No Limit

There is no limit to the people coming. I’m told more arrive every day.

But I’m not at one of the shelters accompanying migrants in El Paso. I’ve crossed the border into Juarez to help at Nuestra Seῇora de Guadalupe Cathedral on the plaza where, under the auspices of the Missionaries of St. Columban, volunteers serve almuerzo (lunch) to some 400-600 migrants Monday through Friday. I’d heard they could use help, so I walk over the bridge on Thursdays. A sinfully simple undertaking for me, a white U.S. citizen with a passport.

Meanwhile, all U.S. ports of entry remain closed to asylum seekers as Title 42 continues to serve as a stopgap, causing a growing, seemingly endless number of migrants to make their way across Mexico and land in Juarez. When the number stuck on the streets began escalating, the Columbans and the diocese of Ciudad Juárez chose to set up tables in the parish hall and make sure they ate at least one meal a day.

_{Cathedral in Ciudad Juarez plaza}

People line up outside before the doors open. Men, women, children waiting for a free meal. No questions asked. All that’s required is that you stand for the benediction, eat quickly, and pick up after yourself so that we can seat the next round of folks. Fourteen tables, eight to a table. That’s 112 people per round. And tables will be filled several times before the day is over.

I hadn’t thought about how impractical love is until I started serving plate after plate of warmed-over spaghetti, beans, and rolls to table after table of migrants.

Here, unlike the shelters in El Paso, there’s no quantifiable outcome to my efforts. No one to call to come drive the families to the airport or bus so we can know they’ll soon be in the safe harbor of their sponsor. Instead, they eat and pool back onto the streets or their room, for those who have money to afford one.

When the spaghetti runs out – and it inevitably does – volunteers quickly improvise by opening can after can of tuna, corn, and peas, throwing in huge dollops of mayonnaise, to create a semi-satisfying alternative. That, too, may run out, depending on how many stragglers will show up before the cathedral closes its doors later this afternoon.

How do you even know if someone won’t show up in line again later? I ask one of the volunteers.

She shrugs. Her quizzical expression says, why does it matter?

I only do this one day a week, yet I notice I have attitude issues. I want assurances. Sensible rules. Measurable results.

_{Volunteers serving lunch}

When I volunteered in El Paso, we had order, a structure to the scenario of people arriving seeking asylum. We served a steady stream of migrants, but a manageable one. And many had legitimate claims for asylum. But not all. Still, there was a process. ICE would check each asylee, vet and bring them to our shelters. And we had a good system going, feed them, give them a hot shower and a change of clothes, tell their relatives to buy airline or bus tickets, and get them on to the next leg of their journey. It was a relatively smooth process. And I felt as though I was part of a humanitarian effort with a clear purpose.

Until the arrivals started to grow. And grow. Migration no longer a methodical ebb and flow, but a stubborn tide that refused to go out.

Now I wonder, and worry, where will it all end?

I grow tired rushing from table to table, balancing paper plates, Styrofoam cups with sugar-watery oatmeal. I react, interiorly, to diners who don’t acknowledge the plate of food I’ve set before them with a thank-you. I feel disgusted with the person who sneaks a second meal when so many still needing to be fed sit on folding chairs waiting outside our doors. And I’m beyond frustrated with systems of governing that create the kind of greed, exploitation, and desperation that causes so many to leave home and prevents them from simply existing. Some days I rant with better alternatives. As if I could rule the world. Or would be good at it.

Staring out at this sea of people, I’m secretly deciphering who deserves to be here. Certainly the woman who has stuffed her mop of unkempt hair into a faded black hoodie, stained with the dust of the desert. Her soiled jeans reveal bare ankles fit into sole-flapping sneakers. But not the Venezuelan couple at the next table, charging their phones while ignoring everyone around them. From his bright, obviously-dyed blond cropped hairstyle and her long curls cascading down the length of her clean black coat, I’ve deduced they’ve shuffled in from a hotel room.

I’m clearly no Mother Teresa. Nor Dorothy Day. Apparently, I can accompany people only so far.

