Dear Friends,
In a conversation with a member of First Church this past week, she mentioned doing some reading on Hopi wisdom. The moment we live in can always be seen, it read, as a portal or a pit, a door or a hole. Which will it be?
A portal or a doorway is simply an opening into creation. Can we take the moments before us and allow them to open us to walk into seeing the world new?
I was thinking of my favorite line from Alice Walker’s book “The Color Purple.” The long suffering Celie is finally willing to move away from the abuse and misery in which she has spent most of her life. Her dear friend and lover, Shug, has invited Celie to join her as she travels to share her music. Shug has announced this to the gathered family. Celie’s abuser, sputters “but…but…but…. (sounds like a motorboat)” and tells her she will have to leave over his dead body. She replies, “well…I’m entering into creation and your dead body is just the welcome mat I need.” She is choosing to walk through a portal (while climbing out of a pit).
The poet Denise Levertov in her poem “The Annunciation” writes: “aren’t there annunciations/of one sort or another/in most lives?” Indeed there are.
As we celebrated our Duke Divinity intern, Jalen’s, tenure with us Sunday with cotton candy and pretzel bites…I saw a bit of a portal out on the porch. I saw strangers being connected. I saw a long time member of the church comforting a woman she did not know, who was weighed down with some unknown grief. I saw a member of the church (who lives on the street) listen to the story of a stranger stranded in Boulder and hand him some money (out of his very limited purse) to take the next step of his journey. This happens all around us.
Can you see?
Keep tellin’ the Story,
Mike
I saw this video last week. It includes the line: “how can only 12 steps feel so far away….” Sometimes getting to the portal and entering into a new world seems so far away, but this duet, as part of the Grand Finale of American Idol by Jamal Roberts and Jelly Roll, invites the listeners into choosing the portal.
This week’s takeaway: Choose the portal, not the pit!