A Season for Everything

My oldest daughter called me from the car. She was on her way to pick up a pizza for supper. She is 6 months pregnant, chasing an 18 month old, working, in the middle of a move…and starving. Her new pantry isn’t stocked yet and some of their dishes are still in boxes. So pizza it was. You do what you have to do some nights. 

After we hung up, I found my own stomach was growling. My younger daughter wasn’t home. What should I eat? Suddenly an overwhelming craving for pizza came over me. It was a “nothing else can possibly suffice” sympathy craving. So off I went to get pizza. My favorite pizza place is about 20 minutes away, but what else did I have to do?

After I picked up the pizza, I pulled into a parking lot so I could eat it while it was hot. Across the street, two teams in brightly colored jerseys were playing their hearts out on a soccer field. From the sounds of the parents’ cheers, it was an intense game. 

I started feeling a little wistful. In one month, my younger daughter graduates from high school. In approximately two blinks of an eye after that, she will move into her college dorm and my nest will be empty. 

The screams across the street grew louder as the green team threatened the goal. Just in time, a red defender saved the day with a steal. 

The cheers transported me back to a conversation from years and years ago in the bleachers at the softball field where my oldest child (and at that time, my only child) was playing. She hated softball. It was too slow compared to her beloved soccer, but she had to try it at least one season. She had major 11-year-old FOMO. One of my friends, another mother, knew I was in the midst of adopting and asked me how the process was going. Another adult I didn’t know, maybe an aunt or grandmother of another player, turned to me and said, “Are you insane? You’ve got this kid halfway grown and you’re going to start over? Just think, 10 years from now you’ll STILL be doing this!” Then she laughed hysterically as though it was all a grand joke and I was the punchline. 

I didn’t get it. I loved being on the sidelines, watching my kid play. It didn’t matter what – softball, soccer, basketball, track, cross country. Or maybe a choir concert or a children’s theater production. I loved it all. Why wouldn’t I want to still be doing that 10 years later?

And so I have. More soccer games, more choir concerts, more band concerts, countless football games where the sport served as pre-game and post-game for the main event, which of course was the marching band’s halftime show. Then we’d be up bright and early the next day for the weekly marching band competitions. 

That stage of my life is officially coming to an end. I am going to miss it. A lot. Yet I’m excited for her next chapter, and for mine, only I don’t know what it will look like. It may take awhile to figure it all out. 

For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven. Ecclesiastes 3:1

 

Crazy Cat Lady

When I was a little girl of around 4, I prayed and prayed and prayed for a puppy. We lived in New York at the time which was a long, long way from the South, the place my parents had always called home. I am the youngest of three. My dad was trying to start a new church under very difficult circumstances. Our family found ourselves strangers in a strange land. My parents most definitely did NOT want to add a puppy to the mix. They must have made that clear to God, because no puppy was forthcoming, at least not for a number of years.

Instead, God sent a cat. I named him Tia – a decidedly unmasculine name for a tomcat. Neither of my parents was particularly amused by God’s answer to my prayers. It turns out that they didn’t want a cat any more than they wanted a dog. So just to remind them who it is in charge of answering prayers, God had a couple from the church show up at our house on a Sunday afternoon with a Siamese kitten. My parents were napping. Before they could get down the hall to prevent disaster, their three children were already in love. The first time our Candy met Tia, she immediately assumed the Halloween cat position, took three backward hops while hissing and spitting, and left a pile of the stuff that Tia scared out of her in the middle of the living room rug. I’m pretty sure I heard God laughing.

From that point on, I’ve always had cats. Our next addition came after we moved back to South Carolina. This one was a beautiful yellow tabby that someone left on the church steps during worship one Sunday evening. I’m sure they knew that some kindhearted, God-loving soul would walk out, take pity on the sweet abandoned kitten, and take it home. They would have been right. I’m not sure that the parents of that kindhearted, God-loving soul were all that happy about the development, but how contrary could they really be standing there on the steps of the church on the Lord’s Day?

We named her Angel. She populated a large part of our county with her offspring, which leaves you wondering just how much of an angel she really was. Those were the days before there were spay/neuter clinics everywhere. One of her kittens was Spook, a long-bodied, fluffy-tailed calico with a Hitler mustache that would sit up in the tree in our backyard like a koala bear. Spook died, was buried in our back yard, and was resurrected about a week or two later. You think I’m kidding? I’ll share that story with you another time.

