Wherever you go, there you are.

I took myself to a sun drenched place.  And there I was; surrounded by water and wind and steeped in the reality that where I am is gift.

Somehow changing physical location helps me always to name as sacred my spiritual location.  Taking the time to breathe sans responsibilities for the machinations of church and home makes room in my being for the Spirit wind to wake my awareness of the “where I am”.

One of the rituals I treasure about vacation is allowing a book to be spiritual partner. This vacation, I picked up a book entitled “Broken Open: How difficult times can help us grow” by Elizabeth Lesser.  The book serves as birthing coach for its readers.  Times of pain and sorrow are real and given and they are priceless opportunity for soul to ground and grow.  The book is laced with real.

Sanibel Island was our vacation host last week.  It is a seeming Mecca for people hungry to be connected with the land and the beauty of creation.  It was so for me last week.  And it was so for me fifteen years ago when I was there with my family.  My children were young and under my roof, and I was married to their father.

My children are no longer young and under my roof and I am no longer married to their father.  The grief of divorce is a panging constant.  It was hard at times to be in a place that had been a part of the “there you are” that was my life for 23 years.

So Lesser’s book was partner as I considered what it is to grow and release and allow and affirm and choose to be broken open in order to be born.  Paying attention to grief is important soul work.  So too is tracing the places where the cracking open of excruciating pain has allowed flowering and new life to be.

I am blessed, this I know.  Blessed by a making of life that created three amazing people and 23 years of partnership.  Blessed by living the dark nights of the soul that led me into a love and life that hum with meaning and wonder.  Blessed by the presence of the Holy, breathing with me as new life insists on being born.

Blessed by the daughter who picked us up at the airport and merrily brought us home to a cleaned house.  Blessed by the courage of my children and the dance of their lives. Blessed by a former partner who is friend. Blessed by a church willing to do the hard work of seeking to see the Christ in all. Blessed by a now partner who knows my foibles and sees my soul.

I took myself to a sun drenched place and I come home warmed by living life.

Here I am.