Stars in the Trees

About this time a few years ago, my niece and I were walking in Charlottesville up to the Corner, where I had promised her a treat. I was holding her hand as we walked through the Grounds of UVa. It was a beautiful winter evening. There were Christmas lights on the trees, but I hadn't noticed them. I was worried about the street crossing and the people and the time and whether or not I was going to be able to finish my paper that was due the next day.

And suddenly, she stopped dead in her tracks and forced me to stop too. "Look, Auntie Barbara!" she said with awe and wonder. "There's stars in the trees!"

I looked up and saw the trees on the Corner, lined up and lit up for Christmas. I wondered for a moment if I ought to correct her, to explain that there were actually filaments and bulbs made up of plastic and electricity in the trees. Instead I paused and looked at the trees and saw that she was right. For a moment, I saw the world the way a four-year-old sees it, and I saw that her way was a little bit more accurate than mine.

"Oh. You're right," I said quietly.

Christmas is a good time to remember the wisdom we learn from children, the wisdom of living in the present and receiving the gift of the present moment. And then it can be a time of being still and seeing things exactly as they are: not as we imagine them, not as we fear them.

Poet Marie Howe has an exercise every year that she teaches her poetry students. She says that she tells them to simply write down three things that they see every day. And it's funny, she says, how difficult it is when they first start, to avoid comparison and metaphor, and to simply see things as they are. But after a few weeks of this careful observing, she says:

"Then this amazing thing happens. Clinkety, clank, clank, clank, onto the table pours all this stuff, and it thrilling. The slice of apple, and then that gleam of the knife, and the sound of the trashcan closing, the maple tree, the blue jay."

Everyone feels the change, the shift within themselves that has taken place when they finally begin living "the sacrament of the present moment."

That is the space where life happens, where gratitude happens, where poetry happens.

I think that's one of the reasons why the Church insists on Advent, and doesn't do the retail world's "Hallow-Thanks-Christmas." The quiet space of Advent draws us out of our busy-ness and into the sacrament of the present moment, into the realization that the world isn't only made up of plastic and electricity: the physical world is always pointing us to something deeper than itself -- though we are physical creatures and must begin by paying attention to our physical world.

Advent is the place of paying attention, the place where we stop -- "look!" as my niece said -- and only when we stop and look can we begin to approach the Nativity scene and see something more than a poor family with their baby in a manger.

Pious Old Women

Today I was forced to think about two things that are kind of scandalous about being Catholic in 2013:

1. Relics.

2. Pious Old Women.

First, relics. "This is a tiny piece of a bone of a saint." Or, "This is a tiny piece of a cloth that once touched a tiny piece of a bone of a saint." I've often wondered about how to react to relics. It is so foreign to our modern minds to even think about death, much less to keep bones around where you can see them.

Second, perhaps part of the hesitation with relics is that they are so often beloved by that other difficulty, that is, pious old women. You know who I am talking about. The old lady who comes half an hour early to church to pray the rosary loudly (and perhaps to tell you that you should be a nun). The woman who says uncomfortable things quite comfortably. 

And so it took me by surprise today to find myself in line at the Basilica behind a number of pious old women waiting to venerate a relic of St. Peter. Again I was struck by the strangeness of it, how different it was from anything I would encounter on a daily basis, how almost-comical it would be if I didn't believe that it was true: here's a piece of a bone of the man who walked on water.

And again I was struck by that same "other-ness" of the pious old women with their flip phones taking pictures of it. I smiled to myself wondering if they had a whole album on their tiny phones of tiny relics, and maybe they flipped open those phones during Thanksgiving with their families as they told their niece that she was dressed like a hussy and she shouldn't do that because -- "Look at this relic."

But my cynical sense of humor was interrupted by the Monsignor who happened to be having a conversation at the end of the line with just one of those women, one I know rather well. He didn't have the look of panic on his face that most people have when they speak with her -- the look of "How am I going to find a way to get out of this conversation?" He didn't have the look of someone who was secretly laughing at her piety, as she went on about the time that she once sang in a chorus that sang for the Pope's visit. He didn't have the look of someone who was condescending to speak to her -- and he might have, considering that this is DC, the name-dropping, networking city, where important people attend Mass at the Basilica.

No, I looked at his face as he attentively listened and smiled at her, and I looked at the faces of the pious old women in front of the relics, and I saw the same expression. The Monsignor, too, was venerating a relic.

