portland, Oregon, there was a music thanatologist on the staff. I was so inspired by her warm energy and dedication to her calling — to serve at the bedside of those going through the life-to-death transition, to provide gentle song and presence beyond words and conversation, particularly at that stage when conversation is no longer possible.
I tend to be a wordy person, one who wants to talk through things, so perhaps that’s one reason I find the field of music thanatology so mysteriously meaningful. Music can tune into our cycles of breath and ease our spirits in unmeasureable ways. And the presence of another person in the room is a palpable, energetic dynamic that is perhaps most notable when there is no one else there. I have sat in the rooms of dying people when there was no one else visiting them, and I will never forget the feeling of absence in those rooms, the visceral feeling of alone-ness surrounding some of those people. Not all, certainly — some were peaceful, content in the quiet. But some people ached to have someone else there in the room with them, I could see it in their eyes when I walked in, a sense of relief that there is someone else here now, someone else with me.
In a somewhat startlingly similar way that I’m surprised not to have noticed anyone else talking about, perhaps because it might seem morbid or ominous to some, babies and small children seem to me to be as unreceptive to conversation at their bedsides as the dying are. There is no rationalizing with a one-year-old about it being “bedtime,” or “past bedtime,” not really. I try anyway; I gently say to our Little Bean over-and-over again, some afternoons at naptime or evenings at bedtime: “it’s time for sleeping, sweetie.” I know that she hears me, and I also know that she has to unwind in her way, at her pace, roaming about the room for a bit, playing with her familiar toys, interacting with me a bit, having a book read to her, a song sung. Sometimes she wants a little more to eat, a little bit of water to drink. Gradually the distance that she is perambulating gets smaller and smaller, and then she is just sitting on her bed with her stuffed animals and her soft scarves. She may need to cry some. She might turn the light off on her own or want it left on. Then she’ll lie down and stare up at the ceiling or the shadows on the wall, and then, finally, she’ll close her eyes, and I’ll hear her breathing shift and deepen.
In all these subtle ways, there are parallels to the dying process that I notice. At the bedside of the dying, just as at my child’s bedside, it is a delicate art, keeping company without overstepping into her space. The transition happens on its own schedule, unrelated to whatever time might be glaring at me from the digital clock. I remind myself that my being there, physically in the room, matters enormously, on any number of conscious and unconscious levels.
One of the things I learned from the Music Thanatologist in Portland was to start out singing a song at one tempo and then, ever-so-gradually, slow it down. That can help relax the listener, help her to slow down her breath as well. I do this with our Little Bean almost every night and sometimes for her afternoon nap as well. Easing into sleep. Helping her learn to slow herself down.
There is a lot of time to stare at the walls and ponder things while keeping someone company at their bedside. This living, it’s all about savoring our days while acknowledging the inevitability of our dying, right? There is a common saying in the hospital chaplaincy world that “people die how they live” and I think about that sometimes. May all our transitions into sleep be gentle rehearsals for our dying, however it may happen, some long distant day far from now. And may we all practice being present with each other and with ourselves, as genuinely and tenderly as we can, each day and night until then. Wishing you good sleep. Peace.
Remember? #NeverLovedUs
“By not finding Dunn guilty of murder, the jury could not unanimously conclude that one white man’s imagination was worth more than one black teen’s life.” -Aura Bogado, Jordan Davis: What We’ve Come to Expect, http://colorlines.com/archives/2014/02/what_weve_come_to_expect.html
“Colorlines publisher and executive director of Race Forward, Rinku Sen, was a guest on the Melissa Harris-Perry show to discuss the dimensions of the Michael Dunn case on Sunday. “What Michael Dunn expected from that interaction was not respect but submission,” she said quoting Tonyaa Weathersbee. “Stand Your Ground laws codify that expectation of submission from young black people to white men.” Rinku goes on to explain how the prosecution’s failure to acknowledge that prevents us from truly highlighting the racial dimensions of this case.” http://colorlines.com/archives/2014/02/fighting_stand_your_ground_law_is_the_anti-lynching_movement_of_our_time.html
No one deserves to die
because a White person is
afraid of not being in control.
Source of all that is holy and true,
heart broken by the dis-ease of racism
infecting this nation,
I am calling out this morning.
