Chanukah, Sixth Night: Miracles

Miracles are counted on
the wings of angels
who dance on
the sharp end of a pin,
and whose feet come
away bloody.
They are a mighty host
of smoke and mirror
to move the heart
of God.

I searched for a sign,
for the light to grow
and last far longer than it should,
a simple flame grown to
pieces of eight
to illumine the darkness
and the martyrs of battle.

I heard the hosannas,
a miracle of blessing and praise.
There were portents there -
a riot of glory and sacred grace
I lifted my eyes,
watching, waiting.

 I almost missed
my beloved smile.


Chag urim sameach
5780

Fear, Faith, and a Really Big Sea... plus a Miracle or Two

I'm at that damned Sea again. Just when I think I've done it, finally managed to cross the Sea and leave it behind, I find myself staring at its implacable immensity, with the light of heaven mirrored in its unsplit surface. My feet are scarred and just a bit bloody. These reeds can cut like knives, apparently.

I expect to see a throng, or at least a large crowd of people, milling aimlessly about, stymied by the Sea. There is always some crowd, some random group of people waiting to cross, waiting for the Sea to spilt, the Miracle to happen. Waiting to be freed, at last. At the very least, I hope for Nachshon, the first one to get it - the first brave soul who decided that his faith was stronger than his fear, the very first to step into the wind-whipped water even before it split, who walked while the waters almost swallowed him whole, who walked because God had to be with him, because Moshe had to be telling the truth, because what else could he do? And just like that, between one breath and the next - between one hurried gulp of air before the waters covered him completely - the Sea split.

The waters parted, just in the nick of time. Nachshon and all those milling about people and the disordered chaos of all their things, the kids and the goats and the bubbies and zaydes, the aunts and annoying sisters and neighbors, all the knowns and the unknowns and the carts and donkeys and mothers and fathers and bread-that-didn't-have-time-to-rise - all the stuff that they carried, all the crush of people, our distant ancestors who were once slaves were now suddenly, blessedly free - all because of Nachshon's simple walk of faith, allowing that impossible Forever Sea to open enough for them all to cross.

Nes gadol hayah sham. I know, I know - wrong holiday, but the sentiment is the same: a great miracle happened there! Yay God! Yay us! Yay all of us - all the myriad generations that followed, from there to here, and then some. From the Forever Sea of reeds and water to my own Forever Sea. of mirrored surfaces and razor-sharp weeds. 

We are commanded to act as if we. too, had been redeemed from the narrow places, had seen the wonders of Fire and Smoke with our own eyes, had stood at the Sea with fear and doubt, and had found a faith that could carry us across.

I always assume - hope? pray? - that the finding is a one-and-done kinda move. I am naive that way.

Every year, it seems, I find the Sea again, I stand again at its ragged shore, and I wait for the faith to come. Where the hell is Nachshon when I need him? Where the hell is the miracle? Every year, I splash around the edges, getting wet and muddied and loud in my complaints fervent prayer; I feel alone. I feel connected. I need help. I am loved. I am broken. My body is breaking. I am lost. Where are you, God? Why am I here? 

I'm exhausted.

So with all this muddy mess swirling around in my head, i am reminded of a midrash. Not one of my regulars, that feel all warm and comfy and filled with answers that square the circle. This one is different for me. It begins two men; let's call them Shlomo and Ben. They were milling about with all the other lansmen, afraid and unsure. Who is this God we're supposed follow? Where's He been for all these years? (thought Shlomo) What's taken Her so long, if She's so powerful? (thought Ben) And just who is this Moshe guy, claiming to be one of us? This they declared together 

We're supposed to trust them, they thought, shaking their heads as they stared at the water that stretched to the horizon and back. The ground began to shake a little, and in the very far distance, they could just make out the call of a horn. Ben and Shlomo looked around a little, and saw the first line of chariots moving quickly towards them.

Perfect. Rock, meet hard place. 

Ok God - if You're ever gonna save us, now's a good time.

And that's when Nachshon made his move. All those bubbies and zaydes and family and the candle-makers and the brick-layers, all those recently-freed slaves held their collective breath – and the Sea split, and there was dry land. A miracle. Maybe this "God" God is the real deal. And so  all the people ran and celebrated, and sang and danced and were finally free to find the rest of their story.

Shlomo and Ben watched from the sidelines and shallows. They wanted to take their time, to make sure, just in case. They were smart like that. Just as the last family trundled past, donkeys braying and kids laughing and this or that threatening to fall from the over-stuffed, over-loaded wagon, Ben and Shlomo shrugged and followed.