Dorothy Day and Mother Teresa (Photo by Jim Forest/Flickr)

Aware that I need an attitude check, I turn to my fellow volunteers for encouragement. Of course, there are stalwart, selfless Catholic sisters among us. Models I don’t even want to try to emulate. But there are also many sweet, youthful faces. I haven’t yet discovered what has brought these 20-something-year-olds to volunteer at least four hours of their weekdays to serve destitute people. But I’ve come to know a few of them. Like Jaime Jesus, the Venezuelan migrant, who arrives every day to tend to other migrants like himself.

At 23, he’s shouldering the responsibility of caring for his ill parents and younger sister back in Venezuela. The day his mother could only feed him and his sister and tried to pretend she and his dad had already eaten, he knew he had to leave home to support them.

On a break between wiping tables and waiting for the next procession to pile in, I ask Jaime about his job. I’d heard he was working as a barista at a local café. He says he starts at 3 p.m., which is basically right after he leaves here, and works until 11. Every day. Then he goes to sleep for a few hours until the alarm wakes him so he can check the CBP One mobile app. Like thousands of other Venezuelan migrants, he’s seeking a “humanitarian exception” to Title 42 to enter the U.S. But whenever he tries to file for an appointment online, the saturated system crashes. So, he keeps rising early and trying.

He makes me wish I had control over that process. I’d quickly decide who was worthy of a chance to apply for a “humanitarian exemption.” Jaime – worthy. Couple with the stylish haircuts – not worthy.

Incredulously, I ask, with such a busy schedule, why then does he volunteer here every day?

“It fills my soul to help my friends,” he says.

I stare for a moment, knowing that if I were him, I’d probably be napping right now, catching up on all those missed hours of sleep instead of feeding fellow competitors in the endless line to enter the land of opportunity.

While Jaime is learning English from us, I’m learning humility from him.

Unbidden, the words of Jim Finley, one of my spiritual teachers, come to mind. “Love won’t let us live on our own terms.”

That’s for sure. Because, if it did, I would naturally put limits on love, conditions that must be met before I can open my heart fully. No such conditions exist with Jaime.

Nor with God. Which is why, at the end of a full day, I choose to sit like an unlearned child in the silence of the lap of God. I need to mellow out and soak up that love. Again.

I settle onto my meditation mat and open the New Testament, expecting to practice lectio divina. The marked, tattered pages of 1Corinthians fall open before me. I’ve highlighted the infamous chapter 13 all over the place. Those overused verses at weddings that caused guests’ eyes to cloud over.

But my eyes fall to this line: “There is no limit to love’s forbearance, to its trust, its hope, its power to endure.”

No limit!

I read it again. I think of the migrants at the cathedral. I see Jaime‘s boyish smile welcoming them.

The message seeps in.

Am I being asked to live up to that? That kind of limitless love? Can I possibly get myself out of the way and let such an impractical, extravagant love order my life?

Certainly not on my own.

I close my eyes and open my hands. Waiting in the silence.

When the gong on my meditation timer app goes off, Nicholas of Flue’s ethereal ending prayer pops up. “My Lord and my God, detach me from myself to give my all to you.”

My God, my all? Yes, I know, it’s the only way.

Note: a version of this essay will appear in NCR’s Soul Seeing column this spring.

A Friend Such as Rob, #LegacyofLove

Rob, surrounded by some of the many women who loved him

Why are we here? Ever ponder that question? My dear friend Rob lived the answer.

It’s hard for me to write about someone so special to me who’s not yet been gone two weeks from this life.

But Rob’s legacy deserves to be shared. And his legacy as my friend and “brother” is something I need to write, to honor one of the most important men in my life. That’s not an exaggerated statement. Although Rob wasn’t my blood brother, he couldn’t have been closer to me if we had been born of the same mother. He knew me so well, and understood and accepted me better than any sibling.

And he taught us all so much.

