Aligning with Grace

On Wednesdays, after teaching my morning yoga class, I head off to St. David's, an Episcopal Church nearby, where I meet a small group of lovely women for centering prayer, a form of Christian meditation. It is a real blessing to meditate regularly in community. The wonderful woman who pastors this church, and I, entered into a lively discussion of the readings for this past Sunday's liturgy. She shared what she preached on, and I shared insights gleaned from my own pastor's homily, at the Jesuit parish that I belong to in Georgetown. Sunday, was Good Shepherd Sunday, and the psalm for the day was Psalm 23rd. This has never been one of my favorites, but it's grown on me over the years. I always gravitated towards others, and in my late teens/early twenties, as a liturgical musician, I gave myself the task of setting the psalms to music. Well, that didn't exactly go very far! Recently, I found excerpts of my renditions - lyrics and chords, on torn pieces of pap...

This morning, after a long walk, I went down to the river in my crocs so that I could step inside and wade for a while. I knew that doing so would be immensely "grounding" and healing, and it was the best that I could do for now, until I am cleared for kayaking again. As I made it down to the boat ramp with a cup of coffee in tow, I met a really elderly woman coming out of the river herself. She immediately lit up a cigarette, and we struck up a conversation. I could tell from her speech and her gait, that she had perhaps suffered a stroke at some point, and yet here she was, hauling her ocean kayak out of the water. I apologized for not being able to help her, but almost immediately, a wonderful man came to this woman's aid. He was accompanied by two rambunctious Jack Russell dogs - who proceeded to happily dash into the water and splash about. This woman, truly weathered by life and who knows what else, still had a gleam in her eye. We talked about the river, kayaking, ...