This year's autumn has consoled me.
It's amazing once in a while to recall nights and days in the hospital, just three months ago. Wondering if I would survive, and then whether or not life would return to normal. Well, at this point, it pretty much has. Thank God. I can walk and sing and even go for job interviews. Which I'm doing. Must pay the dear hospital.
There's always something going on, construction of the soul. At our church, renovation continues within the walls.
We're gaining a more beautiful space for prayer. But dust must settle, and it's a long haul getting there.
I ponder in wonder the spaces inside of me where dust gets kicked up all the time. Thanks in a very large part to prayer. I never knew what prayers were, really, until I came to this church. Yet the path of prayer, of stillness in quiet, dusty spaces, has shown itself in glimpses throughout my life. Since I was a wee thing.
Lately I've thought again about my memoir, which I never stopped writing. I also thought about an episode from my wee life, and I recognized the moment, in 1963, when I entered into church-ness and discovered I loved church. It wasn't during a service. I was, actually, trapped inside the church we went to. Night had fallen. Silence gently settled, and I sang a hymn, waiting for my father.
So now I'm writing a book with the subtitle "My Heart's Journey Back to Church." It will likely contain pieces of all the work I've done up to now, but it has a destination: the readership of those interested in our "unchurched" times. A lot is written about people who've left churches but who are Christian. I'm definitely one of these people, though now I'm someone journeying within walls being fashioned in the shape, perhaps, of identities in God-space.
I'll blog more later about my job hunt. Or if I don't post for a while, you can guess I'm doing something, for once, that earns money.
It's amazing once in a while to recall nights and days in the hospital, just three months ago. Wondering if I would survive, and then whether or not life would return to normal. Well, at this point, it pretty much has. Thank God. I can walk and sing and even go for job interviews. Which I'm doing. Must pay the dear hospital.
There's always something going on, construction of the soul. At our church, renovation continues within the walls.
We're gaining a more beautiful space for prayer. But dust must settle, and it's a long haul getting there.
I ponder in wonder the spaces inside of me where dust gets kicked up all the time. Thanks in a very large part to prayer. I never knew what prayers were, really, until I came to this church. Yet the path of prayer, of stillness in quiet, dusty spaces, has shown itself in glimpses throughout my life. Since I was a wee thing.
Lately I've thought again about my memoir, which I never stopped writing. I also thought about an episode from my wee life, and I recognized the moment, in 1963, when I entered into church-ness and discovered I loved church. It wasn't during a service. I was, actually, trapped inside the church we went to. Night had fallen. Silence gently settled, and I sang a hymn, waiting for my father.
So now I'm writing a book with the subtitle "My Heart's Journey Back to Church." It will likely contain pieces of all the work I've done up to now, but it has a destination: the readership of those interested in our "unchurched" times. A lot is written about people who've left churches but who are Christian. I'm definitely one of these people, though now I'm someone journeying within walls being fashioned in the shape, perhaps, of identities in God-space.
I'll blog more later about my job hunt. Or if I don't post for a while, you can guess I'm doing something, for once, that earns money.