There have been many others. One of them claimed us in the parking lot of my oldest daughter’s kindergarten, which also happened to be in the same church where we found Angel many years before. One of them claimed me in a Target parking lot. My daughter spotted one of them – a tiny, pitiful creature on the side of the road in Charleston. Some monster had tossed him out a car window.

Now that I am the adult of the family (chronologically speaking, anyway) and the one who has to buy the food and pay the vet bills, you would think that I would have slowed that cat train down a little. Turns out that even when I try, I am outdone by one of my kids. All of them have inherited a love of animals and a desire to rescue. I won’t tell you how many cats currently live with me. I just tell people I’m one or two shy of crazy cat lady.

Still, I can’t blame it all on the kids. Three years ago, I thought I was a strong, mature woman who knew how to say no and when to say no. I was going about my business, making a visit with one of our hospice patients – a sweet old lady with a strong Dutch accent. She was delightful. In the middle of our visit, she told her daughter to go to the back porch to get the kitten to show me. It turns out that a dog had killed a litter of kittens sheltered beneath a shed in a neighbor’s yard. They were unsure whether the mother cat survived or not. It had not been seen again. About an hour after the gruesome discovery, the daughter heard a kitten crying. She retrieved the lone survivor, tried unsuccessfully to give it milk, and put in in a box. She planned to take it to the shelter, but didn’t know when she would be able to. The shelter was open only by appointment for surrenders and she had to go to work that afternoon.

“Don’t you want to take her?” she asked. I averted my eyes from the fluffy calico and said no. I had “too many” cats already. We talked some more. I watched the kitten, her eyes barely open, crawl shakily in the box. I could tell she was hungry. Before leaving, the woman asked if I would pray with her. As I prayed, the kitten in the box at my feet began crying loudly. I kept praying, but put my hand down in the box to comfort her. She proceed to crawl into my hand, then up my arm. By the time I said “Amen,” she was in my lap. I looked at the two women sheepishly and asked if they were serious about wanting me to take it. They glanced at one another triumphantly and said in unison, “YES!”

That, my friends, is how a crazy cat lady is made. It starts with the sincere prayers of a child and grows steadily from there. Sometimes, I still hear God chuckling.

Thin Place

Today I am sharing one of my favorite posts about one of my favorite places and one of my favorite memories. Originally posted on September 22, 2007.

I spent the day with my folks on the family farm. It was a good day. This afternoon I got to “play” farm girl while I helped my father move a cow and her newborn calf up the lane to the barn. The cow’s udder was monstrously large – it made me hurt just to look at it. Dad was concerned about the calf’s ability to get milk from the grossly swollen teats. He wanted to be able to monitor things closely for the first day or so of the calf’s life so he can intervene if necessary. The calf proved to be extraordinarily strong for a baby just a few hours old. She was able to make it most of the way up the steep-hilled lane without help. When her little legs began to tremble from exhaustion, my dad picked her up and carried her the rest of the way. My job was to help keep the pair from choosing a different direction in which to travel. It proved to be an easy job and soon mama and baby were together in the barn lot.

Dad and I settled in on the tailgate of the truck to watch the two for awhile to see if the calf was able to nurse without help. It was a beautful afternoon – sunny, not too hot, with a hint of a breeze. It was a strange kind of breeze. I felt it, yet no leaves were moving and the tall grass stood motionless and erect.

Just as this observation began to sink in, I saw a movement in my peripheral vision – a distinctively human figure moving in our direction from the back of the old grain house across the street. Thinking that it might be my aunt or uncle, or perhaps one of my cousins who lives in the vicinity, I quickly turned to speak. No one was there. No one. Nothing. And suddenly the air seemed to still.

It unnerved me for a moment, but just a moment. I had the immediate sense that if I had just sat patiently – if I had just been content to take it in from the fringe – I would have seen a man wearing a tan Dickie work shirt, overalls, and a brown, sweat-stained farmer’s hat. If I had just remained still, I might have heard the shuffle of his work boots or the deep rattly tune he hummed contentedly as he went about his work. If I had not been so quick to act, I might have heard an earthy remark about the cow’s tremendous udder and swollen teats. I might have caught the spark of pride in his eyes as he examined this new, healthy, strong calf.

