I’ve been packing all day, smiling as I go.  I’m not packing logically as some might, though I did throw in a
flashlight for good measure.  No.  I haven’t packed a screwdriver or broom or any WD40. 
What I found myself packing for this first trip to the valley were things that I love… those things that will bring me great comfort and joy as I lay my head down on a bed that is not mine and travel to work that is brand new. Shall I give you the list?  Oh, yes… let’s review: 
family photos, favorite tea mugs, pottery flower vase, pottery begging bowl from my brother, Chris, art supplies (including crayons, paper, glue, scissors, photos), journal, meditation books, candle, placemats, quilt my Grandma made, sheets from Mom, pillow sham from Dad, blanket from Susan, dove necklace from Hannah, prayer bracelet, earrings from Robin, and, of course, my camera.  And I’ve got my brother, David, in my head and heart saying, “It’s all good.”
 
I spoke with both of my brothers today, my Mom three times, my Susan, and just a little bit ago, my Dad called.  Every conversation precious… every “I love you,” the dearest.  Dad’s mapped out how to get to me already, and assured me that he’ll be at my doorstep both when I least expect him and when I most need him. 
This reminds me that I’ll also be taking with me a gift he gave me when I graduated from high school.  It’s been on a wall of every home I have lived in since I was 18.  It is a framed poster he found on his lunch break one day.  It reads: I wish you good spaces in the far away places you go.  If it rains or snows, may you be safe and warm… and if you need somebody sometime, you know I will always be there. (Gordon Lightfoot)

And that is what I know this night. 
I need no breadcrumbs or stars or spinning compass arrows to point me toward home.  I carry all of the love and prayers and blessings and gifts of family and friends with me.  All of what makes me love love, all of what causes me great joy in beauty and compassion, all of what makes me the woman that I am… is God given… and just as God meets me each moment right where I am…there I also find my beloveds.
 
“Sleep my child and peace attend thee, all through the night. 
Guardian angels God will send thee all through the night.”

I am being held today. 
I feel cupped in love as God sends the rains to feed the earth, to green the remains of summer so that autumn can rise up singing.  I am rising up… singing.  I am stepping into my boldest colors!  My, oh, my!   What a
journey we have been on!  And yes, I do mean we… my loving God and me and all those who love me. 
We have been learning what it means to trust. 
We have been learning what it means to evolve. 
We have been painting our souls in the colors of courage and self-worthand beautiful awakenings.
 
I have had my share of questioning and skinning my knees as well as my heart.  I have trusted to then uncover many more valleys that were dark and unknown… and I’ve had to learn to trust again… and again… and again. 
I feel quite confident that there will be more days to practice what I have been learning.
 
One week from today, I will begin my new job and embrace a new way of sharing what is my God-given vocation.  Do you wonder when I say that, what that might mean? It means that I have finally allowed my mind to make peace and joy with my soul.  It means that who I am in this world is God’s.  It means that I am taking wing, and that I trust this flight to be higher and brighter for having known the ground for so very long.  It means that I am here, that I am present to life and that I am eager to be present for the person who comes into my sight, into my sound, into my mind.  I am here for you… as I am now here, in such newness, for me.
 
I am still learning the art of release. Over the course of these years when there was no money coming in, I had to release to God these circumstances.  It has been humbling in many, many ways.  I am a giver, and it has been so disheartening to lack funds in which I might give and donate and bless.  People have been very generous… and yet it has been hard to be at the mercy of others to survive.  Once I pushed my little cart up to the cashier at the discount grocery store and my daughter generously pay for my food.  Another time my dearest friend’s husband paid my mortgage.  There was even a time when a friend took me to the place where his wife worked… a food bank…and got me food.  I wept for days over that one.  I haven’t gone to church or movies or shopping… because all of those events require money even if it is simply driving there for a “free” time. I have pretty much the same clothes I taught school in 13 years ago.  I’ve eaten what is cheap, which has not always been healthy. 
I haven’t been to the optometrist or dentist in years. And the idea of a vacation has taken the form of a walk in my woods.

And while I credit so many people with helping me along the way, I also know how hard I have worked to patch
it all together.  I’ve been a substitute teacher, a paid writer, an artist, a retreat leader, a minister who offers pulpit supply. I’ve washed and waxed cars, cleaned houses, worked as a personal organizer. 
I’ve been paid to attend focus groups and offer my opinion.  I was a part-time teacher of hearing impaired students, and a part-time parent educator in a homeless shelter. 
I have been commissioned to create works of art (and you know who… I still haven’t forgotten your request). I’ve been a nanny, and I’ve done the “let’s have a yard sale”experience as well.  I have cut corners, known my limits,
tried and prayed to be wise, and continue to marvel at how gracious and generous God is.
 
