All That You Touch

I sent this message anonymously via Kleroteria, an email lottery. I am posting it in the fall of 2024, back-dated to the original publish date.

~

(“Thank you. Please forgive me. I forgive you. I love you. Goodbye.”)

At my graduation party he said to me: “God has a plan for you.” A month later, he was gone. (He got tired of the plan, I guess.)

Tragedy is a funny thing. It brings people together, at least at first. But it wouldn’t stop. And with each new coming together, we pulled further apart. (Some things are difficult to repair.)

I left my faith behind, somewhere along the way. Funny how it happens; I was leading a bible study when something just clicked, and an in an instant, all the self-denial was swept away. “I can’t do this anymore,” I said. I didn’t look back.

(“I will sing a new song unto the Lord, because my old songs got me nowhere.”)

A new song, then. The weightlessness of liftoff, the hills of Aotearoa, the smell of her hair. Sweaty New York summers, five floors high. (It’s a pressure cooker - that’s why there’s so much steam.)

We were on the same trail, she and I. Growing together, and then growing apart. Five-and-a-half miles - a there-and-back, I thought. But she kept going.

(“What is it like, such intensity of pain? If the drink is bitter, turn yourself to wine.”)

Running away, Atlantic tide drenching my rolled-up jeans. Rainfall, waterfall, waterworks on command. Limping back, then moving out. Failure, felt deep. (Some things are difficult to repair.)

Okay. Breathe. A remix. This time, we lean into the falling apart. A train trip, perhaps? Old friends. Therapy. The healing passage of time. A year later, I’m looking out the end of the tunnel, upon something new.

(“Say to the silent earth: I flow. To the rushing water, speak: I am.”)

I don’t know you. I don’t know what you’ve been through, or where you’re headed. But, still, I want us to do something together.

Take your fears, all of them, and put them on paper. Get out a match or lighter, and a metal tray. Set the edge aflame, and watch those fears, those insecurities burn away. (You do not need them.)

Now, it’s time to hope. What is the world, the life, that you dream of? Hold your hands out, palms up, making a bowl. Mentally place into your hands that dream.

Take a deep breath. Close your hands around your dream, and bring them to your chest, Close your eyes. Breathe in; breathe out. As many breaths as you need. When you open your eyes, take your dream, extend arms, open hands, and release it into the world. It is alive!

This week, I want you to share your dream. Perhaps with a friend, or a sibling, or a partner. (We are all we have.)

Hope is a form of love, I think, and a practice, requiring focus and discipline. To hope, we must open our hearts, amidst the chaos, to one another. We must give, and give, and give. We must love. And the more we love, the more we give, the more we will have.

(“Why not become the one who lives with a full moon in each eye that is always saying, with that sweet moon language, what every other eye in this world is dying to hear?”)

I love you.

Onward,

N