Following the trail of my day to The Beloved Community

What an interesting day. Curious.

I got a wonderful comment on my last post, which had a strong positive effect on me.

I read a blog post about cancer and death. I followed a link there to two poems about cancer and death. They were very powerful and honest writings. I felt more settled and thoughtful after reading them, difficult though they were. I can’t say for sure why that was.

I sent the links to my friend Mavis. She survived breast cancer with a double mastectomy something like 10+ years ago. Molly is hard to figure. She can be very guarded, intense and sometimes humorless. On the other hand, she loves language and has written some very good poetry herself. I prefaced the links in the email by telling her something about them, and saying that I didn’t know if she wanted to read them. Mavis replied by saying she didn’t want to read them now and included some explanation. There was something in her response that made me feel that we had just shared a level of vulnerability that is unusual for Mavis. It was a good feeling, tinged with sadness.

In the blog post and the poems there was such rawness, an honesty, a truth. . . It was nearly breathtaking. And so courageous! So bald, so heart-rending. Reading them was a rare experience that deeply moved me. I feel as if I have experienced a  gentle privilege, a naked trust. I feel humbled, and an integral part of the human race. I feel as if I were breathing with the same lung, sharing heartbeats, thirsting for the same thing and drinking from the same cup. It is as if we are sustenance for one another.

I think we are sustenance for one another. I think my day’s experiences are perhaps among the purest form of love that Jesus had in mind. “Bearing one another’s burdens.” That’s what people said about my tiny little country church. My congregation was like that. That was their strength. They willingly bore one another’s burdens. They bore mine too.

We here, on this electronic media, are bearing one another’s burdens. We listen to the pain; we enter into it; we shoulder a share of it. We love one another into existence.

Many years ago I learned of borrowing love. I learned that when I had no love for myself, when my supply was exhausted, I was exhausted; that my dear beloved friends would gladly loan me some of their love for me until I could rekindle my own. That is part of what we do for one another. The Beloved Community.

If I have not enough strength, you will give me some of yours. If you have not enough strength, here in my outstretched palm is enough of mine for you. Among us, we will always have enough. God will see to that. The Beloved Community.

I think I had forgotten that the Beloved Community exists. I think I forgot to let it be know that I had a need. Now that I have, many people have stepped forward. Some are friends and loved ones. Some are people I only know electronically. Some have no knowledge that they gave such a gift.

It is such a relief to receive the gift of love and support. It is such a gift to learn, yet again, that all I need is available. Grandmother God is slick.

I am so grateful.