I’ve never known this lack of money until this leg of the journey.  I’ve never known what it was like to feel vulnerable in this way.  But now that I know a taste of it, I pray that God will hold me accountable as the money begins to steadily show up.  I am questioning how I will freely spend money on myself when there is so
much need all around.  How do we live with such tensions?  How do we spend twenty bucks on dinner out when some stretch twenty bucks to feed their children a few meals?  How do we make peace with good health insurance when so many suffer needlessly?  How can I ever just hop a plane and take that magical trip to Italy I’ve dreamed about for so many years?  I keep thinking how we make our choices, how we spend money to do the things we love… and all the while… there is a person on our own street trying to figure out how to keep the lights on.  As happy as I am that soon I’ll be able to buy birdseed again, I have an extremely tender heart towards those whose plight remains much more treacherous than mine ever was.
 
I want to say, also, that I have always realized that even as I struggled, I knew that I was fortunate.  I never lived on the street.  I never went hungry.  I never sold myself for money.  People do desperate things in desperate times.  People get lost.  People without money learn quickly how uncomfortable their circumstances make other people feel. People who live without money in this rich country bombarded by values of wealth…forget their own worth.  People lose their footing when the lack of money owns them
 
I have learned and will continue to learn so much about what makes us satisfied, what sustains us, and what I innately cherish. I haven’t travelled abroad, but I have traveled numerous times to my parent’s home where we have shared as deeply as three can a love that endures.  I have come to know my land… the sounds, the smells, the graces in such intimate ways. The woods that have surrounded me for twelve years helped me retrace my own roots, my own seasons, and my connectedness to nature.  I have loved quiet and the slow speed of life that affords the inward roaming that speed neglects.  I have made do with what I have and found time and again that this was good enough.  And I have witnessed over and over the compassion of good hearted people who trust the inner nudges to reach out and help. I have grown to love as I never have before the people who understand the soulful need for both bread and roses.
 
And today, as I sit in this home that I love… preparing to let it go, I want to inscribe on my heart that it is always better to have an open hand than one that holds too tightly.  I want to remember that it is in giving that we receive and that it is in trusting the goodness of our Divine Maker that we become good. 
We can dig for gold, or we can open our empty hands and find the true treasures there. 
Let me not forget the humility of being a fragile human being. 
Let me not forget that from such fragility we become human.

Today, I am packing boxes.  I am weeding through decades of collected photographs and stories, old letters, baby memorabilia, and long forgotten gifts given with thoughtful, abundant love. 
This venture is such an experience of feeling treasured, of remembering how loving entities have upheld and blessed me for so many wondrous years.  I am full of thanksgivings.

Many people are asking me how I am doing with this leg of the journey.  I have finally found work
that is calling to me… work that will allow me to merge my loves of ministry, counseling, and education… and work that will pay me a fair wage.  Can you feel that?  This has been in the making for years… for years!!!  I trust with my whole heart that this is the next most loving step to take in this mysterious life. 
It isn’t taking on the face that I thought it would, but it is right… I feel that from deep within.  And I
am praying daily to greet this new vocation with grace, wisdom, and fervent compassion.  I pray to be an
instrument of God’s peace and unwavering love.
 
To do this, however, I must leave my home and relocate to a new place.  My home has been my solace
these many years.  It gathered my daughter and me when we were broken and soul-sore. 
It offered us refuge.  It fed us life!  It comforted and encouraged and allowed both of us to grow into amazing women. Shrouded in the green of woods, peace has always been a presencehere.  I could feel it the moment
my feet touched the ground.  I could hear it in the sound of the wind in the trees. 
God led us here, and we have been healed and kissed by goodness time and again.
 
Now, this place is in me. 
All that it had to offer has become the health of my cells, the well-being of my mind, and the joy of my spirit.  I had to live here just long enough to absorb the gifts, the teachings, the abundance… so that I can take it with me to my next home.
 
I am making space today… just like nature is opening up to the changing season.  The light hangsdifferently.  The air has calmed to crispness.  The surging of color is beginning to pump up through the tree veins and soon will magically watercolor the greens to reds and gold. 
I am letting go…yet holding close everything. 
I am trusting the next season just like the trees.
 
I want you to know how thankful I am that you have walked with me these many miles and that you have prayed for me. Don’t you see how all of these improbable moments enable the soaring of spirits and the grace of patience? 
Isn’t it lovely to grasp the depth of being fully present to each other and to the moving of God’s hand in all that occurs? It would be hard to prove that prayer and presence and our loving Divine Source enable life to continue… but it is fact that every trial and tribulation, every stumbling block and disappointment, every tear fall and lack of understanding… did not deter me from arriving here. I am here because there is goodness at every turn, there is strength in true friendship, and God never abandons us to be less than who we are called to be.
 
There are sure to be days of bitter sweetness as I bid farewell to this home and land I have loved. 
But I am releasing it all back into the hands of the One who led me here. I hold it out as an offering to the next dear soul or souls who need it at this time in their lives.  The backdoor is open, and so is my heart. 
Thanks be to God.