And that's when I really realized how Christianity places such a radical emphasis on the beauty of each human person the entire person, body and soul. Even the tiniest part of that person. Even the oldest person. C.S. Lewis once said, “Next to the Blessed Sacrament itself, your neighbor is the holiest object presented to your senses.” 

So today I said a prayer of Thanksgiving for pious old women and for all that they challenge us to be. 

Paying Attention

God never said it would be easy, did he? Ever have just "one of those days" where all of the smallest things go wrong? One of those days where you are pretty sure that you are not adequate to the task, not really able to do all the things that you want to do, all the things you are being asked to do?

I've learned to pay attention on those days most of all. Grace will show up. It will show up in a thousand little ways, just when you discounted there being any hope of it at all.

I sat down in the middle of the afternoon on just one of those days, feeling defeated. There were a million things to do, and had I done them? It was only 1pm -- how was I so tired already? I felt myself comparing me to other people -- that person would know what to do, this person would never lose the energy. I wanted to say a prayer, but no prayer came. I would just have to be faithful, to trudge on.

And then I got a text from a friend who said, "Remember: you are loved. To infinity."

I could have dismissed the moment as a sweet thought, maybe a warm and fuzzy thing. But something told me to hold onto that thought for a moment longer. To pay attention. It was more than a friend texting something kind -- although seriously, what a wonderful friend. It was a moment of grace in a moment of discouragement. We have to hold onto those little moments. We have to believe that those moments are God speaking to us through others.

Sometimes on those days, it comes in a simple breeze that reminds us of the Holy Spirit. In the smile of another person. St. Vincent de Paul said that "Love is inventive even to infinity." God is always there, breaking through, trying to tell us that he will see us through those days, telling us in a million different ways -- through prayer, through others, through the beauty of nature, through music -- grace is there, inventive even to infinity, determined to show us that we are loved, and we must be looking for it, we must be waiting for it, waiting to be surprised by this love that is breaking through even when we have "one of those days."

Stronger than the World

On my way home recently, I decided to stop at my favorite bagel shop. It's a far walk from the metro, but I decided that I would get a bagel for lunch, buy a bag of bagels to share, and then take the bus home.

I ate lunch there, bought a half dozen bagels, and waited for the bus. All seemed to be going according to plan. But just before my stop, a whole crowd of people got onto the bus. When my stop came, they hadn't yet had a chance to move to the back. So I was faced with a choice: assume that the crowds would part for me, or take the back exit.

What I should have done: take the back exit. What I did: assume that the crowds would part for me.

They didn't. And as I bumped into a very apologetic gentleman, the bag of bagels broke. My precious bagels fell to the ground, as I'm sure my jaw did.

I picked them up hastily, and sadly exited the bus, feeling defeated by the world and my own clumsiness.

Now I play the ten second rule (sometimes the thirty second rule), but not with bus floors. I had to toss them in the trash. If you've ever wondered what a broken promise looks like, I'd say it looks like fresh bagels in a trash can.

If you're laughing, I suspect that it's probably because you know what fresh bagels in a trash can feels like. You know what being defeated by the world and your own clumsiness feels like.

So where is God in those little moments of frustration, in the fresh bagels that fall to the floor, in the alarm clock that doesn't go off, in the computer that freezes, or in the countless other little moments that make us sigh?

I think there are a lot of potential answers to that question, once we give ourselves the freedom to ask it. We don't usually allow ourselves to ask it because it seems... petty. Small. And maybe it is. But once we admit that we are small and our questions are small, we can be free enough to ask them honestly.

I suspect that maybe God is in the realization of our call to solidarity -- in that sobering realization that there are too many who go hungry in the world, and that for many people in the world, a story about wasted food isn't very funny.

These moments always humble us because they remind us that we aren't the center of the universe, that the world doesn't turn on our principles or wishes. There are principles like gravity and the free will of other people that operate completely independent of our plans. Maybe God is in that awareness of our smallness, which allows us to slowly become aware of his complete "Other-ness," and our mission to love and serve each other in solidarity, with that love that is "stronger than the world" and all of its frustrations.

Evening Prayer

"But Mary kept all these things, and pondered them in her heart." Luke 2:19

What a heart Mary must have had, to be able to keep all these things, to cherish and to see God’s presence in everything.

I’m not there yet. I don’t know yet how to hold all these things as gifts from God. Not always sure how to see God's presence in everyone -- like that person who stands on the left side of the escalator during rush hour (seriously, if you're in DC, the rule is walk left and stand right, people). 

