I'm Back

Well!  It has been a couple weeks since I last posted because my grandpa died and I went home to Minnesota for a week to be there for the funeral.  Now that I'm back, it seems so strange that I left suddenly and now I have to readjust to what had become "normal" here in Washington. 

Since it was part of my journey this year, I'll write a few things about going home.  First of all, though I am very sad to have lost my grandpa Bob, I feel so much peace from being home with my whole family and going through the grieving process together.  I saw pictures and heard stories and got to meet so many people whom my grandfather had influenced.  I have never felt so surrounded and supported by so many people as I did the night of the wake (except for maybe the blessing ceremony before I came out here!).  And my family sang for the funeral, which I felt was the best gift we could give a man who loved to dance.  I felt so blessed that I could be with my family for the week.  And finally, I am so glad to know my grandpa is no longer suffering.  He bore his Parkinson's uncomplainingly, but he is in a much better place now.

The most amazing part of this whole experience has been discovering community.  My fellow BWSC volunteer, Ashley, just wrote about the hardships of community (and I've experienced some of those, too), but in the past two weeks, I have been plunged into the depths of love a community provides.  When I found out about my grandpa's death, there were hugs, shoulders to cry on, flowers, and tissues handed to me, even though I was four states away from home.  When I needed transportation to the airport, I simply had to say a time and a car and driver were there.  The night before I left, cards piled up outside my door and I was showered with hugs and prayers.  When I came home on Wednesday night, I was met with incredible Benedictine hospitality (of course!) - three of the sisters stayed up very late to greet me, and they had turned up the heat in my room, carried my suitcase downstairs, and I again found a conglomeration of thoughtful cards and notes and gifts outside my room.  I was so overwhelmed with kindness! 

And now that I've been back for a couple days, everything seems so normal and familiar.  It's very odd, because before I left I would have said things still seemed new, not quite like home; now, I feel like everything about the priory is homey and well-known.  As the car pulled into the drive from the airport, I felt very suddenly, "This is home."  It was the same feeling I had when I came back to London from Spain - this is a place that was new to me, but now I know it and I can claim it as a part of me.  I even went to the post office for the first time this morning and I knew exactly which streets to turn on!

Life still feels a little up-in-the-air, but I'm trying to take S. Ann Marie's advice and be gentle with myself...so I'm spending the weekend with my friend Stephanie at her house on the ocean!  I've seen the West Coast a few times before, but never in October.  I've been advised to bring LOTS of layers, because the beach is neither sandy nor sunny (imagine that, in Washington!).  I promise pictures when I return.

And my lesson for the day is something I've been praying a lot about in the past two or three months.  Whenever I ask God for something, for some direction or reassurance, I never get a real answer.  Instead, I am always reminded in some way or another to "Be open."  I really don't like this answer, being as J as you can get on the Myers-Briggs scale, but I am learning more every day to accept it and be at peace with not having answers and closed doors.  I don't know how well I'm succeeding, because it still makes me very uncomfortable to have unanswered questions, but I am aware of trying.  And I think, as I grow here as a young person surrounded by wise people of faith, it's getting easier to try.