Calling out beloveds
whose own humanity has been displaced
by the White supremacist culture of America.
Yeah. All my White people.
Calling us in
to revision this country.
Because our own humanity is lost
when we deny it to another.
Because this is no way to live.
Remember?
Brave Love
Our Thirty Days of Love journal
I have fallen a bit behind. I had high hopes this year of completing the Thirty Days of Love activity calendar with my kids, filling our journal with words, our minds with thoughts, and our hearts with love.
But, alas, we have fallen behind. Our ambitious expectations have been thwarted by dinner preparations and laundry and homework and basketball practice.
Our journal is filled with many blank pages of good intentions.
We have fallen behind, but we are still trying. So this morning, we pulled out the activity calendar and set out to making up for some lost time. We talked. We wrote. And we talked some more.
One of the things that we talked about was Brave Love (an activity from February 2 – I told you were are a little behind).
I asked my boys what Brave Love is and how we see it in action. My seven-year-old son Jackson said that Brave Love means standing up for others. We talked about how Brave Love is tough and scary sometimes and how sometimes Brave Love isn’t so much about love for a person as it is love for humanity as a whole. We talked about how Brave Love is forgiveness and second chances.
We talked about how love isn’t just flowers and hearts and fuzzy feelings, about how Brave Love is doing the right thing even when it’s really, really hard. Jackson told me about how he showed Brave Love when he stood up for a friend who was being picked on a few weeks ago. He talked about how a classmate showed Brave Love when she agreed to go last in the game they were playing at recess. He talked about how another classmate showed Brave Love when he told some kids to stop kicking down their snow fort.
Yes, love is patient and love is kind. But there is a tough and clumsy and scary side of love, too; there is Brave Love.
And, really, I think that Brave Love is the one that trips us up over and over again. Because Brave Love is confusing and messy and hard.
Brave Love is an action, not a feeling. It means listening more than we talk. It means pausing for a moment before reacting. It means meeting another person where they are at, taking one step closer to bridging the gap. Brave Love means standing up for the underdog even when it means that we might suddenly become the underdog ourselves.
Brave Love is a deep breath and a gentle touch when what we really want to do is walk out of the room and shout obscenities. Brave Love is being the first one to say “I’m sorry,” even if we are convinced that we are 100% right. Brave Love is speaking up when we need to and shutting up when we need to, and knowing when one route is better than the other. Brave Love is the courage to love ourselves just as we are. And sometimes Brave Love is simply showing up, with an open mind and a welcome heart.
Brave Love is tough and clumsy; it is unattractive and scary. Brave Love makes us vulnerable to hurt and embarrassment.
But Brave Love also builds bridges and opens doors and changes lives.
In a way, I suppose, Brave Love is like our attempt at the Thirty Days of Love activity calendar: a little disjointed and stumbling, with its fair shares of missed opportunities; but filled with good intentions and compassion and big-heartedness, with try-again’s and new beginnings.
What do you think Brave Love is?
What Bowling Taught Me About Patience
Photo Credit: Angie McMonigal Photography
A couple of week’s ago, on a cold Chicago afternoon, after being cooped up for most of the week, my husband and I looked at each other and said, “Let’s go bowling.”
Now, nothing says wholesome family fun quite like putting on some smelly communal shoes and listening to drunk men swear at the football game, but after being cooped up in the house for more of the week, we were just a little bit desperate.
Matt and Jack have gone bowling together a few times, but this was the first time that Teddy had been bowling. After trying on three (three!) different pairs of shoes, convincing him that the bowling ball that looked like Darth Maul was too heavy for him (he’s just a tiny bit obsessed with Star Wars), and showing him how to put his almost-four-year-old fingers in the ball and roll it down the lane, he was ready to go.
“Self! Self!” he stubbornly said in true Teddy fashion.
He walked to the line holding the ball with both hands and I have never been more certain that a trip to the ER for a broken toe would be in our near future. (By the grace of God, he made it out of the bowling alley with all ten toes intact.)
