I'm No Jesus

"Hey Dad!"

"What?"

"Hey Dad! You know that line, I guess it's from the Bible, wherever two or more gather...?"

I guess? Hard to believe I'm a preacher's kid.

"Oh. Wherever three or more gather, I will be there too."

I think that's what he said. I'm convinced his hearing thing is rubbing off on me and everybody else around here. What?

"The thing is, hon, what Jesus was saying was simple. I am in you and you are in me."

"Okay, that's what I was thinking about. That part."

I'm no Jesus. But when I Googled quotes from the Bible, I found "From where two or three gather together as my followers, I am there among them" - New Living Translation 2007. And since today's piece is a thank you note to you, dear followers, I thought maybe I could connect it somehow...Okay, it's a huge stretch, but I love the gathering part.

So this is a shout out to those of you who have gathered on the followers' page; the yellow smiley face, the bare-chested languishing person, husband with clown nose, cousin Steph in Florida, Kerry in Vermont, and Neeny, who fortunately for her computer, doesn't keep a hammer nearby. And the rest of your beautiful smiling, some painted, shadowed, and slightly distorted (Claire, is that you?) faces. Thank you. It occurred to me that I could have a hundred faces grinning at me each day if I could get my cousins and their families on board, especially Aunt Nip's branch of the family tree.

Thanks to my readers who comment and send emails. I appreciate the time it takes to reach out and connect. I get that we should all lie down. No talking, just breathe. But this is good stuff. It matters, this connection.

This Being Alive is a growing community because of all of you.

And me, Jesus' long-lost cousin, twice-removed.

"The life I touch for good or ill will touch another life, and that in turn another, until who knows where the trembling stops or in what place my touch will be felt."

- Frederick Buechner

xo b

Morning Glory

It's only when people begin to shake loose from their preconceptions, from the ideas that have dominated them, that we begin to receive a sense of opening, a sense of vision.

~ Barbara Ward

I could wax eloquently about how thoughtful it was that she took the time to email me a thank you note for coming to speak to her class. How her initial reaction was, who is this lady and did she say we're gonna write? And how when I said we'd be writing, she thought she might throw up. Okay, she didn't say that, but think mega roller coaster ride and how your stomach does that weird thing. How it just so happened, that once we got going on that cold *Sunday afternoon, she began to feel differently. About the writing. And herself. It was still a roller coaster ride for her, but now it had shifted into the good kind. Anyway, there will be no waxing. After I read her beautiful email, I promptly burst into tears; cracked open by this person's reaching out, and by her writing.

It was a happy sob-fest; a heart-opening, moving stuff around inside me, kind of thing. I believe it's good to cry outside, so I sat on the back porch steps and listened to the birds. It was a Wednesday gift; a moment of gratitude for the way people come together, [often in the oddest moments, and least likely locations,] and connect.

The good news is, I let myself have it, instead of tapping the tears down and getting up to empty the dishwasher. I sat on the paint-worn porch steps and put my head in my hands. And like any good crier, I spread my fingers out so I could see what was going on around me. And then I noticed the shoots popping up out of the ground in my garden. Which led me to get my trowel and shovel and ball of twine. I weeded and shoveled. I moved things around. I brought the clematis up front and dug up the big purple flower and moved it to the back. I tucked some morning glory seeds into the ground and climbed up on Mom's rickety old ladder, attaching twine to the house for the vines to travel up.

I never know when I'm going to receive this sense of opening, sense of vision. But I know enough to trust that it's going to keep showing up, if I just spread my fingers out wide enough to see.

* read "Two by Four-ness"

As The World Turns...

Today marks the one week anniversary of This Being Alive. In lieu of sounding completely corny, logging in every day to write has made me feel very alive. Three days this week I raced out the door to pick Claire up at the bus stop because I spaced out the time; I was so involved on my computer and jotting things down in my notebook that I simply lost track. Losing track when I'm writing is a happy place for me.

I want to shout out to my friend, Susan Featro, the techie queen, who emailed me directions to get my photo of snowdrops on the post page, rather than floating around in space. That's why you are getting snowdrops revisited. Thanks, Susan. You can expect more questions, no doubt.

Here's to Penny Ross, artist extraordinaire and one of the shiniest people I know, for figuring out how to get her beautiful smiling photo on the followers section. She wrote me and said, "I don't want to be a shadow person." You can find her next to my husband, Michael Collins, who talked her through the process via email. He's the guy with the clown nose. Don't ask.

To top off the week, my friend, Anne Walker, made this an international blog by becoming a follower from Melbourne, Australia. I would love to see more faces, more countries. No kidding, we could all hold hands and sing, It's a small world after all! It's the six degrees of separation thing; send this on to someone you know, and they can send it on to someone else...right? Here's to the land down under! I love you, Anne, and all the rest of you who have logged on to This Being Alive. I can't thank you enough.

It is my intention to write about this sweet, ordinary life, every day. I hope you'll tune in.