The traveling for my ECF job and to and from Tallahassee to pick up or see our girl taxes me. I should be able to be home for 3 weeks, basically travel-free and I am grateful. I am also steeling myself for another round of lots of travel from January through March. It makes routines harder and I find myself a bit disoriented and dislocated almost constantly.

I realized how stretched I was late on Friday night, flying home from New York. My work partner and I made a presentation to the ECF Board on Friday afternoon, then together we rode out to LaGuardia in the worst of Friday rush hour traffic in NYC so I was the second to last person to board the plane. My little OCD self was about to jump out of her skin with the anxiety of it all. And in the darkness of the flight, high above the Eastern Seaboard, I slowed down enough to take stock.

I have self-isolated and shut down quite regularly recently; it has been hard to stay in touch with anything but what was right in front of me. The enormity of the decisions I made at this time a year ago still continues to make itself manifest including in these patterns. The questions, though, are getting answered. I am still, and in some ways, first of all, a community priest. I have offered to lead an Advent program for the ECW of our small parish here in Lowndesboro and it will be open in our town to any woman who would like to participate. My priest friend Joe continues to struggle with knee issues so I will help with services at St Paul’s for the next few weeks.  I wish it weren’t for this reason that I got to help serve at St. Paul’s, but as the Christmas season draws near, I am thankful for that opportunity.

For two Sundays in October, I was guest preacher and celebrant at Ascension in Montgomery and got to experience glorious music in the Anglican tradition and a sense of connection with a large congregation. On Wednesday of last week, I attended the installation of their new rector and was touched by the warmth with which I was greeted and remembered. The preacher for the occasion had a great sermon about friendship as the defining metaphor of ministry—friendship, which at its best, “is both creative and subversive”. I listened, washed over by memories of serving as a priest in Fort Lauderdale.   The best parts of my ministry occurred when a core group let go of issues of authority and politics andengaged as co-participants in the work of ministry. Now that most of my work in ministry happens via Skype and email, I miss that incarnational sense of call and response that comes through friendship.

On Thursday and Friday, I was privileged to meet and start a conversation with a young woman who just became a fellow through the ECF Fellowship program. Ali is working on a PhD in ethics and society at Vanderbilt, focused particularly on the rhetoric of humanitarian aid. She described working in Haiti for several years with a medical aid program in a very small town. Through that work, she saw first-hand how the Church can be a partner in transformation in the best sense possible. After the earthquake, when humanitarian organizations poured in to help, she also saw the worst of how well-intentioned aid groups can become oppressive and distorted. What she is most interested in is understanding how the very same language and rhetoric guide the work and outcome of two very different approaches to ‘mission.’

What I found most exhilarating was her desire not to polarize through her exploration, but rather, to nurture conversation. She has a brilliant question she works from: “tell me what you see that makes you say that”. Especially now, with the mid-term elections behind us, and the fear and glee I hear reflected on the two sides of the contest ringing in my ears, I am thankful for a new generation of emerging leaders who are more focused on reconciliation and engagement than winning the argument. I aspire to be that kind of priest. I am grateful for friendships, including this new one, that give me a place to grow in this way.

It is a sparkly, cool Monday morning in Lowndesboro and I was up at five to can my first batch of Apple Butter. The batch turned out well and I look forward to making several more batches and baking bread to give with the Apple Butter as Christmas gifts. My antique roses have come in and there is a flower bed ready and waiting for several of them. Earlier last month I planted some lavender in that bed and it is now blooming. In my mind’s eye, I can see what the flower bed will look like in late spring and early summer next year–just wow! And after planting my roses, today I am going to paint the room that will become my office and work space.  I realize this is the way I have these days to set “an altar in the world”.  AMDG.

Maria and New Friend Dot

“Mom, what is wrong with me? What is my diagnosis?” I had stretched out next to Maria this evening when she declared it was bedtime. This followed my having gotten in the shower with her earlier to scrub her down–I would have scrubbed her with a Brillo pad if I’d had my druthers. This woman-child still struggles with good grooming and good hygiene and I long since learned I had to make it a game and I had to help if I wanted her really clean.  The laughter had dissolved the grit and grime of these 5 months living so far apart; lying on her bed, we were back in that real place she sometimes leads me to.