For ten frames, Teddy grabbed his ball, stepped up to the line, and heaved the ball as hard as he could down the lane. Most of the time, he rolled the ball right into one of the bumpers and it would sloooooowwwly bounce its way down the lane. On each of his rolls, the ball moved so slowly, in fact, that I was pretty sure that it wouldn’t make it to the pins. And, more than a few times, Matt and I exchanged a look that said, “Which one of us is going to ask the surly desk attendant for help when the ball stops in the middle of the lane?” (Fortunately, we never had to answer that question, but for the record, it would have been him.)
On every one of Teddy’s turns the ball moved at a snail’s pace, barely moving down the lane until, finally, it would make it to the pins and maybe even hit down a few. As one of THE most impatient people on the planet, I found the delay to be a bit unsettling at first. Waiting for the ball to plod down the lane, I felt nervous, jittery, and antsy.
But, after a few frames, I realized that what I was feeling wasn’t actually impatience; it was fear. Fear that the ball would never make it, fear that we’d have to ask for help from the surly man at the front desk, fear that Teddy would end up in a tantrumy heap of tears.
But, after a few frames, I realized that the ball would eventually make it to the pins even though it looked like it might stop moving at any moment. And with the fear of not making it subsiding, the waiting actually became the best part of it all. Because in the waiting, I had time to soak it all in. I could watch Teddy’s eyes light up as the ball moved down the lane, I could steal a few glances at my husband, and I watch my older son add up the scores on the screen.
Once the fear of never became the confidence of eventually, I was able to look at the waiting and the slowness in a whole new light.
And I wondered: How many other times have I mistaken fear for impatience? Fear of the never or the always. Fear of the falling and failing. Fear of dead ends and asking for help. Fear that without the end, the means just don’t matter.
And in this fast-paced, frenzy to get something or do something or hit the target, how much has gone unnoticed and how much enjoyment have I missed in the slow-moving journey?
I’ve been struggling a lot with impatience lately, wanting things to happen now, now, now. But I am realizing that this need for things to happen on my timetable is less about fulfillment and satisfaction, and far more about fear. Fear of losing control, fear that I will never make it, fear that I am somehow lacking just as I am and right where I am, fear that I won’t be satisfied until the pins are knocked down so to speak.
We tell ourselves that when the pins are knocked down, then we’ll be happy. When we get married, when we have a baby, when the kids are in school, when the kids are out of the house, when we get the job, when we get the promotion, when we are out of debt, when we buy a house, when we get an agent, when we get published, when we receive this award, when we land that sales account, when…, when…, when…then we’ll be happy. And all the while, the ball is moving slooooowwwwly down the lane and there is so much going on while it rolls if only we’d just notice.
The ball moves slowly, more slowly than we’d like, many times. And we wait and we wait and we wait, growing increasingly tired of all the waiting and more fearful that the ball might actually stop. And in all of that fear, we miss it. We miss the twinkly eyes and the emotions, the bouncing back and forth and the graceful movement to it all, the sights and sounds and people and various goings-on that are actually a really big deal if we’d just stop focusing so much on those damn pins at the end of our lane and trust that the ball will eventually get there.
After bowling for a few hours last Sunday afternoon, and watching the ball move slowly down the lane, I realized a few things. I realized that the ball will slowly, eventually, finally reach the pins; it just takes a little longer sometimes. I realized that if the ball does stop, you can always ask for help (even if you have to ask the surly man behind the desk), get a new ball, and roll again. And, most importantly, I realized that there is so much good stuff going on while we wait for whatever it is that we’re waiting for.
So take your time. Pay attention. Enjoy the journey.
And know that, even when the ball moves slower than we ever thought possible, that at least the pins are happy for few extra moments of peace.
This post originally appeared on the author’s website at www.christineorgan.com.
Beginning must not be the end….
As we conclude this month focused on beginnings, I am struck by the renewed interest in early childhood programs. In 1966, I began my career as a teacher in one of the very first Head Start day care centers, housed in the Plymouth Settlement House in Louisville KY. It was a quality program that changed the lives of the 3- and 4-year old children enrolled in our center. Those 45 children had an exciting learning environment, committed teachers, good food, and a safe place for a nap. Field trips and stories were the order of the day. Language skills blossomed, and curiosity was nurtured. I saw first hand how much an age-appropriate quality educational program can mean to young children as well as their families.