Still, my heart took in three things earlier this week as I walked home from the metro.

The first: every day I walk past a parking lot where a driving school has their driving lessons. I walked past a teenager talking on the phone with her mom, asking her to pick her up. The joy in her voice was contagious as she said, “And I drove on the Beltway today, Mom! It was great! I’m so excited!”

Then I walked past this little toddler outside with her father, who was doing yard work. She was busy doing yard work, too, attempting to “rake” the yard, likely causing more work for him, but he told her that she was doing a good job.

And just before I reached my house, I noticed this little patch of wildflowers near a construction fence.

And so my prayer tonight is a prayer of gratitude for these little moments of joy – moments that prove to me over and over again that life isn’t about wealth or status, but about being more like Mary -- small enough to let our hearts ponder this great love that surrounds us daily. 

Filling in the Blanks

Fill in the blank:

If people really knew ________ about me, I'm not entirely sure they would love me.

It doesn't have to be a great mystery or a deep dark secret. But you know that the blank is there. Maybe there are lots of things you could fill that blank with. 

The blank is that something-that-separates-us-from-each-other. It's that broken part of ourselves that we try to make sense of. It's that thing you talk around so that you don't have to talk about.

I recently re-read the story in the Gospel of the woman caught in adultery that the crowd wants to stone. Jesus somehow disperses the crowd, somehow sends every would-be stone thrower away. And then he says something amazing: "Neither do I condemn you. Go and sin no more." 

He really sees the woman and knows who she is. Go and sin no more. He doesn't hide the fact that he knows what she has done and who she has been. She is completely known. How does she bear that?

Neither do I condemn you. He knows her completely. And loves her completely. She is both known and loved.

We hold those two truths with us at all times -- the One who knows us best is the One who loves us the most. We let that truth sink in and penetrate and carve out a space in our hearts until there is space for compassion and forgiveness, until we know in our bones that the One who knows us and loves us also knows others more and loves them more deeply than we are capable of.

And then -- then life begins to happen. We are known, which means our smallness is known; we don't have to pretend anymore. We can give up all the things we thought made us worthy of love, all of those things that we thought might fill that blank space, and start living in that all-consuming, all-knowing, all-freeing love. We can laugh at ourselves.

We start living. Which isn't particularly exciting on the surface. We imagine a perfect morning and then hit the snooze button three times instead. We get up in the morning and go to work, and sometimes we don't want to but we do it anyway, and we try to do it with a smile and sometimes we fail at that, too. We answer our e-mails. We go about our small, everyday tasks. 

But in filling that space, in knowing and in experiencing our weaknesses, in loving us even though we are weak, Christ grants us a freedom to be small -- to embrace the smallness of the blind man who cries out for help, the smallness of Peter, who is willing to walk on water, the smallness of the woman about to be stoned. In each of these stories, you can almost feel the immediate freedom that comes from each of these people encountering Christ and handing him their smallness.

And so it is with us. Our small, everyday tasks have meaning. They give us reasons to laugh and to cry on a daily basis. And more than that, we begin to see that our real task is to love each other as Christ loved that woman. Our real task is to suspend our judgment and our gossiping and our manipulation. Our real task is to put down the stones that we want to throw and to speak hope to that blank space inside each human heart: You are known. You are loved.

Sudoku

I love sudoku. This is a slightly new development; I've always enjoyed puzzles, word jumbles, and strategy games, but over the past week, I have discovered that sipping morning coffee and figuring out a sudoku puzzle is one of those simple joys in life that is worth making time for.

And I have learned some lessons from sudoku, which I feel obligated to share. Hint: I'm not just talking about sudoku. 

1. When I first start a sudoku, I immediately feel overwhelmed by the number of possible ways to begin. I usually have a moment of panic where I wonder if I'm really starting the puzzle in the most efficient way. What I found was that the most efficient way to begin is... to begin.

2. Figuring out the puzzle is a constant balance between looking at the big picture and examining each small detail. There's an exciting rhythm to be found in balancing both of these at the same time.

3. Mistakes are fairly inevitable, and sometimes they are helpful. It can be frustrating, but it really isn't that hard to re-trace your steps and figure out where you went wrong. Mistakes in the puzzle will be messy, but an abandoned puzzle will be blank.