Of course, if Rob were alive, he’d be reading this rolling his eyes and leaving some sarcastic comment. And he most certainly would be reading it, because Rob read and commented on nearly every post I’ve written since I started this blog 6 1/2 years ago! He only missed in the past couple of months as his beleaguered breathing made even getting up out of bed a chore.

So, why read this post if you didn’t know Rob? Because you’ll learn something about what it means to live with courage and humility, to live your life to its fullest expression, even, and especially, in the face of a disease that you know will take you too soon. Maybe you’ll understand a little more about the true meaning of the words “surrender,” “acceptance,” and “loving presence.”

And if you’re lucky, you’ll encounter someone like Rob whose unique expression of love for you will arrive exactly when you need it. And it will forever impact how you love others going forward.

I met Rob late summer 2008, less than a year before my beloved David died. We’d met at Sevenoaks, months before we were to start the Pathwork program together. Yet, without hesitation, Rob hopped in the car for the 4-hour drive from Raleigh to attend David’s memorial service.

Two weeks later, I was in this terribly painful place. If you’ve experienced the sudden death of a spouse, you know what I’m talking about. All your family and friends have gone home and the shock of what happened sets in. The going to bed every night and waking up every morning alone seems unbearable. You wonder if you’ll get swallowed up in this grief. That’s where I was. So, I picked up the phone early Saturday morning and called Rob, not knowing he wasn’t at home in Raleigh, but visiting friends off the coast of Seattle, where it was 3 hours earlier. Not yet dawn.

It didn’t matter. He got out of bed and stepped outside so as to not disturb anyone else in the house. He listened. He cried with me. And he let his heart stretch as he both stayed with me in my suffering and witnessed an amazing sunrise over Mt. Rainier. Wanting to share that precious moment, he described the beauty unfolding before him, and he helped me recognize that beauty and joy could exist simultaneously with pain and sorrow. That all of it was moving and flowing, and held by a loving God.

Dawn at Mt. Rainier

Rob, being the poet that he was, wrote a beautiful poem about that experience – a powerful moment that solidified our heart connection.

From then on, Rob became my #1 supporter, thoroughly trusted friend, and personal cheerleader.

I grieved. He listened.

I wrote. He read and encouraged me to publish my writing.

I loved to dance. He introduced me to InterPlay – improvisational movement, because he knew I needed this freedom of expression in my life.

I questioned my decisions as a single mother handling a teenage son. He offered his wisdom and experience from raising three sons.

I anguished over what to do with David’s many and varied collections. He helped wherever he could, including hauling shopping bags full of David’s tee shirts – collected from every place we’d visited – to his quilter friend in Raleigh. She made two gorgeous quilts: one for me and one for Davis. And when Rob delivered them, he sat with me as I fingered the material and cried over the memories.

I became passionate about immigration and human rights abuses and moved to El Paso. He sent me links to related articles, financially supported my causes, and connected me to a teacher friend offering a segment on immigration at a private middle school, who then invited me to do a presentation for her classes.

I wondered, with David gone, who would remember my birthday and special dates? Rob kept a record and sent greetings on that morning, letting me know he was thinking of me. Even this April, in the midst of tough nights and sometimes rougher mornings, he sent me a message on the anniversary of David’s death.

My exquisite quilt of David’s tee shirts

All these gifts – and so much more – Rob gave me. I’ve been considering what I possibly gave him in return. Except my love. I hope that was enough.

Rob didn’t need much else. He had an ever-widening circle of friends as his heart opened further and further. He had a devoted and fulfilling relationship with his wife Maureen. She was his confidante, his support, his first and only love for more than 47 years.

All this Rob did while balancing his own journey with death as cancer arrived in his body less than two years after we’d met. Then I, along with Maureen and all his friends, received the gift of watching a transformation happen, as Rob walked, and sometimes crawled, along the spiritual path cancer took him on. Not easy for a man who was used to being in control.

In this “divine dance,” as he called it, he learned to let go of his ego’s attachment to self-importance and self-reliance. He slowly put down his roles as a knowledgeable physician and “fixer.”