In this month of beginnings, universal access to pre-kindergarten programs was focused on in the State of the Union address, as well as in the NY Governor’s State of the State message. In our push to see that every child has the opportunities a sound education can bring, we ask, will this make a difference? My experience suggests that it will not unless it is followed by a quality K-12 education. As they turned 5 years old, my students left our center with its full day, 11-month educational program. I was horrified when I realized that they would then be enrolled in half-day, 9-month kindergarten classes in a school with many broken windows, and few resources, with teachers who were not supported with books and field trips, art supplies and science equipment. I feared that everything we had accomplished would deteriorate in this new environment. Since then, when I have thought of my students who would now have turned 50, I wonder what happened to them? Was their beginning truly a beginning? Or was it the end?
Much of what has been touted as education reform over the past decade has focused only on ends in the form of test scores. Individual accountability for students and staff is the order of the day. Head Start is criticized because it didn’t change the future. But true beginnings require continuity into the future, and this requires teams of educators and parents building on the beginnings and believing that they can only be successful if they collaborate. No teacher or parent is an island, solely responsible for any outcome. I was a better teacher because I worked with a team. We collaborated with parents, visiting in their homes and inviting them into the center. In the public schools I worked in and to which I sent my children and grandchild, classroom teachers and special educators worked side by side. Art and music teachers were as important as math and reading teachers. Everyone had a role to play, and we are all successful when a child was successful and happy in learning.
So what is a beginning? Is it a starting place, a place to build on? If we don’t build together, then all these beginnings will be dead ends.
How will you build on a beginning in your community, in your life?
How Is It with Your Day?
I recently asked a friend, via e-mail, what her daily routine was like. It was delightful to get a sense of her day in an hour-by-hour play-by-play sort of way. I could tell from her rough daily itinerary where she lived (and that she and her family are enjoying the warm southern-California winter weather) and what her priorities are (her children, family, spiritual practice, personal health). I loved learning about how she wove into her family’s life some semblance of structure combined with the breathing room that allows for playfulness and ease.
I found it inspiring to read about her day-to-day, and it made me want all of us to share, post, and exchange our daily routines. It also made me want to ponder my own more intentionally. As parents of a toddler, much of my and my partner’s lives right now are focused on curating routine. So many of the parenting gurus say: routine, routine, routine — that’s what cultivates a feeling of calm and confidence, of the kid being able to anticipate what’s coming next and start to get herself prepared for getting out the door, back into the stroller or carseat, ready for dinner or bedtime. So lately I’ve had this primarily logistical, linear appreciation of routine — a leads to b, b leads to c, and so on, until the day is done and we collapse into sleep.
Through my friend’s-and-my simple e-mail exchange I realized (again) how significant our daily routines also are in terms of our spiritual health. In this new year one of my personal goals has been just to get to bed before midnight. Perhaps that doesn’t sound that ambitious, but after our kid’s bedtime is the time when we have to do the dishes and the laundry, pay bills, catch up on whatever online, get some work done, clean up, plan for the next day, relax a little bit, and, oh yeah, talk to each other. It’s easy for me to end up staying up later and later if I don’t set an intention. And that is how I aim to think of these routines — as intentions, efforts to bring some semblance of structure, of a container that can hold the over-fullness of our lives.
The routine of our day is also, I re-realize now, like a recipe. I love cooking, love following the clear outline of a recipe. Too often the to-do list that starts churning in my brain as soon as I’m blearily waking up is an unachievable, endless and random list of tasks. The beauty of intentionally outlining a daily routine is that it also lifts up the importance of things that wouldn’t make that to-do list, but are actually the most essential elements of the recipe: get up. Wake up the home (open the shades & curtains, turn on lights, bring in the newspaper). Wake up the body (bathe, shower, get dressed, have breakfast). And so on.
Many teachings emphasize beginning any spiritual practice by training our hearts and minds. Some days the simplest practice for me is to chop vegetables, clean up — my own take on the oldest teachings of “chop wood, carry water.” I end the day turning off all the lamps, the computer, the wireless, silently saying goodnight to the home. This is the end of what this day held. There is a peaceful closure to this one-minute act — it is the garnish on the day that was.
