Surprised by God

This took place in my late forties after several years of illness.

With a brimming cupful of spiced tea, I stretched out in my usual spot on our comfortable hide-a-bed. I pulled my baby-duck yellow, fisherman knit afghan I’d knitted years ago over my weary body.  It comforted me.  I picked up my Bible.   I was thirty chapters into the book of Job hoping to discover what helped Job deal with all his losses—deaths of children, loss of wealth, having a discouraging spouse, friends who preached unhelpful dogma to him, and finally losing his health.  One thing was clear.  Job wanted God to explain his suffering.  My mood fit Job’s well-reasoned accusations fired at God who, according to the story, had allowed the devil to take everything Job loved except his life.  The difference between Job and me that particular morning was that Job had more energy for the fight than I.

I don’t know how many days I began the morning with Job, starting with my sense of Job’s companionship in physical and emotional misery, and with his trying to make sense of it all.  I was hoping to find some healing word in this ancient sacred book, hoping Job’s story would open a window with some fresh air of hope to dispel my confusion, discouragement and apathy.

For some thirty-three long chapters I’d read Job’s protests about the unfairness of his suffering, and I was about to give up finding anything inspiring. I resolutely struggled through the next two chapters without finding anything supportive.  Finally in chapter thirty-six some hopeful words, “[God] is wooing you from the jaws of distress to a spacious place free from restriction….”[1] 

Whoa!  What’s this? Although I had gone as far as I had set myself to read that day, this scripture injected new hope and vigor into my soul.  It was enough to keep me going into chapter thirty-seven.  It wasn’t just the words that struck me, but a permeating sense of Presence. Past experience had taught me to believe that when I was gripped by a passage of scripture, God was making the passage personal to me.  Here God was saying to me, “Nancy, I’m working to move you out of this prison of misery, to a place where you can live your life fully!”  I sat up straight, shifted the book in my hands, when I read the words, “Then the Lord answered Job out of the storm.[2]”  My heart started to race.  I set my tea down so my shaking hands wouldn’t drop the mug. I read the words again, “Then the Lord answered Job….

 It’s difficult to explain just what was happening inside me at that moment.  For thirty-seven chapters I’d been mired in Job’s suffering, his agonies, his confusion, his frustration, his endless questions, monologues to his God who seemed to be absent; and my heart was echoing his sentiments.  It was as if my experience and Job’s experience had become one.  Then an encounter, God showed up to answer Job’s questions!  GOD showed up!  God was aware of Job, had heard Job, cared about Job, wanted to teach Job how to view his current difficulties, and for Job it was as if he and God stood face to face!   I’d put a lot of stock in theology and spiritual practice, but it was the impact of my own sense of meeting God face to face through this scripture, words infused with truth, that shifted my whole perspective.  If hope were a waterfall it would have drenched me in that moment.  All the good I’d believed about God came back to me, all my wilted faith flowered again.  I didn’t know how and I didn’t know when, but I knew in the depths of my soul that God was real, personal and willing to be involved in my life.  I’d always known this, but it had faded, and now it came alive again.

Why did these words initiate such a light-filled, transforming moment?  I saw in a blaze of spiritual insight that understanding wasn’t what Job needed.  What he needed most and what I needed most was encounter, to be acknowledged, responded to, to know we were known and valued by a God “in whom we live and move and have our being,” as the ancient Greeks put it.  My physical and emotional distress had been a muffling agent to the presence of God in my life, and I needed the living God to break through to me and remind me of my belonging and belovedness, that the world still made sense, that my place in it and my relationship to God made sense.  What I needed was an epiphany, the manifest presence of God to me in a way I could fully comprehend.  Job had his, and I was having mine!