And he let the Divine teach him to be astonished by the sacredness of life. To be present to whomever was standing in front of him, from a much softer, vulnerable place. To risk fully expressing all his gifts, with spontaneity and joy.

It was a beautiful dance to observe. Although painful, because we knew the outcome.

Still, as Rob demonstrated, no one can grow or be transformed living in a bubble of comfort. He struggled with painful challenges, with wanting to be alive for his newly arrived grandchildren.

Rob with first grandchild, Nina

But he also recognized graces, small miracles “happening all around us if our eyes are open enough to see and our hearts are soft enough to feel.”

 

To me, this expresses how Rob came to terms with his “powerlessness”:

“Transformation is not about great spiritual experiences but coming to terms with our own human weakness as we experience it. … [P]owerlessness is the greatest power there is because it enables one to simply be more and more a channel of God’s power and love.” (Thomas Keating, Reflections on the Unknowable)

If our purpose here is to care for one another, to become fuller expressions of God’s power and love, then, Rob, you definitely accomplished that mission. Yes, my dear friend, I am amazed and grateful for having you in my life. What a gift it’s been to have such a friend!

“To be human

Is to become visible

While carrying

What is hidden

As a gift to others.”

 (From David Whyte’s: “What to Remember When Waking”)

 

 

With or Without You

Don’t make me cry, David.

I’m standing in front of the fresh cherries display at Sprouts, considering how many to buy while simultaneously pondering a brave new step in my life when I suddenly recognize the tune being piped in overhead.

It’s U2’s “With or Without You.”

Without warning, a familiar feeling floods me. The band U2 was one of David’s favorites. And this particular song has a special meaning for me. So many years ago, deep in the midst of my grief, I listened to that song over and over. It both consoled and pained me.

In my mind, I felt as though I couldn’t live without David. And yet I knew I would.

That was over nine years ago now and yet instantaneously David comes into my awareness. And, as if in recognition of the decision I’m about to make, his voice, gentle and strong from somewhere inside me, says:

“I’m proud of you, honey.”

I hear and feel this as clearly as if David were standing beside me, whispering these familiar words into my ear.

It takes all the effort I have to keep myself from crying right there in the middle of the produce aisle. And because I don’t want to look that vulnerable, my demanding voice says, ‘don’t make me cry.”

I manage to hold back the tears.

Somehow knowing he would leave this earth before I did, David tried to prepare me for his death. As if that were possible.

Mr. Serious. Mr. Practical. He even planned financially to take care of me and Davis after he’d be physically absent.

What I didn’t know was that he would take care of me emotionally in difficult, doubting moments that test my ability to fully love myself. Just by “reliving” and remembering his unconditional love for me.

He was the first person in my life to really see and accept me. The first to tell me how he appreciated my courage, my strength, my beauty, and my independence. It was such a gift. To have someone see me for who I truly am and not who they think I should be or want me to be.

It was his love and confidence in me that allowed me to declare not long after his death:

“I’m learning to let go of any attachment to what I thought my life would be and opening to limitless possibilities.”

And that desire, to live my life fully – no matter how different from what I’d planned – is what brought me to the border.

I am reminded of this as I live my life here and make choices that are countercultural. Choices that are not popular with my family and possibly further alienate me from them.

It’s not easy, to stand in my truth and keep my heart open in the face of old hurts, misguided assumptions, distorted perceptions that come at me. Whether it’s from strangers, or, most especially, from people I love.

Yet I believe God desperately wants us to keep loving and to know how unbelievably precious we are, how unconditionally loved we are, in the face of everything that comes at us. Sometimes the only way Love can do that is by sending us a message through someone who loves or has loved us that much.

For me, that person is David.

Complete vulnerability. That’s what David gave me. And that is what love asks of us.

We are meant to give ourselves away. And I know, in giving myself, I get so much more!

I am reminded of someone else who gave himself away for us. To show us the path of Love. To show us what is possible when you give it all away. And how transformational that is.

Love is the only answer in this crazy, confused, painful, joyful, fearful, beautiful, and insecure world. Love is the only power that will transform and save us.