Now we had been in the dark, in silence for quite a while and she had broken that silence when she said, “I’m going to miss you something fierce. Do you get lonely?” I told her I was lonely for her every single day and I kept hoping so much that one day, she would be able to manage her choices enough to live safely in a group home in Montgomery where we could see her lots and lots. That’s when she asked me those two questions. I explained reactive attachment disorder like this: “it happens when the people who needed to take care of you when you were an itty bitty little baby girl just couldn’t. And it made your heart very sad and very scared, and that in turn makes it hard for you to act in ways that keep you and everyone around you safe.” “So that’s my diagnosis?” “Yes.” “Will I get better?” “I’ve watched you work hard to be brave and strong. And you are becoming a beautiful and kind young woman. I think you will always have to try very, very hard to make good choices because it won’t come easy to you.” “But Mami, who will take care of me when you die?”

While her school situation is a million times better (she made all A’s and B’s this grading period), her residential program does not measure up to the standards of BARC. I see it in small things—we keep buying her nice clothes that fit well and they keep disappearing so when I picked her up on Friday she was wearing pants that didn’t fit and a blouse that was all stained. I know Maria has had a very hard time adjusting and she’s been given stronger medications. They leave her chronically lethargic and she has gained so much weight that she is one dress size away from the very largest clothes I can find in “women’s plus sizes”. Today, I had to take up a pair of pants and asked her to get up on a chair so I could pin the pants. That simple activity was terribly hard for her and left her winded.

Here’s the thing: I know we cannot have her with us. Alabama does not care enough about people with mental health issues like Maria’s to fund Intermediate Care Facilities with the kind of staff support she needs. Every time I am at TDC, and even when we visited at BARC, I could see the amount of energy and effort it took to care for the residents; I understand that with so many of them with as many challenges as Maria’s, it is essential to a staff, no matter how compassionate, to be able to keep destructive and self-destructive behavior managed as best as possible, including with meds.

Tomorrow, Sherod and I will drive her back and do our best to advocate on her behalf with the director and house manager. But it is hard. It is hard to accept that I lack the resources to provide my daughter with a better quality of life. It is hard to accept that the decision Sherod and I made, to leave Ft Lauderdale and start over, as absolutely right as it was for us, came at a cost to our girl. It is hard to consider that Maria cannot look forward to a significantly better life unless somehow, she is able to finally get a handle on those destructive patterns of behavior. And it is especially hard to think that my daughter worries about who will take care of her when I am gone.

This has been a glorious birthday celebration for me because she’s been here and we have been able to enjoy each other and the goodness of being a family, however briefly. I wish I could stop time. I wish I didn’t have to take her back to that place tomorrow.

About half way into it, when we had no kitchen and the floor was getting pulled up too

Our new kitchen minus the island the Mallowman’s going to build

The front part of our new ‘great room”

From a corner of the dining room

And tonight, our little family had a wonderful dinner here while Sherod’s pot of Brunswick Stew simmered for the party tomorrow…

Breakfast room and kitchen

In Alabama with sweet Maria in the car. We’ve been listening to loud music all the way, and whooped ‘n hollered and played this piece REAL loud when we crossed the ‘Bama state line. The girl gets to be home with us this weekend. Such joy…

A few bits and pieces of the last few days:  late on Thursday, when I was waiting because there were maintenance issues with the plane for my flight from ATL to MGM, I went into the women’s bathroom at the airport.  It was pushing 11 at night and a woman was hard at work, mopping the floor.  On my way out I stopped to talk to her, told her I travel a lot these days and I dread the bathrooms in some of the airports.  The ones in Atlanta are always clean so I wanted to thank her.  When I did, her eyes welled up with tears.

Yesterday, our house was crawling with folks working on the renovation.  One of them, a wiry, sharp-featured young man was putting up siding. Earlier this summer, he was one of the first people to start on this project of ours.  At the time, he saw Maria’s loft bed, taken apart and leaning against a wall in the garage, and asked about it.  Truth is, we were never going to use it again and he explained he wanted it for his little girl, wondered if we were selling it.  I bartered some help from him getting Sherod’s shop fixed up instead.  It was good to see Michael again and I asked how the loft bed had worked out. He explained he’d had to cut it down some to fit it in his family’s trailer and that his daughter loves it.