It was a difficult and perilous journey for the two friends. The mud sucked at their feet, trying to claim their sandals. More than once, Ben had to help Shlomo up from the gooey mess. More than once, Shlomo had to do the same in return for Ben. They kept their eyes glued to their muddy, treacherous path, too afraid to do anything else, willing themselves not to fall. Their iron wills failed them, again and again.

We had plenty of mud in Egypt, grumbled Ben. And we used all that mud to make bricks, replied Shlomo. What is this place, they said together. The ground is illusion, seemingly solid until it sucks at our feet, drinking us down. The water seeps into every crack and hollow, and the damp gets into our lungs. What is this if not Egypt?

The day grew darker, the air more damp, and it wasn’t long until they were alone. Still they walked, grumbling and frightened, so sure of the mess they were in. The mess, they knew, was as forever as the Sea that may or may not have been their current escape route. Their wretched journey from one narrow place to another - so they were positive - only proved them right. This was no deliverance. 

When they finally reached that distant shore – they never quite noticed. Sure, the ground wad more solid, and there was certainly green grass mixed in with all that muddy brown, and the air dried out and even smelled sweetly sometimes, and they could hear a little music mixed in with the drone of bees and the soft roar of water. But Shlomo and Ben could only look down, could only see their own feet, their own fear.

They missed the miracle. They missed the play of light against the straining walls of water, and all the fish and sea creatures who swam up to watch them, flaunting their scales and fins and their bright colors before the delighted eyes of the people who walked between the watery walls. They never saw the sun kiss the very top of those walls, looking as if the water were liquid fire. They missed the faces of each one of their fellow ex-enslaved people, who would, each of them, in their own time, look about in wonder and awe and joy and absolute delight at the watery world around them as they danced (as best they could) through that muddy, squelching path to the Beyond – beyond the narrows, beyond the captivity, beyond the pain – and they rejoiced.

Shlomo and Ben? All they got was mud.

I have been here before, at this Forever Sea, I have stared out at it, afraid, alone, immobilized, praying for the faith of Nachshon to finally have courage enough to step into it, even just an inch or two. To walk, and know that I will be carried, that the Sea will split, that I will be able to walk through whatever it is that keeps me tethered to this place of doubt or grief or fear. Please God, release me from my self-imposed bondage, so that I can finally walk on dry land, and leave this Forever Sea.

I have  prayed, year after year after year. And every year – ta da! – a miracle of movement, and the world shifts and the light shines and I am through it, whatever that it may be. Or, if not exactly through, then at least making progress towards. 

And it hits me,  not all at once,  but slowly, building as inexorably as the rolling tide: I may be on the shores of this all roo familiar Sea yet again, but I am different. I am not searching out my annual vision of Nachshon, waiting to find my faith, to jump on the bandwagon of leaping and letting go. This year, I'm looking for the lesson of looking up.

I've spent way too much time looking down at the mud at my feet, hearing the desperate squelching of the ooze. I've become so intent on movement, on doing and fixing and working and changing, I seem to have missed the miracle.

I miss the colors and the wonder and the absolute awe of being carried, not from narrow to narrow, but just carried. I miss the grace of kindness and the intimacy of my vulnerability. Just as I need not wait for Nachshon to begin it all, I don’t need to lurk on the fringes in the back with Shlomo and Ben.

So this year, my prayer as we approach the shores of that Sea, as we prepare for redemption and faith and miracles  is a little different – 

Dear God, who is surely in my doubt as much as in my faith, who creates the waters that carry us and the light that shines – let me learn to be. Let me learn to look up, to see the glory that abounds, even in the darkness and the squelching mud. Let me know that even when the ground becomes suddenly unsteady and the silence becomes too loud that there are hands to hold and shoulders upon which I can lean. Teach me, please, that the Fixer of Broken Things can be, herself, fixed. 

Let me know, finally, that my truest prayer, and most honest, no matter what words I may use, is, ever and always: Dear God, I need help – and let me be brave enough to accept the help that surely comes, every time.

And let us say, amen.


Chag pesach sameach.

5778

Miracles

I searched for miracles,
for signs and portents
of wondrous delight.
I longed for
a pillar of fire,
or maybe a column
of dark ash,
that smelled of incense
and myrrh.

There came then
a fierce wind,
a great gust of air -
or perhaps merely a breeze
with just power enough
to lift my hair
and cool my skin.

