Ale La (Go There)

in·ter·ces·sion /ˌin(t)ərˈseSHən/ noun - the action of intervening on behalf of another Last week, before flying out to California, I was awake in the middle of the night, feeling my baby move inside my growing belly bump and crying into a pillow. My friend Megan had just been told that the doctors thought her baby boy had cancer. This precious boy has eyes that light up when he smiles at you. He is the epitome of an almost three year old; he is learning to share, he loves being in any kind of water, and would watch episodes of Dinosaur King on repeat for hours if you let him. Cancer. I can’t even process that word when it is attached to Lester, and now the diagnosis has been confirmed as Acute Myeloid Leukemia. And so I pray, and in my prayers I invite other people to pray with me, but what those prayers look like might not be what you would expect. What I think of as prayer has changed a lot over the past 7 years. I used to think that ...

A few years ago, when I first started working in hospice, Easter felt like it took on a deeper significance for me. I cried when I went to the Good Friday service and thought of Jesus dying a physical death like the ones that I had seen. It struck me that He knew what that felt like. Then, on Easter Sunday I wept again to think of the promise that our bodies can be made like new and death is not the end of the story. This year, the part of the Easter story that struck me the most were the days between when Jesus was crucified and when He was raised, those days that are mentioned briefly in the gospels but are not fully described. At Good Friday services in the Evangelical church people often say, “Today is Friday, but Sunday is coming.” This year it struck me that the disciples immediately after Jesus’s death did not know that “Sunday was coming.” They were just trying to function and make sense of their lives while they endured through the Saturdays- the nebulous days...

On Monday I lit a candle and prayed about Faith, Hope and Love. It went something like this; “Let our Love keep burning when Faith and Hope flicker.” A beautiful prayer…  Except that my innermost being was saying something more like this. Ahem. “shit, shit, shit. F***” So, I guess that should be filed away with my other not so beautiful, and yet honest, prayers.  I also said to God, “I have nothing. And I have everything.” I didn't understand that statement but it felt real, and it kept coming up throughout the week. I had nothing and everything when my family sat together grieving, crying, and praying. When we called each other to see “how it was going,” and when other people outside of our immediate family asked to come and to BE there. You realize how many people you have when you really need them. Later in the week I walked with a dear friend. We were talking about singleness, and circling a reservoir while the stars and gl...

A reprise: The repetition of a piece- played again at the end or repeated throughout a score. A reprise stirs again the thoughts and emotions of before, reshaping them and calling to a deeper place, perhaps, perhaps not. It is an invitation to feel. The joy may be rekindled, the flames may rise a little higher. This reprise is a rest from the weight. It is a burden of a different kind. It is a return to the dusty trail where I felt the heft of surrender digging into my palm. It is a reflection on a year that was surprising, challenging, heartbreaking and life giving. I’m going back to Peru… Going back to the Canyon… Going back to the windswept highlands that are barren and empty, lonely and full. I’m going back to Peru. The music plays through my head. The first time I remember feeling alone and feeling uncertain. That underlying melody is the same, but the bridge is different. Because last time I was given a family and last time I surrendered my certainty. Thi...