This young man has a significant scar right at the base of his throat, where he had emergency neck surgery after a terrible accident that almost left him paralyzed. He also wanted me to see a picture–he’s been gathering leftover siding and discarded windows that are still good, just dated, to build a playhouse for his children.  The detail of his work bespoke the love he has for his children and the pride in his craft.  He told me if I knew anyone who’d like one for their kids to let him know–he’s trying to do layaway for Christmas.

All the guys working on this renovation are like that–they work very, very hard, chew tobacco, wear either Auburn or Alabama t-shirts and are tough. Their world is probably very small by lots of standards.  I suspect they and I would not see eye to eye on a whole lot of issues, but another one has invited Sherod and me to visit his church and they are all curious when they see me head out to catch another flight in my clergy outfits; they always ask about my trips when I get back and stop to look at my work when I am doing some of my e-learning design work on my laptop. I don’t imagine they do much more than make it, though they are smart and capable.

A friend of mine, Marie, has commented more than once that I make Alabama look idyllic and I want to make sure I am not candy-coating what life is like.  This is a state where poverty is very, very real.  Where there are plenty of meth labs–probably some not too far from my house.  Where even out here in the country, there are break-ins and house invasions.  Mainly, it is folks eking out an existence. The thing is is, more and more, I see the beauty and goodness right in the grit and determination and the sheer will to make something out of almost nothing.

Up at four this morning, Sherod and I headed down “Old Selma Road” as the sun was climbing, to look at the Black-Eyed Susans growing wild, the steam rising from creeks along the way, and all those other sights of a new day in the country when it’s cold and clear.

The day I came for my interview with ECF in late December, it was snowing. This trip brings me back in the autumn, with wind and cold rain. Black clothes are back with renewed determination. That said, I am still seeing lots of women in winter dresses and flats without socks or stockings. We are ready and not, anticipate and cling. Funny how we want to have it all.

Sherod was already asleep. We continue to be squished into the upstairs living space, clothes laid out on trash bags on the floor while the flooring goes down in our bedroom closet. I was still filled with restless energy so I sat at a small round table a few feet from the bed, writing. All of a sudden, and from very close by, a piercing, sharp keening filled the room. Coyotes were out in the field across the road from us. That sound, the fierce darkness of the night, the big questions waiting to be answered: all of it so wild and untamed.

I’m in Chicago attending a workshop on a process designed to help foster more open, direct and honest conversation in places like the Church.  There is some irony that does not escape me about the fact that we turn to organizational consultants for direction on leadership.  There’s this guy Jesus who’s a pretty good model for leadership but we have a harder time turning to the stories about his ministry because they make it very difficult to have it both ways.  Safe, but truthful is not a sustainable paradox for long.  Nonetheless, there are some good things to learn and especially, the stories people bring to these workshops are deeply, powerfully moving.  That’s where I see the stirring of the Spirit.

This is the first time I’ve been in Chicago and I am in the heart of downtown, close to Michigan Avenue and just a few blocks from the lake.  I brought my camera anticipating some time for photography but it is raw and cold outside and raining on and off.  I am not sure I’ll make it.  So I contented myself with a few pix around St. James Commons.  The Diocese of Chicago has just opened a very lovely conference space at the top of a 5-story annex to St James Cathedral.  I am especially delighted by the juxtaposition of very clean, sleek lines in the annex, and the old, Anglo-catholic ornateness of the Chapel of St Andrew where we say Morning Prayer together.

While I was in Boquete in September, one morning I had to run downtown to take care of an errand for my dad. I was already coming back towards his house when I heard the bells of the town church start ringing. I looked at my watch and realized it was about 10 past the hour, not a normal time for them to be ringing and imagined they were ringing to mark the end of funeral. They rang and rang as I kept on walking, which brought me towards the church. As the sound surrounded and went through me, John Donne’s words walked with me:

No man is an Iland, intire of itselfe; every man
is a peece of the Continent, a part of the maine;
if a Clod bee washed away by the Sea, Europe
is the lesse, as well as if a Promontorie were, as
well as if a Manor of thy friends or of thine
owne were; any mans death diminishes me,
because I am involved in Mankinde;
And therefore never send to know for whom
the bell tolls; It tolls for thee.