What God goes on to say to Job in the verses that followed didn’t matter at the time to me, the words just kept reinforcing this direct encounter Job was having, and that I was having in that moment. God directly speaking to me, making Presence felt and known in an unmistakable serenity yet all my attention on alert status, my mind experiencing a light-filled awareness, my chest filled with a luminous spaciousness in a rare communion with Spirit, in Oneness with Wisdom and Love. This entire experience was quiet and simple, nothing outwardly dramatic, and yet everything changed within me.

As I continued I read Job’s words, “My ears had heard of you but now my eyes have seen you,”[3] I thought I knew just what he meant.  Most of my Christian life was spent living by faith, choosing to believe that the Divine was with me, loved me and was involved in my life whether or not I saw what I considered evidence of this.  But when, by grace, I experienced an epiphany, a manifestation of the presence of God, I lived in a moment of clarity, of sight, of a reality that truly exists and confirmed my faith.  This was one of those moments.

As I became more conscious of what had happened through my reading, the hardness of my life as a chronic invalid was softened by an even greater truth I needed to know again, the transcendent reality that the cosmos is saturated with the love of God which is given freely to all who would draw near, and that a meeting of God in the human heart is actually possible.  And here, on the blue-plaid hide-a-bed, this meeting was happening to me, in me. 

In this fresh revelation, a semi-transparent cloud settled over all that was painful, unpleasant, and sad, over all my troubling unanswered questions, and grace lifted my heart to worship, to love and adore this mysterious God.   I sat, breathing freely, full breaths of hushed life, companioned by the ancient Job and infused with the cosmic breath of God; me, unexciting as a child’s milk spilled out on the table, bathrobe clad, barefoot, alone in the moment, and still chronically ill.  It didn’t matter.

Troubling questions would haunt me later.  Why don’t we have life-sustaining revelations, manifestations of God each and every time we’re hurting, confused, lost?  Why are epiphanies so few and far between?  God came near to me and healed me in my mind and soul that day, but not my body.  Why was that?  If God can appear and put an end to mental distress, why doesn’t this happen when asked…every time?  What I learned was that these questions must not be allowed to stop me from asking for God’s help and remaining open and expectant.  God’s promise is that if we draw near, if we take the time and energy to place ourselves in a receptive frame of mind, and do so for as long as it takes, God will come near to us,[4] and it will make all the difference.

---

[1] Job 36:16a NIV, 1988

[2] Job 38:1, Ibid.

[3] Job 42:5 NIV 1988

[4] James 4:8a, Ibid.

Some Thoughts About Marketing and Publishing Your Book

Recently I attended a workshop on marketing and publishing your book, presented by the Purple Sage Publishing Consortium here in Reno.  Pat Holland Connor was the speaker, and shared about her book, Doorways to Significance.

Her first statement was: "Marketing and publishing my book is my business today!"

Pat spends all her working time marketing her book now that it is published.  She has had a lot of help from a local publisher who provided a variety of services from which she could select according to her needs and budget.

Indie Publishing

At our Unnamed Writers Group meeting Saturday, Cindie Geddes of Lucky Bat Books gave us a knock-out presentation on the new e-book publishing route.  She urged us not to get agents or go the traditional publishing route for at least the next two years as things are in a huge transition, and authors are getting tromped on in the process.  Instead she recommends Indie publishing (independent publishing), and says, "Drop the words 'self-publishing.'  Her group, Lucky Bat Books, provides all the services an author needs to get published.  You pay only for the services you need, and the author doesn't have to pay ongoing publishing costs to them.  Her website is:  http://luckybatbooks.com


Here are the blogs she recommends, and they are compelling and relevant:

The Business Rusch by Kristine Kathryn Rusch (I had trouble accessing this blog.)

http://www.deanwesleysmith.com/ by Dean Wesley Smith (Really helpful!)

  http://accordingtohoyt.com/by Sarah Hoyt (Has left her agent for indie publishing.)

http://jakonrath.blogspot.com/ by Joe Konrath (Has had amazing success with e-books!)