And it waits for us to say “yes” to it.

“Through the storm we reach the shore
You give it all but I want more
And I’m waiting for you”

(Lyrics from “With or Without You”)

Davis Gets It…Again

Annunciation House in downtown El Paso

I had Davis to myself for nearly five days over the Christmas holiday. That has to be a first.

Usually, whenever he’s home, he has friends to catch up with, numerous social engagements to attend, and at least one overnighter at a best friend’s house. But I’m not in Virginia anymore.

Here in El Paso, he had nothing on his social calendar except visiting me.

Despite my glee, I wasn’t stingy with him. I didn’t hoard his attention. I shared him with El Paso.

After all, he was the first of my intimate circle of family and friends to visit, and I was anxious to show him around. To introduce him to life at the border and expose him to the people and places that mean so much to me. I wanted to give him the full effect.

And I hoped he would understand.

On Christmas Eve, his first day, we attended the annual Las Posadas and intimate Christmas Eve Mass and dinner at Annunciation House – a hospitality house for migrants and refugees that has been operating for 40 years in downtown El Paso. Entirely run on donations and volunteers, the building is old, but it’s filled with the precious hearts and stories of those who have passed through its doors.

A woman prays by her bed in her assigned room at Annunciation House

 

This was Davis’s first Las Posadas.  He didn’t seem to mind as we walked the street, knocking on doors, singing in Spanish – a language he doesn’t know. We followed a little girl posing as Mary, a lace shawl draped around her head, accompanied by her raggedy-dressed Joseph – both of them real-life refugees.

When we gathered back at Annunciation House, he didn’t seem to mind the peeling paint and cracked walls. Or that he had to stand during the service because there weren’t enough seats. He toured the house with one of the 20-something year-old volunteers who’ve made a year-long commitment to work and live here, and he asked thoughtful questions. He listened to fellow volunteers share stories about what this place means to them. 

Then we ate a simple Christmas Eve meal of Posole, a traditional Mexican stew made with hominy, while sitting on a hard bench alongside refugees from the Congo, Guatemala, and Honduras. Davis even scrounged up the courage to practice his French with the African woman. Not knowing either English or Spanish, she had been silent until he engaged her in conversation.

The next morning at breakfast I asked what he thought about our unique Christmas Eve celebration.

Without hesitation, he said, “I can see God is present here.”

As he spoke of the volunteers’ commitment to the people, of all the “good” and the generosity he’d witnessed, my heart filled.

He’d seen what I’d wanted him to see. After only one day!

During the rest of his trip, in quiet moments, Davis asked questions about his dad. He wanted to remember the quirky aspects of David’s personality. Hear more about his father’s childhood and the early days of our marriage.

I didn’t mind at all. In fact, I became acutely aware of David’s presence in our conversations. I felt immense warmth and gratitude.

I never wanted Davis to suffer this loss at such a young age, in the middle of the most important stage of his relationship with his father.  Yet I know he is wiser because of this experience. His life is richer, his insights deeper, his compassion more genuine.

It’s what enabled him to stand in this place at the border with me and see what I see. With an awareness and understanding that comes from the heart.

Gregory Boyle, the Jesuit priest who’s worked with gang members in LA for 30 years and wrote the best seller Tattoos on the Heart, spoke about this in a recent interview with Krista Tippett. He says that “standing in the lowly place with the easily despised and the readily left out,” he finds more joy, kinship, mutuality. He’s discovered that “the measure of our compassion lies not in our service of those on the margins, but in our willingness to see ourselves in kinship.”

Sometimes that kinship comes in the guise of wounds.

As one of Fr. Boyle’s homies, who’d been abused and beaten throughout his childhood, explained, “How can I help the wounded if I don’t welcome my own wounds?”

So, we have to welcome our wounds. These hurting places within us. And I think if we are not afraid to acknowledge them, and know that we are loved unconditionally in them, we will be better able to stand in that “lowly place” offering kinship to those whom society considers dismissible, disposable.

