Stones

Having been a month since my last entry, it is way past time for another. On this (March 9) eve of my kidney stone surgery I thought it appropriate to reflect on grace and messiness.

Stone deaf. I thought I was listening. In fact, I spent most of October, November and December of last year doing just that...listening. Listening for God's guidance, for the answers to a pretty messy situation with some freinds, listening to what the big silence has to tell me, listening to what my friends have to say. But all that time I was deaf to my own song, my own voice and the story my body was telling me. I wasn't listening to how my body and my heart and my voice are connected. It took me a long time to finally grow strong enough to really listen and honor my own soul as much as i was honoring everyone else. And still, where my body was concerned, I was stone deaf.

Stone blind. I didn't see this coming really at all. you'd think the pain would have been a clue but for a number a reasons it wasn't obvious to me that I was working up a sizable stone in my kidney. Oddly or perfectly on time perhaps, the idea that I might have a stone occurred to me just as everything else in my life was turning up sunshine. Just today I was talking with a friend and we were commenting on how profound M. Scott Peck was when he wrote his first line, "Life is difficult," in his book, "The Road Less Traveled." That says it all doesn't it? Life is difficult. I know this. I have a list of difficulties as long as anybody else. so why didn't i see this coming? Certainly one tragedy or hassle does not give you immunity to others. But I was stone blind.

But not stone cold. Of course Peck didn't have the whole truth in his one sentence. He was missing the other half of the story. He was missing that Life is sweet and delicate and beautiful. He was missing the grace. Stones can be stumbling obstacles or they can be markers. Yes, I was deaf and I was blind and I was stubborn. I stumbled right over my own feet and my sad heart and fell flat on my pride. but God reached down and pulled me up with one more song, three more friends and a whisper, "May I have this dance?"

It is fitting, I think, that tomorrow I will have help removing the stone that is blocking the flow from kidney and I will begin cleansing anew with a clear organ. Likewise, I am ready to remove the obstacles that stand in the way of me moving forward. I am ready to be cleansed of the baggage, the walls that separate and live again in the truth. I am ready to live clean again.

Thanks be to the Holy One for the chance to live again, for the invitation to get up off my backside and DANCE!