If I had just remained motionless, I think I would have seen my grandfather. This was his farm, and his father’s before him, and his grandfather’s before that, and so on for a number of generations back. He has been gone for years now, but he’s never really left the place. I feel his presence everywhere on that farm. I even heard his voice one evening as I walked through the front yard of his old house – now my aunt’s house. He loved to sit on his front porch after supper: resting, breathing in the country air, nodding at cars as they passed, telling stories or jokes to anyone who chose to join him “to sit awhile.” His voice was deep, his sense of humor keen, and his deep chuckle contagious. On that evening when I heard his voice, the porch was empty and the words indistinguishable, but that chuckle – it was unmistakable.

I’ve heard the term thin place, mostly tied in with stories from the old, old places in Europe. I hear that Iona is a thin place, as are some of the ancient monasteries in Scotland. These are places where there is a thinning of the veil that separates time and reality as we know it from a larger reality just beyond our grasp. In these thin places, we sense things that normally are hidden from us.

Europe may lay claim to having the most thin places. But they do not possess them all. There is a thin place on the small family farm that my folks call home. I’ll be glad to take you there sometime. Granddaddy always did enjoy company.

Word Limit

I laugh when I remember a story my brother told me about my niece when she was a little girl. He said that there were days when she talked so much that she would barely pause long enough to breathe. When it reached the point where his ears began to hurt, he’d say to her, “Honey, the Good Lord gave each of us a certain number of words that we can use each day. You’ve used up your words for today. It’s time to be quiet awhile now.”

As an introvert, sometimes I feel like maybe my brother got it only partially right. Maybe there are only a certain number of words that we can tolerate over the course of a day, whether we are the ones saying the words or the ones listening.

As a pastor, there have been plenty of Sundays when my voice literally hurt by the time I got home. Between Sunday School, leading worship, after worship fellowship gatherings, all the conversations that took place among and between those things, and sometimes even committee or session meetings as well, I would far exceed my word limit for the day by lunchtime. It wasn’t a sore throat I felt. It was a sore voice.

As a hospice chaplain, I have days when my ears hurt by the end of the day. Listening, really listening, is hard work. It is far more difficult than talking. Sometimes I listen to people talk about the heartbreak of what is happening to them or to their loved one. Sometimes I’m Switzerland – the safe place for people who are not getting along to talk (or sometimes spew) their frustrations out. Sometimes, like today, I am one of the few people that a caregiver has to talk to all day long. Their loved one is no longer able to communicate. Maybe family members work or live far away. Maybe there is no family at all. Days are long for these caregivers.

I spent close to two hours with one such individual today. He talked, told stories, laughed, cried, and barely paused long enough to breathe the entire time I was there. He was delightful. He was heartbreaking. And yes, my ears hurt by the time I left. I’m quite sure the day’s word allotment was exceeded and my word count will be in a deficit for a few days, but that’s okay. Some days you have to make an exception to the word limit rule.

Tonight, I sit in silence. No TV. No music. No podcasts. Just the sound of my dog snoring on the couch beside me. I’m resting up for tomorrow’s words.

Dear Preacher Dad

I saw you Sunday morning.

I’d just pulled up to the church, proud of myself for arriving fifteen (well, thirteen) minutes early. I have a tendency to run late, you see. The more people I have riding in the car with me, the later I’m likely to run. My two teens and I somehow made it out of the house on schedule and now we could enter the church at a leisurely pace to find our seats. It’s always embarrassing as guests to be rushing in as the service begins. Dodged that bullet!

But as I got ready to exit the car, I saw you. You hopped out of your SUV and quickly got your toddler son out of his car seat. You walked to the other side of the car and opened the door. I didn’t see if one or both of your young daughters hopped out. I wondered where your wife was.

“The preacher’s cutting it a little close, isn’t he?” my daughter chuckled.

“That makes me feel so much better about myself,” I replied.

I was feeling a bit voyeuristic, so I got out of the car to make my way into the church. But I wondered. You see, I know what was waiting for you inside the door. It awaits every pastor the moment they cross the threshold. You would be greeted by folks who need “just a second” to share a story or prayer request or complaint, even as your toddler squirms in your arms and your daughter pulls at your arm to hurry up. I knew you would be going over the checklist in your mind to make sure nothing was left undone for the service that was minutes away from starting. I knew you might be puzzling over how to fix that sermon conclusion that you never felt you could get just right no matter how many times you rewrote it during the week. I knew you were calculating if there was enough time to get your kids to the nursery, retrieve your robe, and make it to the sanctuary on time.