Wonders and miracles
are counted on
the wings of angels
who dance on
the sharp end of a pin,
and whose feet come
away bloody.
They are a mighty host
of smoke and mirror
to move the heart
of God.

I searched the horizon
for a Sign,
for a portent
of Wonder.
I almost missed
my Beloved
smile.

Who Opens the Eyes of the Blind...

Baruch atah Adonai, Eloheinu melech ha'olam, pokei'ach ivri'im

Blessed are you, Adonai, Sovereign of the universe, who opens the eyes of the blind.

From Nisim b'chol yom, for daily miracles 

The morning liturgy

I chant this prayer every time I say the morning blessings.  It is not as often as I'd like, but at least every Saturday morning, for Shabbat, I chant it. It's a sacred moment.

At least, it would be if I thought about it. I think moments are not inherently sacred or holy. They become so, with our thought, our mindfulness and intentionality.

Today, as I stood under the rickety, shivering roof of the Sukkah, where  pale morning sky peeked through a roof of haphazardly-laid dried corn stalks, and the light wind presaged the certainty of autumn-to-come (though the valiant sun, not-quite blazing, but shining brightly nonetheless, did a tango with the still-chill air before it started to warm) -- today, wrapped in my tallit and a soft sweater and the holiness of that moment, my voice rose with those other voices of this lovely community, praising God for the miracles of the day.

Praising God for opening the eyes of the blind.

That's when it hit me. Again, after all those other agains, when I've struggled to see my computer screen, and the road just beyond the hood of my car, and the last bit of dried-up milk at the bottom of the glass that my son has left on the counter again (for a whole different tirade of "agains"). More, for the struggle to see the breathtaking beauty of the words of Torah as I lean down to chant their ancient melody. They've worsened, those struggles, steadily, now somewhat exponentially, until today, this moment as I sing out my praise of God for the miracle of sight -- and my vision is a cubist nightmare, a blurred and darkened view of the world around me. Tough to see a miracle right about now.

So this morning, I chanted those words, where I so often sing them rather than pray them, and today they became holy and that moment shifted into rare and exquisite sacredness. And I wept.

I'm terrified that I am going blind.

Before I continue, let me say: my condition is, so my doctors assure me, treatable. Not cureable, but treatable. They may be able to arrest its progression. Or at least slow the pace of it. I may not, in fact, be going blind. Tell that to my fear.

I know, I know-- fear is a liar, and this is Sukkot, the season of joy. So I stood under the shelter of this very tenuous, very temporary shelter that was draped in God's bounty, that was filled to its very edges with prayer and hope and gratitude, and I sang and prayed and tried so desperately to lose myself in my prayer-- or maybe to find myself there, and God and benediction and something holy and pure, something transcendent and free of the fear that lay coiled around me, that bound me and tethered me to its dank lies and dirty promises. I tried so hard to rise with my prayers. 

And when I came to chant from Torah-- and really, not an incredibly inspiring passage, from a particularly troubling parasha, but it is Torah, and the blessing of it is that we are given the whole of the Torah, not just the pretty passages and happy stories, because it is ours to struggle with and dance with and learn from, to teach and carry and study and live-- so I stood at the makeshift bima and I bent to read those silly words, about bullocks and rams and offerings for drink and meals and sin-- and I stumbled and faltered, because although my eyes were open, I could not see.

The service leader was kind-- chanting Torah is difficult under the best of circumstances (considering there are no vowels or punctuation), he explained, but I was laboring under some heavy duty eye problems for which I would be operated on later this week. I walked back to my seat where I proceeded to break down. 

A woman, a friend, came to sit next to me. She put her arm around me, to offer strength and comfort. "What do you need?" she said, and would not accept stiffening shoulders or my mumbled answer of "Nothing. I'm fine." She was merely the first in a parade of others. Some I had known for years, those casual, intimate acquaintances who fill our lives with pleasantries and conversation and shared experience. There were a few I'd never seen before, though their concern was no less sincere. Included in that jumbled mix were a few real friends, people who were part of the regular ebb and flow of my life, whose presence was a steady and shimmering light.

What do you need? What can we do? And then: Never mind; I'll come over. I'll drive you. We'll bring you...

My skin fairly crawled. I am the Fixer of Broken things, I wanted to cry out. I do not get Fixed. I do not get taken care of. I am not fixable, I wanted to whisper. I cannot afford to need.

And in the midst of my fear and pain, draped in my pride-- a miracle. 

