thoughts (the program won't let me space it properly - hard to read, sorry)

I cannot tell a lie. I think they are the most beautiful girls every born. Except Meg and Kyra of course. And Flora. Well, let me just say it this way - the Elliott clan produces good women!

This has been a singular week for us. Perfect new girls born without incident. New relationships. New possibilites.

For me, the week has felt thick. Inside. Like I am stuffed too full. And that stuffing feels heavier than lighter - I have not felt light. But the heaviness is not about what we think of heaviness... not darkness or clouds or worry. Maybe just that there is too much stuffed in there and so it is a lot. By the end of the week I was seriously ill with an August bug that is going around ... which never happens to me. So in listening to my body I also know it has felt the heaviness and finally just imploded a little. Instead of spending all week serving I spent a couple days mostly going back to bed. I kept complaining that I was going to possibly die, but since everyone was occupied I didn't get much sympathy. (smile)

Then I went to worship on Sunday. I didn't really want to go - I felt tired and half ill, but I thought I might do well to go.

There is a scripture where the poet says, basically, that he was confused until he went into the presence of God. I had this same experience Sunday. I sat and took it in and participated a little, and not everything "SPOKE TO ME!" ... no, it was more like a small knowing that is what I have come to learn is the warm inviting voice of the Father to me.

I saw the loveliness of my life from the beginning to now - saw the radiant, provokative, pulsing presence of God in every moment from the birthing room years ago still scheming for my good until the birthing room today. I saw a new meaning in generations, in a family of ordinary and maybe even specially wierd people, and in the grace of a 52 year old life so full.

And I realized that the depth of meaning I seek more each moment is the journey of my own soul - and it doesn't need to be the journey of those around me. Meaning is mine to find, knowing, being aware - these are the gifts of this season for me. It is solitary but not so lonely as it had seemed.

A man friend gave me a simple word when I left KY for this adventure. It was so simple I would not have heard it if he had not repeated it three times. "He cares for you." "He CARES for you." "He cares for you."

When we are lost in the thickness of life, when our search seems lonely, when it feels like we go out to reach this person, and out to reach that person, and we step into this life and that life and give what is in us, but maybe there are is no one who at that moment is looking for us, going out of their way to reach out to us, and pull us up, it is okay. He cares for you.

So I am better than good. I wish I was a skiff that skimmed the top of the water and felt the rush of spray and filled the air with laughter ... but I am more like a barge. I carry a lot of things for a lot of people ... and I have a good weight of my own. But I hold thoseweights without regret ... they are boxes of gold. And once in a while a skiff blows past and lets me laugh and feel the spray. A skiff called Megan or Kyra or Zoe or Alaska ... or you.