And we will see with different eyes. The eyes that saw what Davis saw in El Paso.

The Heart of the World

Artist’s image of the Sacred Heart I “happened” upon while on retreat

Sometimes I need to reground. Connect with my center again.

 

With all that’s been surfacing lately – within the world and within myself – I knew I needed a day away. I planned it for October 10^th – my 36^th wedding anniversary. A day when I feel especially held and embraced by love.

I knew I’d feel the spiritual support I needed.

I chose my favorite place – a Franciscan retreat center in New Mexico. A place with real wide-trunk trees and leaves that actually curled and floated to the ground, crunching underfoot, making me feel like fall has truly arrived.

It’s no Sevenoaks (in Madison, Virginia), but it’s probably as close I’ll get to it around here.

A wide-trunk tree is cause for joy in New Mexico

Why? Because I hear the invitation.

I hear an invitation to let go of “distractions,” like Martha in the Gospel story, distracted by so many things when only one thing matters.

The Divine invites my mind to rest. My heart to awaken. My soul to remember.

Only when I am still and my mind is silent can I remember who I am and whose I am.

Only then can I “hear” the voice of the Divine calling me “beloved.”

 

And from this place, I can reflect more easily on this heart of God. The heart that I’ve been asked to receive in that meditation. This heart of the world that bleeds for all, yet doesn’t die. This heart that never stops loving.

But in reflecting on this heart, I also hear another invitation. An invitation to let down my boundaries. The self-imposed ones I created to protect me, to keep me safe. I recognize them very clearly in this place. I see how they’re holding me back.

What if I cross these boundaries?

Is that the invitation I’m hearing now? To cross the boundaries that prevent me from knowing who I am eternally in God? Boundaries that prevent me from knowing myself “hidden with Christ in God forever”?

What if I then discover that we all belong to this Heart? That no one and nothing can exist apart from it? That we are never separated from the heart of God? Even when we’re unaware. Or we reject it. Or we think we don’t deserve it.

No one and nothing is excluded.

It’s one heart. And it’s the heart of the world.

I’ve created my own collage of this heart. Cutting out photos that cause strong reactions in me. Pasting these tiny pictures into a heart-shaped image. A sacred heart where everyone is included.

Everyone.

From innocent children to violent gang members. From poets to presidents. From Mexican immigrants to poverty-stricken Nigerians. From Jihab-wearing women to white supremacists. They all fit in this bleeding, bulging, beating heart.

It causes me to weep. And to soften, so that, ever so gently, I can move beyond my self-imposed boundaries. Into the very center of this sacred heart.

And I just may find that I wake up on the inside of understanding the intimate immediacy of the One who calls me “beloved.”

 

My collage of the sacred heart of the world

Paradoxes in Paradise

Volcanoes National Park, Hawaii

I needed to be held.

Difficult feelings had been arising in me well before I landed in Hawaii for a much-needed vacation last Sunday afternoon.

The previous day – Saturday, August 12 – I was driving back from Albuquerque, having spent the last four days at the Center for Action and Contemplation’s Living School. This was the beginning of my two-year journey under Richard Rohr, Cynthia Bourgeault, and Jim Finley. Master spiritual teachers, all of them. I was feeling excited and grateful.

And uncomfortable.

I had slept fitfully every night since arriving.

Encountering what was showing up in me in the lessons and meditations had not been easy.

And as I drove the four hours back home to El Paso, something else was on my mind. Charlottesville – my former home, my community, my friends.

Keenly aware of the anxiety and trepidation that had been building in that city for weeks, even months, in anticipation of the alt right march planned to descend there on that day, I knew prayers were needed.

And I had been praying. Praying for love to prevail in the face of such hate and violence.

You could say I had a lot on my mind and heart.

But in the midst of my prayer, something else arose. The violence and hatred I was praying to heal out there was also in me. I suddenly recognized the violence I was perpetrating towards myself in response to what had been showing up in me.

It may have been subtle, but it was definitely present. The self-judgment. The self-rejection. The ways I was hurting myself through my erroneous thoughts and beliefs.

