Maria is self-injuring. She’s had a rough time of it at BARC and at school. And so she is hurting herself; part of her face is pretty messed up. The sense of helplessness is overwhelming tonight. My beautiful, beautiful girl. What I wouldn’t give for her to have a different chance at life.

All Saints is the one of a handful of venues for one of the truly magnificent musical ensembles of Southeast Florida, Seraphic Fire.  In one way or another, they have given me a moment of pure Christmas for the past few years.  They’ve just published a new album this year, Silent Night, which keeps me company on my nightly journey.  This is the piece that most sustains me in the darkness I walk in at this time of the year.

I am so proud of our church.  Today’s reading from the interactive Advent retreat says “Blessed are the eyes that see what you see”.  I was truly blessed to see that amazing liturgy celebrated in April at All Saints.

Episcopal priests offer spiritual support for gay unions

By Lois K. Solomon, Sun Sentinel
5:09 a.m. EST, December 4, 2012

Gay couples who seek spiritual affirmation of their relationships can now sanctify their unions with special blessings at South Florida’s Episcopal churches.

Priests in the Episcopal Diocese of Southeast Florida have been given permission to perform a distinct rite, different from the marriage between a man and a woman. Called “The Witnessing and Blessing of a Lifelong Covenant,” the ceremony, to be introduced this month, was approved by national convention delegates over the summer.

South Florida’s Episcopal priests had been performing a locally approved liturgy for the past two years for couples who have been married in other states, Bishop Leo Frade said. Florida law does not recognize same-sex marriages.

Frade said none of the priests in the 77-church diocese, which covers six South Florida counties, have told him they are morally opposed to the blessings.

Lorraine Michels and Joan Van Ness were married in 2009 in Massachusetts, but decided to participate in a nine-couple blessing ceremony in April at All Saints Episcopal in Fort Lauderdale. They have been together since 1993.

“As a Catholic, I thought that once I left Catholicism, I’d never see the inside of a church again,” said Michels, 66, a retired physical education teacher from New York. But Van Ness, 67, grew up Episcopalian and the church invited the couple to participate. Michels said the ceremony, attended by about 300 people, was moving and emotional.

“What was overwhelming was the love everyone who attended felt,” Michels said. “It was one of the highlights of my life.”

The Episcopal Church, the 14th-largest denomination in the U.S., is the largest denomination to approve a gay blessing ritual, but not the first. The United Church of Christ has approved same-sex unions since 2005.

Although gay marriage was approved by three states in the November election and is now legal in nine, not every mainline denomination has accepted the unions. Methodists and Presbyterians rejected gay rights resolutions earlier this year.

Gay rights issues have also fractured the Episcopal Church in recent years. In 2003, the church approved its first gay bishop, Gene Robinson of New Hampshire, spurring some parishes to break away and form a conservative coalition. The church now has about 1.9 million members, down from 2.3 million in 2003.

To make sure parishioners understand the church’s interpretation of gay relationships and the new national liturgy, some South Florida churches have been conducting information sessions. At St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Delray Beach, about 30 people have been attending the seven-week series, the Rev. Chip Stokes said.

“We lost some folks in earlier years, but support now has been very high,” said Stokes, who has performed one blessing ceremony. “The culture has changed on this issue.”

Several priests in the diocese said they are ready to perform the blessings if asked.

“No one has approached me, but I’m open to offering it,” said the Rev. Andrew Sherman of St. Gregory Episcopal Church in Boca Raton.

“We shall find peace. We shall hear the angels, we shall
see the sky sparkling with diamonds” (A. Chekov)

On Saturday I flew  from David to Panamá at 7 in the morning.  Gregorio, a dear family friend, drove me to Tocumen, the international airport where I would catch my flight home.  I had a lot of work to do so I got a one-day pass to AA’s Admiral’s Club–an executive waiting area with wifi and small cubicles where you can work in peace.  It was great except for the ‘muzak’–holiday muzak that wasn’t even Latin American. It was the holly jolly good ole USA kind of holiday music and I had to listen to it for the 4 hours before my flight took off.  Made me nuts and strengthened my resolve to opt out of that rat race this year.