I reached the church just as 6 pallbearers carried a casket out and carefully slid it into a hearse. I stood quietly and waited for the rest of the people attending the funeral to come out and fall into step behind the hearse that drove away slowly.

I had not thought about that moment until earlier today. It is the second time in a relatively short period of time when pieces of writing, not that esoteric, but very old, have drifted back to my attention. Donne and Julian of Norwich feel like old friends who have dropped in unexpectedly and I am not sure their appearance is purely coincidental. You see, they speak of a time when humankind was so much more aware of how little there is to control, how fragile and strong we are at the same time, because we are involved with humankind, because we are all, every single one one of us, held so close by the One who created, redeemed and to this day, sustains us.

It is Donne and Dame Julian who give me my bearings as the crisis around the Ebola epidemic keeps crashing into this idyllic little corner Sherod and I have chosen for ourselves. A couple of weeks ago, Sherod, who usually sleeps in late, was up at the crack of dawn wanting to have a conversation about the point at which one chooses to self-isolate to protect from the virus. Alarmed, I tried to get a feel for how near and real the threat was. In response, a dear friend gently reminded me that both of us are far more likely to succumb from the flu than Ebola. How easily fear had been welcomed into our home…

I was at work on my laptop two days ago, when a New York Times banner came across the top of my screen with the news that Thomas Eric Duntan had died. I stopped for a little while—there was nothing I wanted or could do, except take notice of this death, the horrible death, of one person among billions that populate our planet. I was appalled and continue to grieve as I see so many people on Facebook make simply hateful comments about him and his death. I understand the fear that has gripped us. I see the missteps and errors all around. Perhaps worst, I am aware of the indifference of people like me, people with privilege and power, who stood back as the epidemic began and let the horror of this disease unfold in Africa because we were so sure we would in no way be diminished by the suffering and desolation “those people” were living and dying through.   But to malign a person who has just died, especially died such a horrible death?   We lose our own humanity when we surrender to the angry face of fear.

In contrast to my callous indifference, I am convinced that each time our Good Shepherd has to bend down to pick up and hold against his heart one more of his beloved who has died of Ebola, He weeps as he wept with each person who died of AIDS. I am convicted by the certainty that if Jesus were still walking the paths of Earth, he would have been in Thomas Eric’s room.   Recently, some friends of a friend went to West Africa on a trip they had scheduled before the epidemic broke out. Before they left, they pondered what it meant that so many people had recommended they not go. As they shared with my friend through Facebook posts: how could they say they are people of faith in solidarity with the people of Africa and not go. In them and through them, and others of such courage, Christ, who fears not death, is present where healing is most needed.

I don’t have the skills to go to West Africa and be of much help. But I can do this: I can give witness to a God who calls us to something different than fear in this dark and sad time. Earlier, I read this article and I feel like it is now my personal responsibility to keep both Thomas and little baby Diana in my remembrance and in my prayers. I am going to get my flu shot tomorrow so I don’t take ill and draw resources away from those who need them more. I am going to keep reading the stories and listening to the news to bring myself closer to what is happening and not look away just because it is all so ugly and so painful. I am going to keep saying to everyone I know, whether through this blog, or on Facebook or best yet, face to face, that we must not be afraid. We must be part of bringing the hope into this desolation in whatever way we can.

If you are reading this blog, I hope you will click on the link to the NYT article and see the whole slideshow.  I hope you too will consider what you can do to help make sure the light keeps shining in the darkness. We have talked ourselves into believing that we are an island unto our own. We aren’t. Our determination to hold ourselves apart and claim superiority is what makes us afraid and weak.  Even if we choose not to believe it, we are diminished by the death of Thomas, and little baby Diana and her mom, and the thousands of others who have died of this hideous disease. Our fear is not OK. It is courage and the certainty that even in this time, God holds us all in the palm of God’s hand, that allow us to be light, to set free, to offer life. May we be light.

Alabama River

At River’s Edge

Life along one of the sloughs of the river

I miss the ocean.  I suspect I always will because I cannot imagine I’ll ever live in a beach town again.  But the Alabama River is beautiful in these parts and the afternoon time for exploring with Sherod pure joy.