Here's a definition for indie publishing:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_press

Out of the Doldrums

When first posted under this title, the content was incorrect.  Here is the appropriate content.

After eighteen years of chronic illness, I developed any number of strategies to beat the blues.  When my ability to cope dropped near zero, I wanted an elevator with an H button for heaven.  Not having one at hand, I did the next best thing.  I went to bed for three days.  My model was Jesus in the grave three days and then, voila! Resurrection! On my three days I did nothing but eat, sleep, void, and watch funny movies.  I didn’t try to be nice or appropriate to anybody or do anything I didn’t want to.  I always got enough energy that way for my coping dial to turn up to a good six or seven for several more weeks.

But for days when I just have the blahs, I make ketchup.  After researching and trying several recipes, I’ve put together one that I’m quite fond of.  It’s simply called Nancy’s Ketchup Recipe.

On a bleak day towards the end of winter, I looked at the time and noticed it was almost two o’clock p.m.  I was still in my rose colored chenille robe with its cuffs tarnished from too many breakfasts and not enough washings—typical attire for miserable days.

Time to get going! Do something for god’s sake!

I mentally ran through a list of things I like to do, and making ketchup rose to the top.

Tomato juice…sweetener…arrowroot for thickening…the ingredients tumbled through my thoughts energizing me enough to get to the spice cupboard.

I arranged everything I needed and reached into the kettle cupboard to pull out my red Dutch oven, a spur of the moment buy-on-sale at Kohl’s some months before.

I wonder what’s on KUNR? (the public radio station.)

I pushed the power button on the kitchen boom box and went back to my self-prescribed, anti-depression ritual.  Classical melodies infiltrated my gray mood and brought some soothing tones into my heaviness as I began combining ingredients.  That done, I started the good part, the long, slow, aromatic task of keeping my brew from burning on medium high heat.

My robe redecorated itself with new blots and blotches of red as an assortment of bubbles burst releasing their yummy tomato smells.  I ignored the new stains.  I was in an altered state--stirring…smelling…humming…listening.

The male radio anchor began giving the history of the next piece, the Olympic Symphony by Panayoti Karousos with movements named after exotic Greek gods and goddesses, all of whom I’d been studying in my Ancient Literature group.  I smiled as the first piece sent its shivery notes down my back.  Wakefulness began to rise within me like yeast in fresh, warm dough. 

In this moment I am a mythological crone stirring my cauldron accompanied by ancient goddesses.  In me the sun has come out from behind the clouds.

A Coming Out Party

All the food was ready; the sweet-acerbic smell of my famous Hawaiian meatballs filled the kitchen.  Sodas were chilling in the forty-year-old cooler on the well-worn redwood deck.  Lee had just hosed it down for the expected crowd and an after-the-rain smell hung in the air.

Tension in my stomach and shoulders reminded me I was losing control over my private space.  I told myself there was no reason to be anxious--these were all family and friends coming to this celebration!--but I wasn’t sure just who would actually show up.  Will there be enough people coming to make it feel like a real party?  I already knew my son wouldn’t be coming, and that had dampened my mood.

As I set out the iced tea the doorbell chimed, and when I ran to open the door my heart leapt into my throat.  It was Carol Purroy, my writing teacher, with a pot of raspberry-colored flowers in a hand-thrown pot.  I shouted out her name with great delight and drew her in.

No sooner had I helped her orient to the surroundings than other guests began coming.  Lee took over the door as I moved them outside to the newly landscaped garden—one of the two big reasons for this party.

 I repeatedly explained my design, “This is a Jungian conceptual garden where union of the opposites is the key. Here is the English country garden with its daisies and roses representing Western culture.  On the east side is the Japanese garden with its heavenly bamboo and rounded bridge over the dry creek bed—Eastern culture.  Uniting them is the labyrinth, the feminine aspect.  Looking up the hillside outside the split-rail fence, you’ll see the rocky ledge with iron benches—the masculine element.  Here on the level ground we have the formal, cultivated area and just outside the gate to the hill is what I call the wild garden with naturalized plantings from Western high desert areas.”