I see you, Preacher Dad. I know that even though you are expected to be “on” the moment you walk in that door, you never stop being a father. I don’t know if your wife is out of town, or if she is sick, or if she just needs a little rest. Being in the third trimester with Baby #4 can’t be easy. I personally hoped she was home alone with her feet propped up, enjoying a bit of peace and quiet. But you’re a good dad. If you snapped at the children to hurry up or to stop squirming, I didn’t see it. But if you did, then I totally understand.

I thought about these things as I sat down and scanned the bulletin. The associate pastor was preaching. Good. I mean that in two ways – good because she is in fact a very good preacher (too, I might add), but also good because maybe you would be able to sit and breathe for this worship service.

I thought back to my own experiences as a Preacher Mom with young children – and a single Preacher Mom at that, with a tween-aged daughter and two adopted babies. I remember the Sunday when there was no one in the nursery when I went to drop my newly adopted infant daughter off. She was the only tiny child in the church. (I had not adopted my second child yet.) I sat down in the rocking chair, cooing and talking with her when the chair of the worship committee flew in. “You need to hurry up,” he said. “It’s less than five minutes until worship starts.” He was quite annoyed. I looked at him for a minute before replying. “You better get ready to preach then, because it looks like I’m keeping the nursery today.” A few minutes later his wife came back, looking none too happy to have been appointed as the last minute nursery worker. Worship started a little late that day.

I remember how hard it was to be a Preacher Mom with young children and how no one seemed to understand my dual calling. One Sunday a member told me I looked pale and wondered if I had forgotten to put on my makeup. Did she have any idea what it was like to get a 12 year old, a two year old, and an 18 month old fed, dressed, and to the church? I remember thinking to myself, “You’re just lucky I’m not still in my pajamas!” Another time a different member got annoyed when my children started getting fussy after he’d had me cornered following worship with a long list of questions and complaints and was still talking long after everyone else had left. Poor kids were bored. And starving. I have so many stories…

I hope your church is patient with you. You are a man with two callings – father and pastor. You seem pretty passionate about both. Just don’t forget to breathe. When you are accused of being inattentive to a parishioner because your child is in distress, when you find yourself solo parenting on the same Sunday that nothing in worship is going smoothly, when someone comments that you look tired and not well put together that day (Wait, do people do that to male pastors?), or when you would give anything to not be bothered with family long enough to be able to shine in your role as pastor – stop and remember. You have two callings. Two wonderful, exhausting, competing (at times), demanding, holy callings. All that talk about balance? Don’t waste your time looking for it. It’s just a myth. Just do the best you can.

I see you, Preacher Dad. And I’ll be praying for you.

Sincerely,

Preacher Mom

What Good Writers Do

Ever since I dusted off this neglected blog, I’ve noticed that a particular blog post from 2012 continues to get a lot of views. So here is a repost for all the writerly folks out there!

Remember these posters from elementary school? I used to believe that good writers did all these things and if a writer did all these things, they were good. Now I’m not so sure. Sometimes the best writers are the ones who break the rules. I suggest the following revisions to the elementary good writer rules.

What Good Writers Do. . .

1) They think about their topic. More often, they don’t know what they think about a certain topic, but they still write. Sometimes it’s by writing that you discover what you think.

2) They scribble. They doodle. They scratch out words. They make word maps. The write furiously fast so they don’t lose a runaway idea. They are rarely neat.

3) They pay more attention to drawing word pictures than they do to observing every single rule. They learn the rules to pass freshman grammar. They scrap the rules to create new stories, emotions, and settings.

4) Finger spaces made our handwriting neat and readable, but good writers know that neatness doesn’t count – at least not in the beginning. (See #2 above.)

5) They read it over and over. Then they change words, shift scenes, tighten phrasing, and correct mistakes. In the end, they scrap 75-80% of what they wrote and start again.

6) They ask, “How can I make sense of ___?” Then they write until they do.

Oddly Encouraging

“I figure that maybe by the time I’m 50 I’ll have all this stuff figured out.”

It was one of those happenstance conversations. I’d just had a Covid rapid test (a safety measure before being around family several weeks back) and was waiting for the results to come back. The nurse and I were engaged in casual chitchat when she admitted to a serious case of anxiety and imposter syndrome. Suddenly the conversation wasn’t quite as casual. She talked about the various sources of her anxiety and ways her counselor was helping. Then she made that statement. 