My prayer, my blindness: it had nothing to do with sight. It had nothing to do with vision, with rods and cones and color and light. There is holiness in giving, in caring for, in being present for another. There is also a sacredness in accepting that care. Community is about connection, a give and take of love and experience, a binding of joy and sorrow. 

I have no idea what will happen with my eyes. I am still terrified that I will go blind, that something will go wrong with this (fairly routine) operation. That I will not be able to drive, or read or stare in wonder at the color of the sky just as the sun kisses the horizon. Soon, and forever. I am an awfulizer of the first order. My fear is a liar that tells me I will no longer see.

But I will not be blind. How could I be, when I stand with my community, that holy and sacred bunch, under the shelter of heaven, to find strength and compassion and love. 

Blessed are you, God, who opens the eyes of the blind...

Fear, Faith and a Really Big Sea-- an annual redux (times 3)

And so we have made it through one more circuit in the sweeping arc of that planetary dance around the sun. At almost full circle, it seems this particular essay of mine is becoming an annual thing. How bad could that be, though: an exercise that forces me to think about fear and faith and the part they both play in my life, the leaps that I have made and the stumbling around in the dark that I have done?  I have managed to navigate through my days with both faith and fear, though not in equal measure. The balance seems to be in favor of faith these days, and that is truly a thing of miracle and wonder.

It should come as no surprise that I have taken some long and twisty paths to get to this place. I gravitate towards the dark and twisty, and feel, somewhere in my head, or wandering around my heart, that life and things and lessons have more meaning if they are difficult to come by. While the shortest distance between two points may be a straight line, I prefer the road that diverges and is less traveled. We may eventually get to the same place, but the view, and the adventures in between, seem to make the journey that much richer (and the destination that much sweeter).

This year, I have less tested my faith than discovered it. Sometimes, I have had to rediscover it on a daily basis. My faith can be a tad quixotic. The glory, as I see it now, is that (at last, or at least for today) my faith has tempered my fear. Now, rather than lying cold and dank in the pit of my belly, ready to slither and coil outwards in a quickening spiral that radiates through me, spinning me madly, my fear is smaller, seemingly more docile and compliant. If it is not missing altogether, I at least have gained the ability to act upon my fear more realistically. More sanely.

The monsters hiding under beds and in closets may be real, but I have (hopefully) found better armor and more appropriate weaponry with which to defend myself. It surprises and delights me no end to find, in the tangled mess that is my current quiver, faith and hope are my most prized (and most used) arrows.

There is still much unchanged, or at least undifferent. It is still about fear, and faith in the face of that.  And it's about staring out at the vast and dark sea and being stuck and being afraid and having faith.  It's about being forgiven, at last, and forgiving, all in the same breath.

So the year turns, as it always does, and time flows in some holy and sacred river, and it is, once again, Passover.  There is beauty in that cyclical passage of time.  There is grace in getting to this season, again, of God's redemption.  Once we wandered a dark and empty desert, and then were brought home.  Once we were slaves, now we are free.  

Here's the post that sparked all this a few years ago:

I'm in one of those places: stuck, prickly, at the very edge of letting go, trembling with the effort to not tip over the edge into the abyss of the unknown, desperate to take that final leap of faith and soar towards light and wholeness. I am astounded, as always, when I think how inextricably intertwined my fear and my faith have become. I have heard (more times than I care to remember) that Fear (always pronounced with a capital F) is an absence of Faith. No. I think not. I demand Not. I am too intelligent--- God is too intelligent-- to demand unthinking blind faith like that, to insist that faith is a guard against fear.

Fear keeps the lights on at night and smells of sweat and tension and anxiety-- sharp and unpleasant. If the fear is great enough, it can keep me rooted and curled in on myself, covers pulled tightly over my head, unmoving. Paralyzed. Stuck. Tentative. Invisible.

But my faith: sweet and sure and graceful. It wraps around me like light, like breath, like life. It sometimes moves mountains. More often than not, it is just enough. Enough, not to beat back the darkness or vanquish my demons, but enough to put one foot in front of the other, to walk, however falteringly, forward. To know that, no matter what, I am enough, I will be ok.

And so, faith and grace being what they are, I think of my fear, and my stuckness, and I am reminded that it is Pesach (Passover). And in the midst of all of this darkness, there is also redemption, and release.

