I don’t cry very often.  Sometimes I am amazed at this.  Years ago, tears flowed easily.  They were a
natural part of almost my daily routine.  It wasn’t that I was depressed or sad.  It was just that tender, beautiful
moments were readily felt, and tears spilled out spontaneously like sighing or laughing.  I’m not sure how or why
this aspect of my being stepped aside, but sometimes when tears show up now, I am reminded of their blessing and of the revelations they can bring.
 
About a month ago, I burst out in tears when a friend (whom I have actually only be in her presence two or three times) gave me a gift.  She paid for me to go on retreat for three days.  Just like that, she bathed my tiredness, my hold-it-togetherness, and said, “Here is my love and the love of the Beloved.  Go, my sister, and find rest.”  And she sent me to money to go.  It was like a drink of water after many desert days.  But the problem was, I needed money to pay my bills, not go on retreat.  I needed to pay bills in that moment… not delight in getting away a month down the road. But she had offered me a gift, and I knew that I needed to honor her giving.  So, I paid my bills with the money that came, and promised myself and trusted God that I would go on the retreat still… somehow, some way.

I am now home from three rich, soaking days on retreat.  The way was made clear, and I still have a nickel in my pocket. But more than that, this experience is teaching me (again) how important it is to follow the tiny threads, to honor the gifts that are here, to trust…to absolutely trust in the power of goodness. The power of goodness.  I cannot say that enough.  There is power in goodness.  And what happens when we begin to trust our own goodness?  What happens when we begin to reconnect with the Heavenly Divine that lives in our own bones?  My retreat took me here.  It silenced the self doubt.  It took the tense and stress away that is born of living a life from without rather than a life that swirls from deep within.  It held up to me a mirror that revealed my own face that is created in the Image of Love and Goodness.
 
What do you truly know about yourself?  How do you honor your deepest truths?  Do you trust yourself and your God enough to live your truths?  This is the most wondrous teaching in my life right now.  It isn’t necessarily an easy journey, but it is awake and alive and pulsing in color and fragrance.  I fall down and I get up over and over and over again because this is the life God yearns for me to live.  It is the life God prays for all of us to live… to wander in our souls, to embrace the most tender artistry of our creation, and to bless the world with this being.  There is no rushing in this process and one must find time apart from the busy world to shake hands with this. We must cast out fear even as our boats surge below the surface of the sea.
 
For three days, I roamed the crevices of my soul and was surrounded by kindred doing the same. I wandered the ancient forest.  I prayed. I breathed.  I listened into my own dreaming, dreaming that echoes the longings of our tired, beautiful world.  And I let go and let fall away that which will never be eternal, to find my cheeks wet and my heart clear for my life’s calling.
 
I cannot tell you how to find your way.  I can simply tell you that there is a path and it is windingly found by
taking the next loving step and the next loving step.  Hummingbirds sip lavender nectar all along the way, and neither the hummingbirds nor the lavender need be anything more than who they are.  Someone once said, “Truth is met by grace.”  This is how we are born.  This is how we will die.  And so, in the meantime, may it also be how we choose to live.

Today, I still have a cold and an ugly cough.  I don’t have any spare money.  I’m on my own, and missing companionship.  I woke up feeling like having a good ole fashioned pity party.  But I was wise enough to know that at the end of that party, I’d still be sick, broke, and lonely.  
 
And so I voted down the pity, and I picked up an attitude of adventure.  What can I do with a cold, a little gas in the car, and a spark of hope?  Well, first, I met some of my family in Ashland where my brother and his
daughter were participating in the Chalk Walk.  With a donation of five bucks that went to a worthy cause, folks were decorating the sidewalk with colors and imagination.  It was brilliant!  It was fun!  It was child-like and full of magic!

From there we visited a little market that is celebrating 100 years in business.  100 years!! How cool is that?  And in today’s economy!  There were bouquets of flowers all over that store.  People all over Ashland were honoring this event… and I hear tonight there is going to be a big party!  I personally found this to be precious… the whole
thing!

Next, I went to the Ace Hardware store in Ashland. I heard on a commercial earlier this week that today they were giving away a free quart of paint to customers. Really?  Free?  And so, I visited their store, thinking that there must be a catch.  Probably you have to buy a gallon to get a quart.  Probably it’s some brown or grey color that nobody wants to buy.  But guess what! There was no gimmick!  I was invited to choose whatever color I wanted and take a quart of it home for free! That made me happy… really happy! I plan on zapping a fraction
of my kitchen with this gorgeous, ripe red!!

My parents met me for lunch, and my Mom bought me the most flavorful meal.  Oh, I loved every bite!!  Orange lentil salad, pineapple, waldorff salad, tuna, fresh greens.  Each bite nourished me level upon level.  Thanks,
Mom!

But once I parted ways with my family, I felt that darn tug of sadness return.  What is up with that today?  So, I came home, snuggled a bit with my dog, Chloe, and then decided to do that blasted run to the dump.  Hey, why feel sad when you can take out the trash?  No, it’s still not my favorite job, but it was something to do… something that needed to be done… and I have done this often enough to know that there is always a reward in this venture.  And sure enough, once we got the stinky job done, we stopped all along the way home for fresh, roadside wildflowers.  Oh, look Chloe!  Yellow ones! Smell, Chloe… honeysuckle!!  Oh… and the simple beauty of purple clover and bachelor’s buttons! And guess what… no charge!
 
Tonight, there will be the Super Moon to look forward to.  It will stand witness to this world and all of our roaming.  It will look down upon up as we fix our eyes heavenward, and somehow life will be okay.  We may not realize it every moment.  We may not remember to seek the good.  We may not be able to trust that Divine love longs to set us free from every earthly burden. But the moon is going to rise and the flowers are blooming, and from where we are… from right where we are… we are the keepers of the palace.  “Lift up your hearts.  We lift them to the Lord.  It is right to give the Lord thanks and praise.”

"And all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well."  Julian of Norwich

Hildegard of Bingen was an abbess of a Benedictine abbey during the Middle Ages.  She was also a
healer, composer, theologian, artist, poet, and mystic. She coined the phrase viriditas, or greening power, and connected it to the concept of creativity. She is walking beside me these days as I fall in love over and over again with the green of spring.  My woods have turned from the starkness of winter brown, so empty and barren, to the abundant fullness of green.  It’s as if my eyes and my heart are meeting this color for the first time, and I am feeling so alive in my seeing.  I look and breathe and ramble among the verdant hues, and I find my own veins pulsing with a pure readiness to shed what is drab and come into color.
 
I think that green was born to teach us our true nature.  Don’t we all walk around with this gorgeous life within us?  Don’t we all yearn for something more, something we have yet to fully grasp or even dream?  Haven’t we each taken a turn wondering who we are meant to be and how we will ever arrive at that understanding?  Well, don’t you imagine that is the green inside of us, sustaining us, feeding us, urging us on until it is time to grow our own leaves and flourish?  What a delightful way of thinking… because there are so many days when we feel dried up.  There are so many days that feel more like long nights, and we are tired and lost in our tedious routines.  We feel forced to color inside the lines, to play by the rules, to obtain status, and fortune, and power.  We try to keep up, but often in spring, we feel a deep longing to put our hands in the dirt and tend something different.  We feel a mysterious pull to linger outside at the end of the day, to hang up hummingbird feeders, to watch the sun nestle behind the trees, and pull the socks off of our tired feet and squeeze green grass between our toes.
 
Hildegard writes: 
“Good People, most royal greening verdancy, rooted in the sun, you shine with radiant light.” 
God put green in the trees so we might find it time and again in our own hearts. 
Take off your mourning clothes! 
Spring is calling!