Why rye won't cure an absessed tooth and other stories of suffering

It turns out that people drink listerine because it's full of alcohol. I discovered this while garggling rye at 7am today, trying desperately to quell the overwhelming ache in my tooth. It feels exactly like mouthwash - tingling and wonderful. But of course it tastes like rye, which is most unfortunate over breakfast.

This is the day for which green was created;
the day she fully and perfectly reveals herself
in every weed that protests the vast drab of grey concrete,
in every brave, beautiful leaf that extends boldly into the
bluest blue of sky who stands proud behind the white clouds declaring,
"I am blue!"
This is a day for him, too.

a secret or two...

The tension of holding valuable information against my heart where no one else can see it is as challenging as convincing my little puppy, Boston, to hold still while we pour cleaning solution into her floppy ears. I'm squirming and agitated and spilling information all over the carpet.
I can't wait for saturday...so close.

I started a joke...

Holy shit balls, I'm going to Africa!
I knew it! I just knew He was going to work this out, and now all the pieces are slowly falling into place.
Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desire of your heart.
What a promise. Let's just hope his hearts come with warranty because I have a feeling that I want the truth, but I can't handle it.

I sometimes feel it as I'm kneading bread. It pulses through my hands into the doughy flesh - creating life, nurturing life, healing life. This power that I quickly dismiss as social indoctrination that leads to my oppression. But it's there, buried in my grandmother's blood that surges through my veins; blood from her grandmother before her, the quiet story of the perfect stranger who brought me life. She beckons me out of myself and into the communion of women who, for centuries, have healed and fed and nurtured and delivered life through strong hands kneading bread and patient hearts healing wounds both physical and emotional. How is it that this gift has caused us to live in shame?
Tonight I sat as the little girl in a sacred circle of wise women, admiring their beauty and strength. I discovered in this ritual that I have been initiated into a society as old as time, the bond through which women share life and love and sorrow and strength. It is an education of the inferior gender, the story of the woman behind the man. Through this story, which we all share in one form or another, women offer to the daughters of the earth the lessons they hope their own daughters will one day receive from other women as patient and wise. In these moments I pause and fill my heart with this beautiful truth that knits our lives to each other and with the great lover and creator. And then I wonder why those bloody loonies at willow get their panties in a knot over women in leadership? Have they never met their own grandmothers? Do they not know the sacred wisdom of women?
And then it doesn't matter because as long as women have been women they have been oppressed and as long as God has been God she offers us the gift of other women who will drink wine, and eat meals and swim naked so that we know our God is made entirely of love that tastes like chocolate and looks like stretch marks and feels like labour pains. Hard and good and beautiful.

Bare chest to the sun God

I wasn't sure I could rely on the message because I never trust the sound of His voice when it sounds exactly like my own and reverberates through my own head, bumping off my conflicted and guilt ridden heart.
But it was there and my logical mind was working overtime to explain it away or hold it at far enough from me for fear that it wouldn't last longer than it took to consider it. This is usually what happens when I've heard rumours of this message.
There weren't words, really. Not pictures or revelations. Just this feeling.
Peace. Calm. No. More than this.
Happiness? More.
It was love. Real love for myself like I haven't felt before and if I have it was so long ago I don't remember. Love that accepted me, lying naked in the sun, without guilt or alteration, bare and raw and vulnerable.
I discovered the holy communion of skinny dipping. Water cleansing and caressing and embracing. I discovered that I was okay while the sun dried me with her radiant smile and the wind kissed me with her gentle breath and the waves under the boat gently rocked me on her knee until I was asleep, or better, content.
And so this must be the church...full of friends and laughter and food and wine and this bizarre and unexpected assurance of His love. This gentle but outlandish idea that I am loved and capable of love and worthy of love. Today, I get it.
And so I thank the God of the water and the God of the sun and the God of the wind who momentarily commandeered my head today to reveal this tiny, unfathomable mystery in the universe.
Who knew a christian god would condone skinny dipping? I get the feeling that She is very much more radical than we give Her credit for.