I smiled as I noticed guests beginning to walk the labyrinth in measured steps and a quiet, meditative mood.  Let there be much prayer and praise in this place!

A half hour into the festivities, Heidi came up to me with her toddler and pre-teen explaining she needed to leave.  Chevy, the baby, was having too much fun rearranging the rocks of the labyrinth and she’d had it trying to keep up replacing them.  I urged her to stay just a few more minutes so I could unveil my new painting for everyone, and she agreed though she wrinkled her brow warily.  I asked Tina and Lee to shepherd everyone in for the event.

      I brought a little stool in from the deck so when I removed the cloth I wouldn’t jerk the painting off the wall.  When everyone was comfortable, I teased off the drape to soft gasps of pleasure.  Using the laser pointer Lee had bought me at Walgreens that afternoon, I pointed its scarlet light at an assortment of symbols, explaining their meaning, such as the concentric circles representing campsites, or in my case, places I’d lived; wavy lines indicating trails, my path to the next home site.  It was the story of my life told in golds and reds, purples and whites, all dots, circles and lines in the style of the Australian indigenous peoples.

      In that moment, with the dearest people in my life all facing me, obviously enjoying themselves, giving me their rapt attention, I felt completely at one with all things, quietly filled with a gentle ecstasy of welcome.  Lee told me later I was radiant, and I knew my own inner gold had finally escaped its introverted container and was shining for my entire world to see.

Another Possible First Page

Let me know how you like this new first page and whether you like it better or not as much as the last one I posted:

Nancy Pfaff  Memoir—first page  9/16/11

            As long as I can remember I’ve been searching. What I was searching for I couldn’t say for many years. My search was subdued and almost invisible until a Sunday school teacher shot holes in my simple faith the fall I turned thirteen. This marked an initiation into the darker side of life, a turning away from the light. That year our class of eighth graders was filled with high energy, every class was a chance to socialize with all my best friends and my new boyfriend, LeRoy Nutting. But that youthful simplicity and joy in my faith ended on that fateful Sunday in 1954 as Mrs. Decker launched into her “enlightened” teaching on the debunking of the Virgin Birth.

            Now up until that day, I wasn’t any Bible expert, I hadn’t memorized more than two psalms and no bible verses, I had no opinion on other religions or who was in or who was out, what was acceptable and what was heresy, I just loved my little white bible with my name engraved in gold leaf—Nancy Lee Watson.  My childlike assumption about what that bible contained was that it was full of good stories from a long time ago, and these stories were fun to enter into in my imagination—Daniel in the lion’s den (Hopeful, but doubting that my faith could stop the mouths of lions.); David and Goliath (Rejoicing in a child having conquered a giant.);  and Jesus born in a stable in Bethlehem (Hopeful that there were families who loved each other and helped each other because my family was in constant fermentation from the disease of alcoholism.).

Whether these stories were literally true or legendary or inspired by God but not literally true or something else didn’t enter my thoughts. I simply believed them as they were written. What was important and essential was that these stories inspired a sense of radiance, revealed a sparkling cosmos bigger than the one I lived in day-to-day, stirred a sense of wonder that drew devotion out of my inner soul for this God who mysteriously became involved in lives and accomplished miracles.  Sunday school, the bible, hymn singing all pointed to this light and luminous other world; and my undiscriminating heart resonated to its numinosity.

But back to Mrs. Decker, my weaver of evil spells.  She was an overstuffed, middle-aged woman with unruly black hair, and an attitude that said, “I am so very informed and modern in my thinking!”  She launched into her version of the birth of Christ, “Now the bible says that Mary was a virgin, and that God gave her Jesus in a miraculous happening, but we don’t have to accept this ancient and superstitious tale.  Mary could easily have been a virgin, but contained within herself both male and female parts which could produce the child quite easily.  We can see this in nature.  Many plants have complete flowers with both male and female parts.”