I got to tell the story of Nachshon at assembly a while back during Sunday school. It is my favorite midrash, I think. (For those of you reading this who are now totally lost in the tangle of my narrative, a midrash is a rabbinic story, a device used to fill in some of the blanks and the holes in the Torah. Kinda folkloric, they are the stories behind the stories.) So, Nachshon-- he was a slave with all the other Israelites who found redemption at the hand of God. He was Let Go, with a capital L and a capital G, brought out with a Mighty Hand. He packed and didn't let the dough rise and ran, breathless and scared and grateful, away from the land of Pharaohs and pyramids and crocodiles and slavery--- ran into freedom.

And then he got to the sea. He and 600,000 other un-slaved people. Stopped cold by the Red Sea. It was huge, and liquid and deep. You couldn't see the other side. It was so big you couldn't see any sides. Just wet from here to... forever.

And behind him, when he (and 600,000 others) dared to peek: Pharaoh and his army of men and horses and chariots. And spears and swords and assorted sharp pointy things. We really can't forget the sharp pointy things. Even at a distance, the sharp pointy things loomed quite large in the eyes of Nachshon and his recently-freed landsmen. Caught between the original rock and a hard place. Well, ok: between water and pointy metal stuff. At this point, I don't think anyone involved cared much about getting the metaphor exactly right. What they cared about was getting out from that perilous middle. Fast.

So Moses, because it was his job, went to have a chat with God. And just like that, Moses got an answer--- a Divine Instant Message. All that the Children of Israel needed to do: walk forward, into the Sea, that big, wet, deep forever sea. God would provide a way. "Trust Me," God seemed to say. "I got you this far, didn't I? I wouldn't let you fall now!"

And Nachshon and the 600,000 stood at the shivery edge of that Sea, staring at that infinite horizon in front and the pointy, roiling chaos of death and slavery behind them. And they stood. Planted. And let's face it: not just planted, but rooted in their fear and mistrust and doubt. They may have felt reassured by the image of God as a pillar of smoke or fire--- impressive pyrotechnics to be sure--- but the soldiers and the Sea were so there, so present, so much more real.

And then, in the midst of that fear and doubt, something changed. Nachshon, lately freed, trapped between death by water and death by bleeding, Nachshon did the miraculous-- he put one foot in front of the other and walked into the sea.  And the 600,000 held their collective breath, watching the scene unfold before them. Nachshon did what 600,000 could not: he decided to believe, to have faith. To leap. And tho the water covered first his ankles, then knees, then chest, then kept rising, until he was almost swallowed whole, he kept walking, kept believing. And just when it seemed that Nachshon was a fool for his faith, would surely drown in that infinite forever sea, another miracle:

The waters parted.

The Sea split and Nachshon, so recently in over his head, he walked on dry land. And the 600,000 breathed again, in one relieved whoosh of air, and they found their own faith and followed Nachshon into and across the dry Sea to the other side.  And then the journey truly began...

I pray to have faith enough to walk into my own Sea--- of doubt and fear and darkness. I want to walk and feel the waters part, to be released from the tangled web of thought that holds me immobile and disconnected. I have learned, again and again, without fail: when I take that step, when I find the grace and the faith to put one foot in front of the other, to trust, as Nachshon did, I am carried forward, I am freed from my self-imposed bondage. I am enough, and I can walk again on dry land to freedom.

I think I am finally learning to let go, finally leaving the desert, stumbling at last along a narrow bridge to light and hope.  There is fear; yes.  But there is also faith and grace and redemption.  Even for me, there is redemption. 

Once we were slaves, now we are free.

Chag Pesach Sameach.
Happy Passover
2013/5773

Simple Stories: in honor of a couple of decades sober

You'd think that after 20 years, this would be easy.

Well, maybe not you, but I did.  I thought that after 20 years it would be easy to tell the story of these past 20 years.  I am, after all, a writer.  I do the words.  That's my thing.  More than most other things, I know how to tell the stories-- some filled with wonder and light, some much harder, all twisty and dark-cornered, with frayed threads, but which, with infinite and practiced patience, can be woven together into a threadbare whole until a new story can be found.  Sometimes wonder, sometimes hard and tinged with light.

You'd think, after 20 years-- of living this life and mending all these frayed and broken threads, of finding purpose and dancing with God, of unimaginable pain and unbounded joy-- of living this life, actually living a life filled to the very edges with life, with everything: love and anger and doubt and fear, failure and triumph, all the stuff of a life jammed together and barely contained-- you'd think...

So why isn't this easier?

Why is it so difficult to strip away the artifice and just tell the story, spare and unadorned and achingly simple?  Why can't I just say: There was a time, a long time ago, when time was stuck, when nothing moved and nothing changed and nothing filled me and everything failed me.  And this is the story of how that all changed.