4. Use a pen. I'm going to make my mistakes and make them boldly. Pencils make it too easy to be timid, to figure that I can just erase things and start over, to take the whole thing too lightly.

Yup. I'm a little addicted to sudoku these days. It's a stretch, but this is what I've learned from sudoku this week:
Something that seems random and chaotic and meaningless can become
(with a little gentle re-arrangement, with a little persistence, with a lot of coffee)
something ordered and coherent and... (I'm really stretching things here) beautiful.

Laughing and Crying at the Same Time

I have been thinking lately of those people in the Gospels who practically make a fool of themselves because they want the healing of Christ so desperately. 

In particular, I've been thinking of the blind man in Luke's Gospel, who keeps crying out, "Jesus, Son of David, have pity on me!" The disciples tell him to stop. I can just imagine them thinking, "Stop being so desperate. It looks pitiful. Have some dignity."

But that isn't Christ's response. His response to desperation isn't to turn away in disgust or in shame, but to ask -- What is it that you ask of me? 

The blind man is healed because he asks. Because he isn't afraid to make a fool out of himself in front of the entire crowd, to risk embarrassment, to risk being told that he isn't worthy, to risk those judgmental stares of everyone who thinks that he is blind because he is a sinner. 

I can imagine being in that crowd. I can imagine thinking that Jesus is great, what he's saying is wonderful, what he's doing for those other people is pretty impressive. 

But if he turned and asked me what I wanted -- I think it would be very easy for me to say, "What? Me? I'm fine. I don't need anything. Hey -- could we see that water into wine thing again?" I'd be tempted to stay blind my whole life rather than cry out in faith.

But -- there's another part of the story that intrigues me. It's that the whole scene is also just a little bit... funny. This whole blog post is so serious that it's funny. I mean, the guy is flaunting all social norms and just shouting in the middle of a crowd. He couldn't have done that if he were taking himself that seriously. I can just imagine the faces of people who have no idea how to respond to the situation. It's funny. And maybe that's important too -- we're weak, we're vulnerable, and you know what, we're refreshingly hilarious when we are those things. 

All this is to say, of course, I'd rather be more like the blind man and embrace the whole of life. That's really all I have to say about it at the end of the day -- I want to take it all in -- the sadness and the joy, the brokenness and the healing, the tragic and the comic -- just a little bit more.

Pruning

I set out to do some yard work on Saturday. I dug out the gloves and clippers, and prepared for some pruning, but was totally startled by the amount of vines covering part of our backyard.

How had it gotten this bad?

At first, it was almost comical how quickly and completely the vines had grown and covered so much ground. Franken-vines. It was funny until it was not -- until I realized that I had to put down the clippers and just start pulling with my hands.

How had I let these vines take over?

I was busy. How was I supposed to have time for things like pruning vines?

Of course that sounded hollow. I thought of Marie Howe's poem entitled "Magdalene -- The Seven Devils" and that first line: "The first was that I was very busy..."

We were all busy. It wasn't just me. But that just sounded like I was looking for someone else to blame, and that wasn't the question that was bothering me. I kept wondering -- as two grasshoppers startled me by landing on my leg -- how had I let it get like this? 

Ouch. My arm had run up against thorns, and I had to bring the clippers out again. I wasn't expecting thorns. I thought we were only dealing with one species of vines here...

I wasn't quite expecting the answer that came to me, a few hours later, as I was finishing up. I slowly became aware of the work I had done, and aware of the fact that if the weather hadn't been so cool, I never would have been able to get all of it finished. Thank God for the weather. 

Ah. There it was. Gratitude. Maybe I was busy. Maybe some of those things were worthwhile. But -- the grateful person takes care of what she has. A grateful person takes time to pause in gratitude and prune away those things that threaten growth and life. More gratitude means fewer vines and thorns.

I stepped back. The vines were bagged. The yard was clear again. Maybe it was a little better than before, actually. I was sore and tired and a little concerned that the poison ivy had gotten on my face (it hadn't). But I resolved that there would be more gratitude in my life. Time to begin again. 

The Waiting Room

Earlier in the week, I was in the doctor's office. Compulsively early as always, I waited while two people went ahead of me. The nurse at the front desk asked them a few questions before escorting them to their appointments. They probably assumed I wasn't listening (which, by the way, is always a bad assumption), and so they asked some questions in front of me.

She asked a woman in her early fifties, "How many pregnancies have you had?"

The woman said with a half-smile, "I had two babies."