Now growing up in a ranching and farming community, you would think that I was well acquainted with the reproductive process, but I was a town kid, and the only sexual sight I had witnessed was the castrating of the male calves at branding time when I visited Sandra Galeppi, a school mate who lived on a ranch.  Oh another classmate and I had sneaked a medical book from my parents’ bookshelves, had perused various genital diagrams, found them disgusting, and decided we would never have intercourse, but just swim in a pool with our husband and get pregnant that way. That was the extent of my sexual thinking. So with Mrs. Decker tying the Virgin Mary to a plant which could reproduce itself sexually my mental acuity began to fade. My mind kind of tried to wrap around the words Mrs. Decker had sounded in my ears, but I couldn’t make sense of it.  What punctured my resonating heart was that God didn’t do miracles; it was all ancient superstitious stuff, something out of the wilds of time when the inquisition burned people at the stake for being witches.  

 In this crisis of faith, fate marked me to forever search out the numinous and my relationship to it, although it would remain at an unconscious level for many years.

            I never went back to Sunday school.  I gave up believing in miracles…for a season. 

A Transforming Moment with Friends

The Pearl Ceremony

            As my fiftieth birthday approached, I wanted to break out of this invalid cycle, if only for the day, and do something unique. When I’d turned forty, I’d felt like I hit a milestone—free to be me!  At fifty I felt like a survivor, weather-beaten, but centered in faith, hopeful and determined.  The word that inspired me now, that lifted me up above my daily grind was “perspective.”  I’d seen the best of times and the worst of times and become a seasoned soul.

As I thought about what could make my birthday meaningful, I decided to invite my best friends to join me.  Six women had come to be superb buddies as we met for prayer weekly in my home.  I knew they would be willing to help make the day special.  It had been fifteen years of chronic illness, and I didn’t feel up to going to restaurants or movies with lots of people, so I felt challenged to come up with something new.

For a moment I fell into a daydream remembering the highlights of our group.  Ours wasn’t the average prayer group that prays for the sick and suffering in the local church.  Our group was organized with a vision and purpose to change our city through love.  We called ourselves Servants of Vision and committed to pray for the visions of  pastors in our area, believing that God had or would reveal these visions to each of them.

            I don’t remember how I came to know each of these women, but we had developed a strong bond as we prayed together for these pastors.  Karen was a nurse and member of a local, independent charismatic fellowship.  Marie was a hospital chaplain nearing retirement age.  Pam was a recent casino executive who had recently found Christ and was choosing a new path.  Carol was heavily involved in Aglow, a women’s charismatic fellowship.  Chris was a busy volunteer at her non-denominational evangelical fellowship.  Sarah was an executive assistant for a local church. 

            The plan around which our group centered grew out of my time in the Philippines.  When I had attended the Lausanne II meetings in the Philippines in 1989, I studied under a world demographer from Norway who inspired me to put together something I called Battlestations, groups of prayer warriors who were intent on seeing their cities come to know the love of God in Jesus Christ. This Norwegian demographer said that Reno, Nevada, was a predictor of trends. What was happening in Reno was a forecaster of what would later happen in the rest of the United States. Being from Reno, this released my imagination.  If the Christian church in Reno could cause a noticeable change as a result of bringing people into the love of God in Christ, it could become a model to change the world.  Even Billy Graham at one of his Reno crusades had said as much, “If Reno becomes known for salvation, the whole world will be changed.” It was around this hope that our prayer group was organized.

            Our basic plan was to identify people involved in the “mind molders” in our city—education, the justice system, business, churches, the family, media and politics.  We would pray for these people. Our desire was that God’s grace and power would enable each Christian in each mind molder to share their faith and invite their colleagues and friends to church. Although I was ready to move the vision into reality, Karen stood firm that we must spend time waiting on God in prayer rather than charging ahead to make something happen on our own.  She seemed to think that maybe the vision was of God and maybe not.  It was hard for me to accept, but I respected Karen’s depth of wisdom drawn from hours in the presence of God in prayer.

