Contemplating Life's Anniversaries

I'm contemplating life's anniversaries - the devastating ones and the beautiful hopeful ones.  My parents church just celebrated 32 years and I listened to song and story after story of God's provision and love....Glory to God. 

I've been thinking about my wise friend who will certainly be grieving and celebrating a dear life that moved from this side of heaven to the other just one year ago.  My friend doesn't know this, but I have been praying (along with so many others I'm sure) for the Lord to bolster and comfort and bring peace as he [and by extension, they] walk day by day and moment by moment through this life which must now seem painted so differently in the play of light and shadow that must accompany such a loss.


I'm also thinking about a hopeful anniversary in my own life - my wise friend played a part in encouraging me to take a leap of faith and embrace life...It must have been around this time eight years ago in 2003 that I set off on an Amtrak...a pilgrimage which would take me from East Coast to Midwest to West Coast and back again, but would imprint upon my senses and reveal a great deal about hope, about the Creator, about the tension and struggle between darkness and Light.

Each stop along the way contained a significance, each place a significance, each person, significant from visiting family members (and honorary family members), to making the acquaintance of wonderful word-crafters (under the tutelage of Jim Heynen) at the Split Rock Arts Festival (at the time held in Duluth, MN).  That year, my 4th of July was spent atop the steps of St. Paul's Cathedral in the Twin Cities, cellphone piping in the voices of friends and family, fireworks bursting forth, panoramic in towns from east to west, north to south across the horizon.

There was a stop through a hermitage where I paused to remember prayer and words memorized in childhood came flooding back as I walked the grassy fields and watched sunsets set ablaze over 10,000 lakes.  In this same journey a trip to the Dakota monastery where I tasted rhubarb for the first time, walked with the llamas, and worshipped with nuns who had pledged their lives and purity to service and the rule of Saint Benedict.



From there, a stop through a big city (Chicago) where I experienced a heart-crack that would send me reeling into the next big city (this time, Montreal) where I experienced dreadful broken fellowship followed by unrelenting grace.  The LORD pursues.  He loves and satisfies and pursues broken junked-up people.  And He comforts those who mourn.  He comforts those who mourn.

Praying for you, my friends, now suffering.  May the Lord make Himself known to you in greater ways than you've ever known before as He comforts, carries, and walks with you.