"So... two pregnancies?" the nurse corrected.

The woman's smile disappeared, as if it were a sobering thought to realize that the two answers could have been different, and she answered the question directly this time. "Yes. Two pregnancies."

What she said was a piece of medical history, a fact necessary for her file.

What I heard was, "I still think of my grown children as my babies." 

The nurse's fingers typed. "Ok. You can take a seat now. Thank you."

After her, an older man came in, probably in his sixties.

"Back pain."

"How long has it been hurting?"

"I fell about six months ago... And I've been getting older..." He tried to laugh when he said he was getting older, but no laughter came, and the nurse didn't find it funny either.

The nurse spoke aloud, as she typed on the computer, "Back pain. Six months."

What he said was simple. What I heard in the pause between the end of that sentence and the beginning of a laughter that died in his throat was, "Getting old is kind of scary and frustrating." 

You get what I'm saying, right, even if you think I over-analyze? That space between what we say and what we mean, how we speak and how we feel -- that's the space you'll find if you wait long enough.

Limitations

I think we have a funny way of looking at commitments. On one hand, we over-use the word "yes." We hate to say no. On the other hand, we seem to have secret some secret fantasy to pull an Eat, Pray, Love and run off to some other land and forget all of our obligations altogether.

My dad always says that life is a balance, and there certainly is a tension here that must be balanced. On one hand, at times our indifference leads us to be afraid of commitments, afraid of consequences, and we refuse to act at all. On the other hand, sometimes we fool ourselves into thinking that we can do it all and have it all and we wind up scattered and unable to simply be. 

Whenever I feel a pull to either extreme, I somehow wind up at my favorite bagel shop. I can't quite explain it, but it's such a wonderful slice of humanity (bagel puns? really, Barbara?) in a world that so often seems un-human.

On Sunday morning I order a Black Russian bagel with cream cheese and a medium coffee and I sit in the corner. I start thinking about the past week. And over the past few weeks, a sneaking suspicion has come over me that maybe this is where we figure out life -- not in running away from it, either by too many obligations or by avoiding obligations, but in really living in the moment. In tasting and savoring the moment -- seriously, those are the best bagels.  In smelling the morning coffee. In listening to the banter of those behind the counter.

And that's all. The experience of the bagel shop is limited to tastes and smells and banter. But that's life, isn't it? It's made up of those little things. It is limited to what we see and hear in the moment; truth comes through the senses, and our senses are limited to a very particular time and place. It is necessary to embrace our limitations, embrace our little piece of time and space, in order to truly know ourselves and to know what things we ought to say "yes" and "no" to. What are the things we need to say "yes" to, even if they are difficult, in order to bring us to true freedom? What are the unnecessary things we need to say "no" to, in order to acknowledge our limitations and truly give not just many things but ourselves? Maybe it's in these little, limited experiences that God creates a space our hearts to begin to answer these questions.

Speaking of which -- I think this is where I have to end my post. A Dallas Cowboys fan has walked in to the room, and the banter has resumed. I think I will enjoy watching what happens next.

Success

As my birthday is coming up, I started thinking about success and what it means and whether or not I have lived a successful life thus far. And upon reflection, I think I've decided that I am still unclear on what success looks like, but I think I have a pretty good working definition of failure.

A few weeks ago, I hopped on the metro and was unable to find a seat. Metro travelers know that this is a tragedy. I had not had breakfast yet, so I was already feeling a little weak, but I decided that even this moment of mini-tragedy could be a moment of love. The Catholic saying is "Offer it up" but sometimes we say it stoically, as if means the same thing as "Suck it up," and it can't be that. "Offer it up" means to love fully in the moment and to ask God to help you love even the worst parts of that moment. So I stood.

And as I stood, I noticed something. There was a young man with a secret smile, a smile to himself that he probably thought no one else had noticed. My curiosity was piqued -- what was he smiling at? I followed his gaze and saw a young mother with a baby girl. There was joy in her face as she interacted with her baby, even though she was standing and had not gotten a seat. My eye went back to the young man's smile which betrayed a hint of desire, as if he wanted to be a father himself.

Another young woman saw the baby and smiled, but couldn't keep her smile to herself. She started playing with the baby, making goofy faces, unaware of anyone else watching. The mother and she enjoyed a moment of laughter and the baby laughed before the other woman got off at another metro stop.

Another older woman saw the baby, too, and I saw again a secret smile from someplace far away, perhaps from a memory of her own baby.

