A good friend and a half-way decent speller

As I recall, it was the excellent speller and good friend, Charlotte, who called out, “Greetings and salutations,” early on in E.B. White’s classic, Charlotte’s Web. One could do worse than taking Charlotte the spider as a model for saying hello after a long absence. And here I find myself, hoping to be a good friend and reasonably decent speller.

As some of you know, I went to and from the hospital over and over from Juneteenth 2021 to nearly Thanksgiving of that year. There were skilled nurses, physical therapists, and home health care workers in my house regularly until the spring equinox of 2022. Right now, I am observing the anniversary of the five weeks I spent in St. Vincent’s hospital near the end of 2021. 2020 was the last time I hosted my winter solstice contemplative event, Going into the Dark. Through the spring and summer of 2021, ministerial colleagues wrote guest blogs for me. Eventually, my wife and I decided that I needed to close The Way of the River and stop working entirely, for as long as it took for me to grow some solid recovery and capacity.

My heart and lungs had to learn to breathe and keep oxygen flowing in my system. I had to learn how to sit upright. My eyes needed to uncross. I needed to learn to write. Certainly walking is one of the hardest things that I continue to practice.

So for the last year and half, I have had a few spiritual coaching/accompaniment/coaching clients–I love you all so much! Meanwhile, fuller expressions of The Way of the River have been protected by the ashes of its previous life, protected like years-end embers, protected like the chick in the egg. Some time ago, at another turning point, I recognized that even when we don’t know what is to come, sometimes we can move forward toward an unseen hope.

“The chick in her egg / has no idea what it is to fly. / She does not know what the ground looks like from above. / In fact, she has never seen the ground at all. / She has no foreknowledge of what will come. / She has two feet to scratch, / one tooth to break through, / and the certainty that the world in which she has lived / is too small for her.”

Hope, really?

In the aftermath of the Presidential and other elections of this past week, how can I speak about hope? Really, how dare I?

On Tuesday afternoon and evening and into Wednesday morning of this past week, I keened and wept. I sobbed and howled in a pain that lodged in my belly and spread throughout my body. Something about that experience spoke to me about the value for some of us of a great, big, messy, over-the-top wailing and moaning grief. It hurt. It was loud. I was alone. And it swept over me like tornado, tearing at all but the foundations of my understanding.

By Friday, The Way of the River was reborn. I had thought, “But I don’t have my mailing list. I started from nothing before, and I can do it again.” Then I remember the Facebook Community Group. I figured there would be a few people left in there. 443, as it turned out, when I looked on Friday. And then, as of now, 456. Hello, friends, hello! How delighted I am to know you are there! Not only that, but fifty or so of you came the first day and shared in the Beloved Selfies post. I was floored. And so my hope bloomed a bit more. Hope that I can indeed be useful in this time. Hope that resilience built into small communities of care will make a difference. Hope.

I do not expect you, dear reader, to have hope in this season of grief. One may certainly have fortitude, determination, forward movement, and insistence on justice without hope. Yet remember, hope is not optimism. Hope does not need to insist on one particular outcome as optimism does. Optimism says, “I know that the good will prevail, that the arc of the universe will turn toward justice, that we will be okay.”

Hope knows nothing. Hope is not security. My hope derives from longing: Longing for palpable Divine presence, longing for understanding, longing for compassion, longing for repair. Those longings can turn toward hope when I feel myself being able to be present to what is and to move toward Life unfolding before me. I turn toward Hope when I am with what is, consciously, intentionally, no matter how much it hurts and how much I want to turn away from it.

So today, I am trying to meet the unfolding of Life. And I meet you and your heart with hope.

PS — Shall we meet on December 14th for Going into the Dark? Shall we spend some time contemplating the thin moon and the pinprick stars and the clouds that hide but do not erase them?