Angels Among Us

Friday morning, July 11, 2009, 9 a.m.
Such relief in letting go. The angels of the writing group embrace one another across the miles and give thanks for divine connection.
As I trust in the questions, do not judge suffering, open to whatever comes, there is such relief – call it joy – in yielding to what is rather than forcing what is not.
In this room of my own, I cocoon in grateful solitude, still bathed in the warmth of seeking souls in wonderful women.
In this quiet room, my mother safely downstairs with Michele the Godsend, I am alone but comforted by the wings of angels.
Beside me on the bedside table is Anne Lamott’s Grace (Eventually) which I got for my mother. It isn’t due for another week so I decided to read it. I see the same self-deprecating humor, wisdom and unique worldview of this writer I devoured in past years. I had forgotten her charm, believing she was no longer so loose and funny after finding a Christian God.
But now my own judgment is waning. Instead of angrily rejecting the spiritual container of my growing up years, I bathe in whatever blessings I can take from it. I am also reminded why so many of us turned to Buddhist philosophy and thoughts, culling from so many wise men and women the flowers of grace we find only there.
In Lamott’s book I search for something I read last night, and on the way back through pages find a sentence I like. “There was meaning in pain; it taught you how to survive with a modicum of grace when you did not get what you wanted.”
But I continue back to the paragraph I felt connected to before sleep last night. “…I’d acquired a basic and wildly ecumenical faith cobbled together from shards I’d gathered in reading various wisdom traditions—Native American, Hindu, feminist, Buddhist, even Christian…My best teachers were mess, failure, death, mistakes, and the people I hated, even myself.”
Ahhh. I feel exhausted from my struggle and now relieved of the burden of trying to make sense of it or be strong. I can just be alone in this room of my own, read, and rest. Thank you, God, and angels I can’t see but know are there.