Then something wonderful occurred. An older gentleman, about three rows behind the mother, suddenly noticed her and stood up, gesturing and offering his seat. He had a huge smile on his face as she gently and politely accepted. He knew he had done something good, and was proud of it, as if that may be the most important thing he would do all day. It was one of those moments on the metro where you want to cheer for all of humanity, for the simple ordinary heroic action of offering up a seat out of love for a stranger and her baby. But when I turned around to cheer with someone else, there was only a sea of faces buried in cell phones and ears plugged with iPods. There was no one to cheer with because no one around me had noticed.

I don't think I know what success is, but now I know what failure is. Failure is to miss the moments of humanity and joy that are surrounding us every day... "We had the experience but missed the meaning..." that is failure.

Success must be something like really living.

Walking on Water

For the past few weeks, there has been an image from the Gospel stuck in my head. It is Peter, walking on water, suddenly sinking, desperately crying out, “Lord, save me!” Jesus, reaching out his hand – “Why did you doubt?” We wonder at Peter’s lack of faith in Jesus, but we also wonder, “What made Peter think he could walk on water in the first place?”

What kind of friendship is this that draws us out into the deep, that calls us to ask, “Can I walk with you, Jesus?"  What made us think we could walk on water in the first place? Why do we feel called further into the deep? What kind of friendship pulls us into the storm, onto the water – and then seems to ask us to remember who we are, to know ourselves for the first time? We cannot walk on water. Suddenly we become aware of our vulnerability, aware that we are in space and time and subject to the laws of gravity – and we call out to Christ to save us.

About a week ago, I was walking home from work on my usual route from the metro stop. I have passed a certain tree every day for the past six months. It’s an ordinary tree, and underneath is a faded picture of a teenage boy with the words, “We will miss you, John.” When I first saw the sign, I wondered about John and then forgot about him.

But on this particular day, I saw two young girls under the tree. I ignored them at first, thinking of the rent that was due and the bills to be paid and things I needed to do. I heard one of them say, “I don’t really cry anymore…” And suddenly I heard something – not her voice, which I had barely noticed, but the silence that followed, which seemed to call me out of my daily routine and into their moment. I recognized that silence – it startled me because I recognized it as clearly as if I had recognized a friend’s voice. It was a silence bursting with meaning and vulnerability. In a flash I saw it – the tree, the conversation, the boy – it must have been the anniversary of his death or his birthday, and the two friends sat there alone, remembering together. I turned back, as if out of my daze and into reality, and saw her placing flowers by the tree.

There was this silence between these two girls that seemed to wake me from my daily routine and call me. A silence that calls – that sounds contradictory, but that’s the only way I can describe it. I could do nothing but pass by in silent awe and say a prayer for them. And in the silent awe I became aware of a deep longing, a strange desire to walk on water, to pass the invisible membrane separating strangers from each others’ woundedness. I couldn’t, of course. But the longing for something more was there, even as I wanted to look away from the suffering.

And I wondered at it. And it got stuck in my head so that days later, I still wondered at it. Why should such an experience make me feel a longing for something more? Something more than my house, my job, my family and friends? What more could there be? I wondered again “What was it that made Peter think he could walk on water? And this time, thinking of all that I had, I wondered, Was it a lack of gratitude for what he already had that made him think he could walk on water?”

I don’t think so. It might have been ungratefulness if he were asking for something concrete – a new house, a new job – but what he asks Christ for is something more than safety, more than security, for a closeness to Christ’s love that goes beyond space and time. And it might have been ungratefulness except that I don’t think it was really Peter that was asking. He does ask, of course, but Christ is the one on the water, pursuing Peter. Have we ever thought of the love of Christ in this way – not something that we grasp for and earn, but something desperately pursuing us, beckoning us to desire more than safety and security, showing us that we can ask for and long for more? Something beckoning us to reach beyond our safety and silence and into the presence of strangers and truly encounter them?

I wish I had a nice, tidy ending to the story – I realize that these are very unfinished and unpolished thoughts – but maybe some thoughts take a long time to be polished and maybe I'm just arriving where I started and knowing the place for the first time. I find that maybe all I have is what Peter had – a small, vulnerable, weak voice that cries in the middle of the storm – Lord, save me as I realize that alone I can’t walk on water. And maybe the response is the same for us as it is for Peter – an outstretched hand and a gentle voice, “Why did you doubt?”