Over the last several weeks I have been taking a spiritual memoir writing class. The class is made up of people who in a variety of ways make their living by being present to the spiritual lives of others: ministers, chaplains, spiritual directors. It is a rich group of people to be with each week and I look forward to Thursdays because I know I will once again get to be with these people. Led by our inspiring and encouraging teacher, we write and read the works of people who are trying to be present to the way the Holy moves in their lives, who then put these experiences into words, commit them to paper. The reading has been rich and enlightening and also humbling. Such beautiful words. Such deep wells.

During the last two weeks we have also been reading one another's work. I have found myself in awe of people's ability to be vulnerable about their deepest longings, their most profound fears. The stories are filled with humor that make us laugh at the wild and crazy things we do in the church, things we hold a common knowledge about even though we are from very different traditions, very different parts of the country. Others are rich with loss and the path of making sense of it from a faith perspective. Still others continue, even after many years, to explore how it is they have felt called to this place we call ministry. All these are shared with the utmost humility and honesty. 

It is powerful to be in the presence of such stories. Yesterday as I left class I was thinking of this very fact. And then, just like that, my mind turned on a dime to reveal the greater truth: everyday we are present to powerful stories. We just don't know it or we ignore it. We walk this path of life surrounded with the richness and rawness of human stories of triumph and tragedy. The neighbor whose name we do not know and those who are move into and out of our lives freely carry huge stories to be told. The teachers who often spend more time with our children than we do carry stories that might surprise us. The check out clerk at the grocery store may be carrying a secret that would shock us. The stories of our own family members that we have pushed to the side or into a closet for any manner of reasons. All of us are made up of the stories that shape us, wound us, enliven us, define us.

This being human is a fragile thing and so often we bump and stumble our way through each day either oblivious or in denial of the presence of those who walk with us. This morning I woke up with the lyrics to a song by Claudia Schmidt running through my head. No doubt its message was planted there in my sleeping brain as if to remind me to walk gently into this day: " I will tell you my dreams….will you promise to guard them well. Everything is much more than it seems. There is power in these stories we tell. There is love in these secrets we tell." 

The song is entitled 'Remember'. Since these words were given to me in a near dream, in my sleeping state, I will pay attention to them today. I will try to walk through the day remembering that I walk with others who have powerful stories to tell. Stories that might make me laugh. Stories that might fill me with anger. Stories that would no doubt bring me to tears. Stories embodied by fragile beings just like me who deserve to be seen and heard as the images of the Holy they truly are. Even if they may not know it. Because I do know it, and hold it as sacred, I can make an effort to look into the eyes of those I meet as if our meeting makes a difference. For in truth, it does.

Have a blessed weekend……………..