Sometimes I look around me and realize that I live a church saturated life.

So tonight, I’m stepping out!

I am co-leading a pilgrimage to Ireland next September.  For ten days, I will travel with 30 people to experience the “thin places” in Ireland.  We will trek mountains and wander around ancient monasteries and soak in the Holy we experience in each other and the ancient.

I am doing this pilgrimage in part because of a sense shared with me by a healer I encountered.  She intuited that I am a singer.  True, that.  And, she said, I needed to go to Ireland to discover the song of my people.  I shared with her that I am descended from Scots.  Her response was that my people may have immigrated from Scotland, but that at some point my ancestors were Irish.

Ireland, she said, was calling to me.

So I am listening to that call.  Imagining the trip is already soul gift.

And, tonight I am immersing myself in the nuances of that call.  A dear friend and colleague who is one of the trip leaders sent me a flyer from the Irish Music Center in St Paul.  It turns out they are offering a Irish Song class there over a number of weeks.

We are going.  I am going in order to learn the songs and use my rusty vocal cords.  And, I am going because I expect that in that circle I will encounter an elemental sacred hum not orchestrated by church.

I’m stepping out and into a new thing.

It’s already good.