Infusion

Yesterday was my birthday.

In my journal, I wrote, "Hope Year 27 is marked by a greater ability to extend grace to others and more readily accept it for myself."

It's funny: phrases that I've heard and "known" my whole life-- concepts like, Love and Grace and Forgiveness-- those Christian buzzwords, you know? For years, they've been in my head. Something about this season though is getting those abstract concepts finally, finally down to a deeper place inside. It isn't sudden, and it isn't glamorous or dramatic. It's more like a waking up percolation-- an infusion of substances and experiences and thoughts dripping down slowly into the deepest understanding-place. Within me, something potent is brewing.

I think it has something to do with all of this.

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Pastor Richard often talks about the importance of holding blessings with open hands. That's a very difficult thing for me to do. Isn't that a difficult thing for ALL of us to do? It seems as though when the good things come, I'm able to keep my shaky hands open just long enough to see them tremble in would-be preparatory flight. Then, in a hiccup of panicky fear, I clap my hands shut and clutch tight, fearfully tightening my hands into fists. Inside my grasp, those tissue wings, those dusty rivulets of fragile life-- perish.

I so badly want to hold on.

But today, something different happened.

I had a hope and it landed on my finger-tips. For a long moment, I waited, eyes focused on this diaphanous vibration. Stay.

Won't you stay.

But I plucked no daisy petals and made no demands. I tornadoed no dandelions, and sought no falling stars. I didn't even curl my fingers. I kept my palms upraised, open, spacious. I hungered for this lovely thing, and held my breath-- but most of all my heart prayed freedom.



And-- it flew away.




And even though I ought to be disappointed about the fact-- and even though I suppose I am disappointed about the fact-- it all feels more free than anything has felt in a long time.

The open hands place is a freedom-place, it's a GOOD place, it isn't a trapped place, it's a GRACE place.

Something about this has something to do with everything else. And I know that doesn't make much sense, but most of it doesn't make much "sense," and very little of it looks like what I would choose for it to ACTUALLY look like--

Yet despite that, something about open hands, and even the peace that comes with watching something beautiful fly away... is the most hopeful, restful thing I've known in a long time.

And that makes me feel good about this wide open space I'm in.