“If you don’t find God in the next person you meet, it is a waste of time looking for him further.”- Mahatma Gandhi
I missed sending you a Sunday’s Thought (and a blog of the rest of the week’s thoughts too) for all kinds of good reasons. Facetime with one daughter, long distance texts to my son, a long chat on the phone with my soon to be 94-year-old mother-in-law, Grandma Joanne who lives on her own still in Florida. Actually, she is not alone. There is her dog, her neighbor’s dogs- and her neighbors- her daughter and her daughter’s dogs live nearby and everyone visiting with or associated with all those people (and dogs) gather on her shady patio every evening and a lot of afternoons.
I fretted over a trip to a wedding this weekend. I’m traveling with three of my tween granddaughters. I don’t like to fly and I don’t have fancy clothes. Luckily another daughter helped me shop and picked out dresses and shoes, a pashmina! (Who knew?) I will wear them like a costume.
Speaking of Halloween. Do I tell you about the witches’ paddleboard in the harbor on Saturday? The haunted aisles at the lumberyard on Friday? Or just the song Kay played on her radio show on my way home from buying Dramamine and a mini-toothpaste? The kind I sang along with as the the windshield wipers flapped in time —the one that made me laugh out? Steve Martin and the Steep Canyon Rangers’ Atheists Don’t Have No Songs. Listen to it. Laughing is good.
Also, why did my step feel so much lighter after the election news? It’s also good to notice what I hold in my body and what it feels like to let it go.
What I want to be sure to tell you before I board the plane in Juneau is a story from the All Saints Day homily at Saturday mass, which I attended with my friend Teresa. She is back from a wedding in the Lower 48 and a trip to Italy and both look good on her, if you know what I mean.
The visiting priest from Juneau, who is originally from India, talked to us about saints, both canonized and not, them and us, and how we are all connected as spirit ancestors. Both by blood and community. Family and those who influenced us. The people we have loved and admired. The ones we miss. They support and protect us even though we can’t see them. Some in small ways and some much greater.
Gandhi, for example. (This is where I perked up. A Hindu saint.) He spoke of the great, peaceful leader’s assassination, but said the pain was brief and forgotten as soon as he was embraced by St. Peter, Jesus, Mary, Joseph and St. Michael and all the Angels at the gates of heaven as a good and faithful servant. He said Gandhi took his place in that long and growing line of holy greeters that welcome new arrivals.
Walking down here in the rainy wet has been a challenge. Chip and I decided to hike in the woods, where we wouldn’t be as exposed. Dashing through puddles along the cove before cutting up the old logging road it felt like I was being sprayed with a cold strong hose. It was so awful all we could do was laugh.
In the deeper woods, behind the cliff, it was still raining but not sideways. The tops of the spruce and hemlock trees swayed. Their intertwined roots keep them from falling. Hold the forest together. Hold their community together. Keep them all standing tall.
Before I could think too much about that, a beam of sunlight from a crack in the storm clouds shown bright as a flashlight on a tree, stopping me dead. Father Blaney, an old Boston priest who is now with the angels, told me that when God taps you on the shoulder, pay attention.
You know me, I can make a lot out of all of this. I probably will someday, but I’ll need more time to think. Right now I have a wedding to get to, and you have a weekend to pay attention to that tap on your shoulder. (And a few things to ponder, too.)
( Forgive my typos. I don’t usually type for publication in airports. This may be a first.)