            One memorable day as we sat in my living room praying out loud for the needs of our city, a profound hush came over us and we barely breathed.  We all experienced Jesus standing in our midst, present in all his fullness of love, encouraging us in what we were doing.  This was the first time I had been part of a group when such a personal visitation took place and all present were aware of it happening.  It was as if we were the musical instruments in God’s orchestra, and the Spirit was animating us.  Happenings like this drew us close.

            When we finally felt ready to take action in the city, and since I was still associated with Church Resource Ministries, a missionary organization based in southern California, I visited all the local pastors willing to talk to me.  That is on my good days.  I asked them to a free lunch explaining we would have a special speaker to help churches reach the city for Christ.  I invited our Director of Missions in the United States to address them.  Then our prayer group got busy making the best lunch we could, renting the club house in my condominium association, and making the setting beautiful.  We were heartened to have over twenty pastors attend from a wide variety of Christian backgrounds. 

Several pastors were willing to continue meeting on a regular basis.  Out of this came a city-wide gathering of thousands meeting at the Lawlor Events Center, the sports stadium at the University of Nevada.  When numerous men, women and children came forward to accept Christ or to rededicate themselves, I felt amazed that our small group could catalyze something this significant.  I firmly believed in the power of prayer, and this cemented my conviction.  Our prayer group felt optimistic that we had made a good start to change our city.  We were enthusiastic about continuing, and began planning to involve more prayer groups city wide.  It delighted us that we might just be able to change our world as we changed the Reno and Sparks areas.

At the same time, I felt perplexed.  What I had envisioned was each church identifying the ten percent within the congregation who had the spiritual gift of evangelism. From my church growth training I knew that ten percent was a good average per church.  These ten percent would be trained to reach the mind molders most appropriate to them.  As these were successful in bringing new people into the churches, they would share with others and train others who would do the same.  Each new individual or family would be invited to list people they knew who might be interested in an invitation to church, and this would repeat in a continual loop as the seventy-five percent of the unchurched in our area found a suitable church family.  In other words, I envisioned a slow, steady, continuous growth over many years rather than a high visibility, high cost one-time event.  What I envisioned were more and more Christians in the mind molders knowing each other and organizing in their arena so that the slow tide of Christian love would increase integrity, honesty, kindness, consideration and the common good would rise.

            I pulled myself back from my reverie to consider my birthday.  Somewhere in the back of my mind I wanted to celebrate the lessons learned through the many years of set backs and illness.  My long term illness was my irritation, and I longed to transform the dis-ease and unhappiness into something more life giving. As I pondered this challenge, the image of a pearl came to mind.  The pearl is formed from a piece of silt that has gotten into the oyster. It causes irritation and the oyster secretes a fluid to cover it up-- voila, a pearl is formed.  Could my friends and I make a pearl out of my distress?

            I was reading books on women’s rituals, and began to reflect on what might help me with my celebration.  My creative juices began to flow.  Where sluggishness and stagnation from the illness hung over me, now I began to breathe in a new air, a sense of coming alive again.

            First I talked to my husband about buying a pearl necklace. I didn't tell him about giving away my other one. I had placed my good pearl necklace on the altar of our church one New Year’s Eve when I offered my life to God in a kind of Ignatian[1] pledge: “I desire only what is conducive to my soul, not preferring health to sickness, riches to poverty, honor to dishonor, long to short life, ....” That night I felt open-hearted, loving God and desiring only what God wanted for me.  The deepest love and most unconditional and continual acceptance of me as a woman and a human being was given to me by Jesus Christ, and my heart overflowed with wanting to return that abundant love.