I’m using this time for as much silence and mindfulness as I can manage.  Over these past few years, I have found that the Jesuits make available some wonderful advent resources for those inclined to contemplation and prayer in this season.  On the right-hand side of this blog there’s a link to the interactive ‘retreat’.  If you decide to follow this resource, I would love to hear from you via a comment or by email (rvlindahlatmedotcom).  Whatever way you find, may this be a time of goodness for you. May you look up and see diamonds sparkling in the sky

I’m still tickled beyond words about the zip line adventure.  My dad and I agreed, when he looked at the pictures, though, that it’s a good thing my mom wasn’t around to see all that happen–she would have been spitting mad at me, maybe with some justification.  The following two pictures are the images I am sure she was never able to get beyond when she worried about me doing anything risky.

My mom and I in the garden at Boston Children’s Hospital.

Celebration of Sancta Lucia Fest (Dec 13th 1961, I think) with the Swedish colony in Cali.  After my second surgery, I was sent home with a modified stroller that allowed my parents to basically perch and strap me into it, while I was in the cast.

I’ve come a long, long way…

There are times when I get exasperated with words because they so stubbornly resist translation. Embedded as they are in the landscape, in the experience, in the richness of a living language, they simply refuse to make it easy for the translator.  You look up two words in Spanish, monte–which means mount and pueblo–which means village and it seems clear enough.  But there is a world of meaning lost in the translation.

An approximation to “vida de monte” is “life in the wilderness”, or at least, life where there’s a whole lot more underbrush and overgrown vegetation and a whole lot less in the way of the comforts of the 21st Century.  Here are some pictures of what life in “el monte” is like:

The road gets destroyed by all the rocks that roll from the cascade in monsoon season.

And when the river meets the road, the road usually looses and it takes years for repairs to be made.

Coffee harvesters, indigenous people called Guambianos, gather around a pickup truck on the side of the road to turn over freshly picked beans and get paid

And homes perch precariously against the hill.

Pueblo means village, of course, but it also has an undertone of disdain–to say you lead a “vida de pueblo” means your world is small, not very sophisticated, filled with gossip; it’s more frayed and tattered than slick and new.  It looks like this

And like this

And if you need to do some shopping

This is about as good as it gets.

I’m headed to Fort Lauderdale tomorrow aware that I’m ready to be back and sad to leave la vida de pueblo and la vida de monte I get to live here.  God help me if I ever lose the ability to travel…

Sorting Through The Projects

Driving back from Selma in October, Sherod and I had a really good conversation about the fact that home is where the stories are.  Back in Selma for Thanksgiving, I was regaled with yet more stories, some of them so funny they made me laugh till my sides hurt.  Two days later, this morning was rainy and a cold wind from the north was blowing in Boquete.  I can still hear large rocks rumble in the river by my parents’ house; the river swollen after a whole week of steady rain.  We’ve had a fire going in the fireplace most of the day.

The crackle and warmth are comforting. I did my ritual calls–to some of my parents’ close friends who would be offended if I didn’t call and say I’m back, and then to my Aunt Inga.  We had been talking for a very short time when I heard her voice change and could tell she was crying. When she was able to, she said she almost forgot it was me she was talking to because I sound so like my mom on the phone.

My dad and I started telling stories this morning, and then looked at pictures.  After lunch and a nap for my dad, we found ourselves doing something I hadn’t set out to do.  My grandmother Rosa’s hope chest, that went with her from Sweden to San Francisco where she went to train as a surgical nurse, and then went on to Colombia, and now sits in Panamá, has been full of handiwork projects–knitting, cross-stitch, crewel, all kinds of projects, many of them abandoned and put away for another day that wasn’t going to come.  I went in looking of something and instead, ended up sorting through it all with my dad.  Some will be given to someone–anyone–who does one of those crafts.  Some just had to be thrown away.  A few I will take back with me–filled with the same hope as my mom’s, that the projects will actually get finished.  The stories have kept rolling out, one after another, bemused, surprised and amused.

And with them, yet another moment of understanding.  I have all kinds of places to call home–home is where the stories are and where someone knows your voice.

I am thankful that our daughter was glad to see us today and the weather was so lovely we got to shoot some hoops and horse around.  That girl–when she is good, she is very, very good.  My heart is happy…