In that moment, I realized that it was only in acting with nonviolence towards myself that I could even begin to help heal the violence out there.

I needed to be with that painful realization. And to hold it with compassion.

But early the next morning I flew off to Hawaii without having the opportunity to venture into that painful place.

Yet I knew I would have to go there. One of the key teachings I’ve learned from Pathwork is that any difficult feeling must be fully felt before it can be transformed. Whether it’s hate, fear, grief, pain….

So, one morning I sit with that hate in my meditation.

As the feelings of hate increase, I feel my body grow tense and tighten up. I hear myself ask God, where were you? Where are you in this pain and hate?

And I believe that I must tense up to care for and protect myself.  The hate feels too big.

I am deep in the middle of this growing, threatening force when suddenly the image of a beautiful, white Hibiscus emerges. Its delicate blossoms are surrounded by a sea of soft, green leaves that seem to expand as they enfold all the misery and pain and hatred that had surfaced.

And now everything is enfolded and held tenderly in the arms of this Source. A sea of Love.

Allowing this Love to hold my own hate softens my heart and, in turn, allows me to hold my darkest and most painful places with love, mercy, and compassion.

This is the place I needed to come to.

And I will need to return to again and again.

Because before I can stand against the darkness – and not come from a place of self-righteous certitude – I must be grounded in this love, vulnerable and aware of my own woundedness.

The darkness of the kind of hate we experienced in Charlottesville is, I believe, the pain of separation from this Love. Separation from the unconditional love of our Source.

As Rohr teaches, “The great illusion that we must all overcome is that of separateness.”

“Sin” is a symptom of separation, he says.

And yet the paradox is that we can never really be separated from God.

Here’s another paradox:

We are already whole and yet each of us is in need of healing.

And darkness must be revealed before it can be transformed by the light.

Before I left Hawaii, a hike at Volcanoes National Park gave me a great metaphor for what can emerge when what is percolating underground rises to the surface. Volcanic eruptions have created the most beautiful black sand beaches.

It’s just one example in nature.

All of this gives me hope that healing from the painful darkness we are seeing now is possible.

Because I know that love is trustworthy.

It is trustworthy. And it will prevail.

 

What Love Looks Like

Today is the sixth anniversary. It happened on a Saturday morning, not unlike this one. David died looking up at a bright blue spring sky. Warm sunshine beaming down.

It doesn’t seem like it could be six years already. And yet it feels like forever since I heard him call me “honey,” touched his skin, felt his body close to mine, and smelled his scent as I nuzzled my nose into his beard.

It’s true what they say — your life changes forever once you lose someone you love that much. Certainly my life and my son Davis’s changed forever on April 18, 2009. But I’m sure Davis would agree with me — our lives didn’t change in a negative, feeling resentful, why-did-this-happen-to-me kind of way.

Sure, it’s taken time for us to heal. To move through the tough, painful feelings and come out the other side. To begin to recognize the blessings in the pain. You realize you’ve grown and matured in ways you couldn’t have otherwise. You realize this is your path.

When Davis and I talk about losing David, we agree. We’ve made choices and gone in directions neither of us would have if David were still alive.

That’s not to say that we would have chosen this — to live our lives without this generous, loving man beside us, supporting us. But here’s what we do choose — we choose to live full lives without him.

David is the reason why I came to El Paso. With his passing, I wanted to know what else was in store for my life. I started to seek what that might be. And I had the freedom to go find it.

But it’s much more than that. It’s about what David taught me for the 28+ years he was in my life.

He taught me how to love.

Through our relationship I learned what unconditional love might look like. He was the closet thing to it that I’d ever experienced. And that’s what gave me the courage and the willingness to open my heart to strangers. To be vulnerable in places where I’d previously been so protective. To be willing to trust.

Little by little I’ve been learning this lesson. I’m sure it’s a lifelong lesson.

But today, on this anniversary, I wanted to acknowledge this:

Because of you, David, I know what love looks like. Because of you, I carry it within me wherever I go.