            That New Year’s eve, I was still recovering from my hysterectomy surgery, and even with the ovaries left, I was having hot flashes and mood swings, mainly toward depression.  Feeling anxious and concerned some weeks earlier, I followed my heart and spent more time in prayer and reading the scriptures.  I was particularly drawn to Philippians 3:10-11, I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings….  So when Pastor Melson invited the congregation to come forward and place a token of their commitment of themselves to God on the altar, I was moved to do so.  I had a problem though.  I had nothing I could place on the altar of my own because I hadn’t brought a purse.  The only thing I could give was a strand of beautiful cultured pearls that had been with me since I was 12, a gift from my uncle Jack, my mother’s brother.  I hesitated.  Nevertheless, my heart was so intensely devoted to God at that time, having known his love for me in a very personal manner, I walked slowly down the isle and laid them on the altar.  When I did inquire about the strand some days later, no one knew what had become of it.  I missed those pearls.

            Don, always wanting to make ends meet and avoid unnecessary expenses, was cautious in his support of the suggested pearl shopping trip, but following his helpful pattern, he opted to give me his support.  We went to two or three jewelry shops; I didn’t have energy for more than that, and the necklaces they showed me were all very inferior. The graduated pearl necklaces fell far short. There were no knots between the pearls and the strands wouldn’t hang straight.  They looked like they were made without care which made me doubt their quality.  They were irregular in nature and didn’t have much of a polish.

Finally I found a string that was gorgeous—eighteen inches long and each pearl a delight to the eye.  The pearls were all of one size rather than graduated, but they were beautiful.  The price tag opened my eyes wide!  I don’t remember exactly how much they cost, but $1,500 seems to stick in my mind.  Nevertheless, Don said he’d pay two thirds if I would pick up the rest, and I agreed.  Not having many dollars in my personal account--I hadn't worked for years--I hated to take it all for the necklace.  At the same time, I was choosing to see each of my trials infused with new light, and the necklace became a numinous symbol of transformation to me. Each pearl represented a particular ordeal from which I learned a wonderful lesson.  It was my attempt to integrate what had happened to me and to sweeten the hard times of my life.  I was reminded of the time God told Moses to throw wood in the water at Marah to take away its bitterness, a foreshadowing of Christ bringing light into our world.[2] 

            I thought my friends and I needed to make something together when we met, so, being a bread baker from way back, I decided we would make bread, knead our sorrows into it, the sorrows of our mothers and their sorrows. Each of us had a portion of the recipe—flour, sugar, oil, yeast, salt.  We combined the ingredients, tore the dough into seven pieces, one for each of us, and began to knead them. We silently meditated on our intent—to acknowledge and honor the sufferings of the women we were, all the way back in our heritage, and the wisdom and strength that each woman gained through facing and dealing with her trials.  Rather than speak our families’ secrets out loud, we quietly meditated on current and ancient sorrows being softened in the dough as we worked it, symbolizing the fermenting of difficulties into something wonderful like a good wine.

After combining our individual pieces into one dough, we divided it in three parts, rolled them into long fingers and braided them into a loaf, all pairs of hands taking turns.  We left our creation to rise while we shared. After baking, it would be a wonderful-smelling loaf to have with fresh butter and home made preserves.  I smiled to myself as I reflected on what was to come.  My whole body felt comforted, and my heart swelled with pleasure as a feeling of belonging and community wrapped me like a soft shawl.

            We moved into the living room overlooking Reno and its eastern mountains.  I’d placed a wooden rolling pin and seven ribbons on the coffee table for our next experience. We would tie our ribbon on the rolling pin, and tell a story of a great sorrow together with the profound wisdom that arose from it. The rolling pin would act like a "talking stick" in Native American circles. Whoever had the rolling pin would be able to say what she thought as the others listened.  The bread would rise and bake as we talked.