Separate from all the tasks of our lives, our days hold rituals, routines, and structure to them. Articulated, these routines have a kind of beauty, the simple clarity of a recipe. I write our family’s daily routine up and post it on the fridge. Wake up the home. Begin the day… And right there, when I read those first words, I feel a greater sense of possibility and spaciousness. Life is not an endless series of tasks unless we let it be only that.
And you? How is it with your day?
The Coin That Wowed Me
A very simple thing happened the other day. Someone bought me the 20 cent stamp I needed to mail my father’s birthday card. But it wowed me. You see, I had included in the same envelope a card from my spouse and myself and one I had made from my two-month-old daughter to her grandfather. I was feeling proud of myself for being almost a week ahead of time this year. I had even managed to find a stamp!
With hope that this would be the year that I could get cards to Dad in time for his birthday, I hurried between feedings to our local drug store where they have a postal counter, trying to make it before the mailman arrive to pick up the days mail. About half-way there, I realized I didn’t have any cash on me, not even a quarter. If my letter was overweight, I wasn’t sure when I would get free again to run what would have been such a simple errand pre-baby, but in my new-mom state, was still a feat!
The mailman’s truck was in front of the drug store and the mailman was inside patiently waiting for an elderly woman to complete her transaction at the counter so he could take her package. He graciously accepted the other letters I had to mail (baby announcements, stamped and ready to go). And then waited (still patiently) for the clerk to weigh my Dad’s cards. The verdict: “You need $.20.” Normally, this would not be a big deal. Normally, I would simply mail the cards priority mail the next day, but this time, I felt majorly defeated.
I realize now that mailing the birthday cards had become a marker of what I can accomplish as a new mother. I had just accepted a part-time job beginning in February, and I was (and am) nervous about being able to do – not “it all,” but just some – enough to keep my head above water, to serve the congregation who has hired me well, care for my baby, and not miss too much of her magic along the way. If I could get those cards in the mail to Dad on time, I would be a successful person, even with baby!
But I couldn’t. “I can’t do it then,” I said to the clerk and the mailman. “I don’t have any cash, not even a quarter.” I turned to walk away.
Then in a fluid motion, before I could even see what was happening, the mailman reached into his pocket, pulled out a quarter and gave it to the clerk who, equally fast, put the extra stamp on the letter, gave it to the mailman, collected the quarter and put it in his drawer.
I was left standing there, an unconscious “wow” escaping my lips, only mildly embarrassed, grateful, and awed by what may well have been more an act of efficiency rather than kindness, but a simple act nonetheless that reminded me to accept the grace that is offered, the help that is extended, and to do so humbly, with gratitude and, yes, awe.
Unconditional Love: An Epiphany
Over winter solstice, I watched my father tending to KG, his first grandchild, with unconditional love. We had just celebrated her one year birthday and she was beginning to cruise around with increased confidence. As she found herself standing in front of my mother’s highly breakable ceramic nativity scene, KG began to methodically hand each figure to my father. He gratefully received them from her and moved them to another shelf.
My sister, the mother of the much adored child said, “No, KG. No touch.” My dad just stayed there, receiving each figurine from the determined Katie Grace. “I’ll catch them,” he said. “I don’t really tell her no.”
Now I confess, my sister and I both nearly fell off the sofa in that moment. Who was this man gently hovering over his grandchild with a blissful air of yes, the same man who was forever telling us no as children?
“ No! Kristy quit! No, no! Deanna don’t!”
I mean sometimes we thought those were our names: Deanna Don’t and Kristy Quit.
Did someone body snatch our father?
Upon further reflection, I think it is maybe a little less complicated than alien body snatching. I think my father has had an epiphany about unconditional love.
The way that child lights up every time her Pop Pop walks into the room. How she reaches for him no matter who is holding her.
It is powerful to be loved that way. It breaks open our hearts. It tells us we are enough and calls us to love others with broken open hearts. Radically inclusive, unjudging hearts.
Beloveds, may you all know that you are loved the way KG loves her Pop Pop. Unquestioned, unjudged. Loved. Beloved. Yearned toward. Reached for. Held.
May this knowledge continually break open our hearts so that we can experience the divine love of the universe and shine the light of this love onto each other.
May this season of Epiphany bring you not only the sweetness of King Cake – may it also bring you the sweetness of receiving the unconditional love of the universe.