Maybe to help her anxiety, I should have just nodded along with it, but I didn’t. Instead, I told the truth. “I’m in my mid-50’s and I’m still trying to figure it out.” 

I ran into her again last week. She talked about her kids and how they needs a larger house more appropriate for the size of their growing family. “I can’t even believe, “ she said, “that this is what I used to dream about when I was a kid. I used to always say I couldn’t wait to be an adult and to have my own house and to eat chocolate whenever I wanted to! Now I’d be willing to give up the chocolate just to be carefree again.” 

Is there ever a point when you actually feel like a grownup – adequate to the tasks of raising children, doing good work in our profession, making good decisions, and having a positive impact in some way on our world? Is there some magic moment when it all clicks? Or were all those adults we looked up to when we were kids – parents, teachers, pastors, youth leaders, etc. – just really good actors, the kind we find ourselves trying to be?

I finally got around to doing my taxes today. It’s not a task I enjoy even remotely, but there is something about finishing them up and hitting that submit button that makes me feel a lot like a grownup. I even sent a text to my grown daughter who submitted her taxes a few days ago saying as much.

She texted back, “But are you ever 100% confident in them, because I never am.”

“Never. Never ever. Lol!

“Same. I feel like a fraud grownup.”

“I think that’s what being a grownup actually feels like for most people.”

“Well that’s terrifying, but oddly encouraging!” 

Now if that doesn’t sum it up perfectly – terrifying, but oddly encouraging.

We may never feel grown or adequate or prepared for our responsibilities. But if the truth is told, that’s how almost everyone feels as well. There’s something oddly encouraging about hearing the “Me too!” of others. So claim your truth. Tell your story. You may still be terrified after you do, but you’ll be oddly encouraged to learn that you are not alone. 

Holy Week, Holy Place

I lived in Charleston for six years, from 2009-2015. Charleston is known as the Holy City. Even so, my favorite holy place/retreat was found not in the city, but along the banks of the Cooper River right outside of Moncks Corner – at Mepkin Abbey. Since 1949, Mepkin has been home to a Trappist monastery. Rarely on my visits did I encounter any of the monks, but 100% of the time I encountered holy beauty.

As hectic as Holy Week always was when I was a pastor in North Charleston, I always tried to make time for a drive out to Mepkin at some point during the week. To paraphrase St Francis de Sales, “Every one of us needs a half hour of prayer every day, except for when we are busy – then we need an hour.” By that logic Holy Week would have required around twenty, so I definitely didn’t mind giving up maybe two.

Since I cannot go there in person this year, I’m taking a trip back to Mepkin in my mind today. As I do, I remember the beauty, the silence, and the peace I always found there.

 

 

It is my understanding that the scene below was carved out of a tree destroyed by Hurricane Hugo back in 1999. Amazing how death and destruction can be recreated into something beautiful. Then again, I guess that is the lesson of resurrection, isn’t it?

 

Holy Week feels very different again this year. When our congregation gathered last Sunday for the first time in person indoors since the beginning of the pandemic, I told them that in many ways it felt to me as though we have been living through a year-long Lent, not a six week one. As we look forward to a resurrection celebration on Sunday, we remain just as much in the dark about what resurrected life will look like for us as the first disciples were. Like them, I guess we just have to follow in faith, trusting that the way will be made clear for us one step at a time.

May the mysteries and blessings of Holy Week touch you wherever you find yourself this year. And may you claim a few moments of beauty, silence, and peace.

**Note: Photographs taken from an earlier version of this post. (April 4, 2012)

Extra Ordinary

The heavens declare the glory of God,
    and the skies announce what his hands have made.
Day after day they tell the story;
    night after night they tell it again.
They have no speech or words;
    they have no voice to be heard.
But their message goes out through all the world;
    their words go everywhere on earth.

Psalm 19:1-4

If you wish to understand the Creator, first understand His creation.

Saint Columbanus

To see a World in a Grain of Sand 
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower 
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand 
And Eternity in an hour

from Auguries of Innocence, by William Blake

It never ceases to amaze me. In the most unexpected and ordinary places, a piece of creation catches my eye – and not just with beauty, but also with its wisdom. I was on a quick errand at lunch, running into Petsmart to pick up the only cat food my very senior cat seems to tolerate well. As I exited the store, I happened to glance down at the sidewalk. This is what I saw.

So what do you see? A flower or a weed? A nuisance or a gift?