I was taught, early on in Alcoholics Anonymous, that when you tell your story, you say what it was like, what happened, and what it's like now.  Simple.

So, what was it like?  I like to believe that that's where the story takes a sharp left turn away from simple, passing complicated in a few easy strides, never looking back.  That's the story I tell myself.  I like the drama of that, the hint of darkness and the veiled promise of lurid disarray. As comfortably as I live in that drama, I remember what a friend told me one night, early in our sobriety, as we sat in my car under cover of a midnight sky, just learning the rules of friendship in a sober world.  I told him  my stories through the lens of my living chaos theory.  And my dear Jonathan, my new and newly sober friend, he listened, allowed me to rant, took my hand when I'd finished and said "Stacey; you're not as evil as you think you are."  I may have hated him in that moment.

That's the thing, really: I want complex.  I want drama and license and chaos.  But the simple story, the easy story is this: There was a time when I was empty, and in my emptiness, time stood still.  No light.  No sound.  Just an eternity of empty. Who needed chaos when I had despair?  Who needs hope when you can chase more-- more anything, take your pick: alcohol, drugs, sex, money.  Strange, but no matter how much I drank, the empty never got filled.  All the despair, all the hopelessness, untouched.  Untouchable.  An infinite void fed by subtraction stew.

And after twenty years of forever, twenty years of standing motionless on a roiling sea of empty, I was done.  That's the "what happened" part.  I was done: I got sober.  Easy-- got sober.  Ha!  Just don't drink, right?  Easy?  How the hell do I do that?.

They told me, those people in the rooms, from their vantage points of a decade, a year, a day, an hour of sobriety "Don't drink and go to meetings."  Don't drink?  What?  How do you not drink?  How do you not chase that thirty seconds, where you finally sit in your own skin without feeling the need to crawl out of it, that singular instant of time where all the noise in your head stops and you can breathe, really just breathe? Thirty seconds-- that's all you got, ever.  Thirty seconds, where you fit and the gears didn't grind against you and you could just be.   And God, what I wouldn't give-- what I didn't give-- to chase those thirty seconds, again and again, with every sip.  Don't drink?  How the hell do you do that?

And they all of them smiled, and they nodded, and they knew-- all of them, from their lofty vantage point of a decade or three, a day or two, an hour or so--- "Don't drink.  Go to meetings. It gets better.  Simple."

I used to not believe in miracles.  I used to believe that God, if God really existed, had set me up to fail my life.  I used to believe that I couldn't live a life without drinking.

It's amazing the changes that happen when you finally can't imagine having to take one more drink.  It's amazing how infinitesimally  the universe shifts when the pain of drinking becomes more than the fear of not.  How profoundly simple life became: don't drink.  Again and again, one second, one minute, an hour or three, and you just don't drink.  No matter how much the pain of sobriety threatens to swallow you whole; no matter how exposed and raw you feel-- every minute of every day, with not even an ounce of anything standing between you and the rest of the world; no matter how much you're tweaking and want to crawl inside that bottle. 

Again and again: don't drink, go to meetings, and the seconds crawl into minutes and stumble into days and bound into years and you suddenly have time.  And you breathe, finally breathe.  My God, you breathe and the air is cool and pure and fills your lungs like light.  You breathe, and  suddenly you have a life, that moves and leaps and dances.  And you look back, and it's twenty years later.  Twenty years, and you say: simple. 

And now?  Now I have a life.  A life by no means simple or easy; it wouldn't be mine if that were the case.  It is a complex and rich tapestry that is filled to its very edges with life-- with love and light and pain and hope.  There has been despair enough to fill a thousand lifetimes, and hope enough to bring me to a breathless stop.  I have been given gifts unimaginable.  I have sought redemption and been offered forgiveness.  I have learned to live with doubt, and revel in contradiction.  I live in the miracle of a day, a day that stretches before me with infinite possibility and endless hope, filled with simple stories waiting to be found and told and lived,   I have found a life that is mine, that moves and breathes and is filled with all the stuff of a life.  I have found God, and I allow God to be.  Just be, just as I believe God allows me to just be.  

There was a time, a long time ago, when time was stuck, when nothing moved and nothing changed and nothing filled me and everything failed me.  And this is the story of how that all changed. This is the story of how it got better.  This is the story of how I came to believe that I was never empty.  This is the story of how I learned to breathe.

Simple.

For all the blessings that fill me, for God's grace that lifts me, for all who teach me, simply, to live a sober life and hear God's voice, I give thanks, with humble and profound gratitude.