For Katherine

Aunty Katherine is not really my aunt. Biologically. She is the daughter of my grandma Gilmour. A woman who is also not related. Strictly speaking.Both women are part of my bedrock community.

They have known me since I could blithely sit under the tea and coffee table at church, munching on cookies I'd 'secretly stolen' by reaching up and out from under the table and onto the silver trays with the gilt edges. Well, silvery colored.

Katherine has always been quiet. She is tall and has long, tentative limbs. Her brown hair is always tightly permed. She must like hats; she often wears them. Her shoes are practical. Although now they are not literally practical in the sense that they get practice. Her limbs are no longer so tentative, so awkward; they move with tense purpose and concentration.

Aunty Katherine has ALS. Diagnosis: three to five years.

Grandma Gilmour watched her husband die of cancer. She opened a letter explaining that her son died defending his country. She stood in shock as the medics explained they'd misdiagnosed her daughter's diabetic coma. Now she will watch her third child, Katherine, die. Slowly. Agonizingly slowly.

Now the daugher who stayed close will slowly move away. Into herself as her body shuts down.

Yesterday morning I participated in a 5km Walk/Run for ALS. With Katherine and Mary, mom and dad, Rosina and Shirley, friends and family.

Last night I went to rock garden. I could hardly sing. "You are so good to me."
"How great is our God."

I am so often able to sing without thinking about the words in context. My context. Our context.

But. God is great. And God is good. Even when I cannot get the words out. Even when my heart is breaking. Even when I can bearly breathe with grief for Katherine and Mary (grandma Gilmour).

...

OK.

So this is really a tribute to food. Last night I went to the Best Potluck Ever (and like the Best Christmas Pagent Ever this evening had its bountiful amounts of ham, but in most other respects it was quite different).

PS-by-the-way do you think the word potluck originated from people who felt pot-ish foods were lucky? or that because everyone brings a pot everyone is lucky? or something?

I digress.

I just wanted to say that when a potluck is so well organized as to scintillate (sp?) my tastebuds then, well: Wow. Last night was like a sparkler for my mouth: exciting, dynamic and, um, textured (?).

I must say I displayed a certain amount of restraint. I ate within the limits imposed on me by nature: no bloating, stomach cramping. This is all good. However, I do have one regret.

I should have eaten more guacamole. Everyone should eat more of it.

Thats all really.
Thank you God for food, tastebuds and potlucks. For: Enough is a feast. And we have so much.

my heart breaks open.

in its openness and vulnerability everything is close to me. everyone is dear to me.

sometimes i wonder if it is precisely in our knowledge that all is not good and right in the world that we are singing hallelujah, come emmanual.

i wonder if it is because we are created to be in God's image that joy can gurgle out of us at small things like droplets of dew on fall leaves; that pain can pierce our inside heart and make us weep; that twinkling nighttime can induce such wonder.

i am so grateful for this grief and joy and wonder.

and my heart is broken open.

...

In one salutation to thee, my God, let all my senses spread out
and touch this world at thy feet.

Like a rain cloud of July hung low with its burden of unshed showers
let all my mind bend down at thy door
in one salutation to thee.

Let all my songs gather together their diverse strains into a single current
and flow to a sea of silence
in one salutation to thee.

Like a flock of homesick cranes flying night and day
back to their mountain nests
let all of my life take its voyage to its eternal home
in one salutation to thee.

Rabindranath Tagore in Gitangali

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Rather lovely - isn't it?

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who am I?

Today I bundled up. In a warm but scratchy toque from Bhutan. In a scarf from Ethiopia. In mittens from Nepal.

Sitting on the skytrain behind me was a woman coming down off of heroin. Her eyes rolled back. Her lovely blue pupils were rimmed with red. She didn't stop moving. Not even for one second. She curled into a ball, vulnerable. She aggressively unfurled her arbs and legs, dangled her limbs askew on the seat, tense, twitching, back and forth.

Her little left foot was covered in a wet, dirty red woolen sock that was hanging onto her toes for dear life. The five vibrant welts on her foot were signs of her anxious fingers, grasping. For what?

She was thirsty. She needed water. She wanted someone to listen to her. To look her in the face and hear her. See her. Value her.

I sat there thinking: I hope she doesn't attack me. Talk to me. Make eye contact. I hope I can ignore her.

I was scared. In my fancy dancy warm clothes. With my backpack filled with lovely Ethiopian things for my friends. On my way to a coffee shop to eat gooey warm cinnamon buns and sip a mug of steamed milk.

Scared.

It is easier to love poverty when it comes in the form of a vulnerable 4 year old girl who impishly tugs at my shirt. It is easier to bless the poor in spirit when they live in a beautiful village in the Rift Valley, innocent, dirty but gentle.

What am I to do with myself when I could not look this woman in the face without showing her my fear?

What does it mean to say "I love Jesus" when I could not give this woman a sip of water?

What do I do when poverty reaches out, attacks my senses, oversteps my boundaries? Poverty is people. Alive. Hurting. Angry. Confused. Strung out on acid. Brandishing an empty cap filled with change. Right here. In my home. Who am I to think that I love people when I could not look her in the face? She who is created by God, blessed, holy and dearly loved. She of whom God said, "It is good."

Who am I?

...I just wonder...

It is snowing.

I am home.

Bajillions of tiny white lacey bits are blanketing my world, smothering everything with beauty. I stood outside on the deck for a few moments. Squeeked and crunched. Snowflakes daintily dropped onto my hair. My face. My eyelashes.

Last wednesday my friend Brad said goodbye, again, to his wife, his lover, his friend: the incredible Tracy Curley.

Tonight is not the first night this week that silvery sparkles of life stuck to my hair. My face. My eyelashes.

In celebration of beauty. Of life. I grieve and rejoice.

I love you Tracy.

about me

This is a rough paraphrase of a bit of John that I love. In my own words.

I want to be known as Lindsey Joy
God fearer
Spirit welcomer;

I want to be filled up with Jesus -
up to the top

So that righteousness spills over
and blots out all of the "my" "my" mys"
the stuff other people see as me.

I want a righteousness that is not mine
but God's -
powerful,
communal,
intimate,
and life giving.

Unto death
through until birth into new life.

Amen.