Only today, it wasn’t so much what I saw, but what I heard. What I heard was this: “Bloom where you are planted.”

No, I didn’t actually hear the audible words, but the impression was just as clear. Contemplative photographers teach that you must learn to see with the eyes of your heart. I believe you also have to learn to hear with the ears of your soul.

I know it sounds a little “woo-woo,” but it really isn’t. The power of creation to speak, to teach, to touch the heart is well documented. A psalmist sang about it. One of the Celtic saints spoke of it. An English poet wrote about it.

There isn’t just beauty in creation. There is also wisdom. And on certain days, there may even be a pep talk that reminds you that even on the most ordinary of Tuesdays in the most ordinary of places, you can change everything by just being who you were created to be.

Dreamer

Grant money with rules, a shivering 6 year old girl named Evelyn, a church set up exactly like a university student center (complete with specialty coffee and bubble tea). Trying to spit gum out of my mouth but never being able to get it all, driving a car when the brakes go out, finding myself immersed in deep, deep water.

I am a dreamer and these are just a few images from recent and/or reoccurring dreams. My dreams typically are vivid and detailed. Scientists say that dreams in reality are very brief, but many of mine feel like they last all night. It is not unusual for me to resume a dream after brief wakefulness. I have also had a few incidences of sleep paralysis when I’ve been partially awake, partially immersed in a dream, and temporarily unable to move a muscle.

Many people discount dreams, attributing them to something they ate or something they watched on TV. Sometimes that may indeed be the case, but as a rule, I believe there is much more to them than spicy food or intense acting. I believe our dreams are a way our brains help us process thoughts, emotions, possibilities, insights, and things we know that we don’t yet know we know. I believe dreams are Spirit’s way of telling us stories about our lives as they are and as they could be.

So why don’t we just think about these thoughts, emotions, possibilities insights, and things we know that we don’t yet know we know in the daytime, leaving the night for rest alone? I think it is because we are a little afraid of these things, and therefore make sure our daytime hours remain too busy and too loud, keeping us far too preoccupied to give these things proper attention. We keep our defenses on high alert when we are awake, making sure our minds aren’t invaded by troublemakers. Status quo – that’s our goal on most days. Don’t rock the boat. It is only at night when our defenses are down that we get quiet enough to hear Spirit’s stories.

The Bible has many stories of dreamers and their dreams. Jacob was a dreamer. Old Testament Joseph was a dreamer. Ezekiel was a dreamer, or a visionary. New Testament Joseph was a dreamer. The Magi were dreamers. Peter was a dreamer. I can’t think right off of any recorded dreams of women in scripture, but that’s a whole different topic for another day. Let’s just say that I’m pretty sure it’s our loss that their dreams didn’t gain equal tellings.

According to Jewish tradition, the each day begins at sunset. We see this literally from the beginning with creation: “…there was evening and there was morning, the first (and second, and so on) day.” Sabbath begins at sundown on Friday and ends at sundown on Saturday. It seems strange at first to think of a day starting at the time we are accustomed to winding down. Yet that’s exactly the whole point. The day doesn’t begins with our work. It begins with Spirit’s.

This, too, seems to give a special importance to dreams – the work of the night. Our night work, or actually our first work of each new day, is to let go of our needs and illusions of control and to rest as we listen to Spirit’s stories. Spirit’s storytelling techniques are far superior to our own. We have to put in some intention to understand these stories. Sometimes Spirit’s stories simply entertains. Sometimes they help us figure out problems. Sometimes they point out our flaws, our insecurities, our desires, or our fears. Sometimes they give us direction on what we should do. Sometimes they give us unbelievable insight into who we are or who we can be. Sometimes, maybe, they remind us not to eat too much spicy food or to watch too much junk TV before bed.

I am still grappling with a dream I had six years ago. I thought at the time that I knew exactly what it meant and exactly what I should do with it – and I did it. Here I am, six years later, and the dream still makes its appearances. Apparently I didn’t understand it correctly in the beginning, or else it has further meaning for me now. Whatever the reason, Spirit keeps telling me the story. It’s obvious that Spirit and Jesus belong to the same Trinity, because neither of them are quick to give explanations to their stories. They expect you to put in sweat equity. I’m working hard on figuring it out. I’m pretty sure I won’t rest well until I do.

John Lennon sang, “You may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one.” I’m really not, am I? Surely there are other dreamers out there who listen to Spirit’s stories at night and then spend daylight hours learning to understand them.