            None of us had heard each others' stories of hardship and lessons learned.  The room was intensely quiet as each woman tied her ribbon on the rolling pin and initiated her narrative.  Our love and respect for each other rose like the yeast dough in the dining room, the energy in the room becoming tender and full of mutual affection.  Each one entered into the sharing with openness and trust.  My heart repeatedly broke and mended as I felt my friends' grief  followed by inspiration from the lessons they had learned.  A sudden sense of coming of age, of being finally all grown up, of being fully adult settled gently over me as autumn leaves descending on a quiet fall day.

            Occasionally we would tend the rising bread and then return to our sharing.  When it came time to put it in the oven, and as our intimate time continued, the aroma of fresh baking bread added to the nurturing, healing atmosphere.  Only our youngest member in her early thirties hadn’t met with a great trial to share, and this surprised me.  Somehow I thought everyone age thirty and up would have a story of grief surmounted.  Her contribution was just as wonderful as she shared how our stories touched her.

      The story I told was about my long, chronic illness with no basis to believe my health would ever change.  With my head down and voice low, heavy with memories, I told of my long, lonely days, many of them in unrelieved pain--the endless days of more of the same. As I turned to the lesson learned, my body shifted and straitened in the chair.  I got my breath back, and went on.  One winter day my daughter, Kristina, recently released from the Army, breezed into our condo.  "Mom, put on a coat.  I'm taking you out of here."  It was one of my better days.  I was up, dressed in hot-pink sweats, and thinking, "Yeah.  I'd like to get out of here!"  She took me to our Paperback Book Exchange on Vesta off Wells Avenue.  As she browsed in science fiction, I rambled to the back of the store and the Christian used paperbacks.  One in particular caught my eye, The Seven Story Mountain by Thomas Merton.  Intrigued by the title, I bought it.  As I read about this twentieth century Trappist monk and his spiritual journey, and later other books of his, I was led to a monastic quote,  "Stay in your cell, and your cell will teach you everything." 

     As if God were speaking directly to me, I understood that if I would see my illness as my monastic cell, choose to live in it with openness to the Spirit, God would teach me everything.  This illness could not hold me back in anyway from becoming the person I was meant to be.  I loved the scripture from Philippians 1:6, "...being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus."  Suddenly my prison doors of illness flung open and my mind and spirit were released to live fully in the midst of uncertainty.  Meaning and purpose flooded my soul, and I was gloriously free even though nothing had changed.  My face glowed with joy and determination as I finished.  My friends smiled encouragingly, eyes shining with unshed tears.

            When all the ribbons had been tied on the rolling pin, all the stories shared, and the room was brimming with healing and support, the timer dinged.  The bread was finished.  We took it out of the oven, chatted sociably, so different from our serious exchanges, and let it cool enough to slice.  Fresh creamery butter and homemade strawberry preserves were ready to spread.  We each helped ourselves and returned to the living room to wrap up.  Each of us was beaming and pink cheeked from the wonderful love and life given to each of us by each other.  Truly our sorrows and been turned into dancing in this simple celebration.  Then, grinning, the other women presented me with a small gift box nicely wrapped.  In it was a pair of pearl earrings, simple studs, to match the necklace.  Such a feeling of sweet gratitude engulfed me, I was so honored to receive their present. 

As I stood facing them, wearing the lovely necklace and beautiful earrings, I felt the richness of the day, the wonder and depth of sharing life’s hard lessons and declaring that great good was harvested in spite of temporary devastation.  My sense of invalidism was replaced with an inner feeling of strength.  In that moment I felt able to stand in the face of any difficulty.  It was their love, support and understanding, together with all our sorrows and gleanings shared, that in some mysterious way had transformed my loneliness as a chronic invalid into one of the most stunning days of my life.

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[1] St. Ignatius of Loyola was a great evangelist in the sixteenth century.  He developed a series of spiritual exercises to help new Christians grow.  One of the exercises involves this pledge.

[2] Exodus 15:25