There is a lot of it, this ache called “woe”.

Hearts broken, bruised, confused and searching.  There is a huge lonely that goes with the sense of woe when the world feels too much and resources too small.

Sometimes people in a world of woe find themselves at church.  It is a safe place for the hurt to be spoken and the lonely to be stilled for a time.  There are no more answers to be had, perhaps, in such a place.  But there is this thing called sanctuary where communion with God is sought and the people of God are leaned into and woe is not a solitary lonely.

My father, who was a man acquainted with woe and a minister of the gospel, said that he prepared his sermons for the one person in the sanctuary who dragged themselves to church on Sunday because they had nowhere else to go.

And so it is with every-day worship that is church.  Every day, not just Sundays, we exist for those who drag themselves to church because there is nowhere else to go.

We know woe; in ourselves and in others and we exist as community in Christ to vanquish for a time the sense that woe is forever.

We’re there when woe is.

In a prairie sanctuary, my nephew Bud and his now-wife Tara brought together their hearts, lives, families, hopes and sacred primal beauty.

Their wedding was held in the rolling beauty of rural Wisconsin.  They made a weekend of it, with camping on site, bocce ball and beanbag challenges, trampolines and fire circles, and love love love love love.

They both wore the color of passion and life: red.  Their words one to the other were full of respect and wonder about the gifts they had found in the other and the ways they trusted that they would grow and unfold in grace and truth in the power of such love.  

Following the service we adjourned to tables set under a big top and dragged out into the September sun; we were family joined into the larger heart family that beat to the love of Tara and Bud.

We caught the beat.  As the sun set and the stars and moon took over the sky scape, the dancing began.  Full-bodied romping was shared by children and elders and who knew who your partner was when all present felt the bond of partnering with the witness to love.

I sat in the shiver of the fall evening with my 82-year-old mother.  We watched the fireworks and the launching of floating lanterns and I thought to myself that while we celebrate with Bud and Tara the gift of their love, we are welcomed by them to celebrate the gift of the reminder shared through them:  a reminder that love is red and hopeful and full-bodied dance-worthy and fireworks-sparkly and communal to its very core.

It was a marvelous night for a moon dance.

One of the Joseph Campbell quotes I love shares that life is not about finding happiness;  it is about finding and making meaning.

I am feeling meaning in these days.  I am blessed with work that engages, challenges, humbles and stretches me.  I am blessed with partner and children who love me, laugh with me, share pain with me, and grow with me.  There are more books to read than I have time, sunlight to savor, and hungers to notice and sometimes tend.

Happiness is often my companion, and I welcome her.  But she is not the reason for my being.   Muddle and layers and wince and delight and wonder walk with me in these days; a meaning making sort of meander.

And it is good.

Seven church women went on a Boundary Waters Canoe Area pilgrimage. We range in age from 51 – 72. Some had never been to the northern place of mythical and real power. Some had been in the wilderness years ago but with aging and knee surgeries and the constant lap of “I can’t do it” self talk washing over consciousness, saying “yes” to the challenge took courage.

We loaded ourselves into three canoes. All that we needed for subsistence was packed into packs and over the waters we went to make camp and life together. The learning and growing and celebrations began even before the first paddle as each woman came to claim her desire to face fear and self imposed limitations.

Each woman portaged a canoe. Each woman “took the back”. Each woman gained a greater sense of her own ability to shoulder and carry and trust and laugh.

We are changed.

Isn’t that the way? We focus so often on limitations that are flat-out fiction and while we while away our days in the small of our scope, the loons are singing, the water dancing and the embrace of God inviting always always always to the celebration of our power and being.

Strong women we are, newly awakened and canoe-throwing fine.

Bats make me nuts.  I know, God created them and they eat mosquitoes and they are worthy of respect and appreciation and they scare me near nuts.

I was on a solo visit to the cabin recently and deeply asleep when a scratchy sort of not-quite-right noise awakened me.  We have had problems with squirrels in the past, so I thought fierce and quick thoughts/prayers about my fervent desire that squirrels not share my bedchamber with me. 

I fumbled for the light, turned it on and swoop, over my head was nightmare on wings (for me).  In a low-ceilingned and small room was a bat, confused and scared and I went about nuts.

I ushered it out to the main room and slammed the door.  I put towels on the floor to block any possible entry and assured myself that the problem would keep until the light of day and turned off the light and darned if that bat didn’t reappear in the dark.  Twice. 

I bailed out and slept in the bunk house.  But that bat is with me yet. 

Shadows are.