Faith and flat tires

I've received a temporary breather from the tech issues with my laptop. I did some uninstalls/reinstalls, checked for viruses (it was clean) and anything else I could think of that might be affecting its performance. I also gave it a pep talk. Whatever I did seems to have worked.

As I was working on my laptop and watching Notre Dame lose its football game, I kept remembering the time I got a flat tire on my wheelchair at a shopping outlet about 2 miles away from my car . I was carrying a kit which I won at a wheelchair tennis tournament. it must have been old because when I went to use it nothing in the package worked. Just as I was trying to wrap my brain around a way to get back to my car and/or get my tire fixed, I heard another hissing sound and realized that the second tire was going flat.

Sitting there on the rims, I noticed a security guard nearby and hailed him down. He asked me if I had spare tires or wheels in my car and I realized that I had my tennis wheels with me. He was kind enough to go to my car, get the second set of tires and bring them to me so I could replace the flat ones.

That wasn't the first time I got a flat tire. Ironically my first flat tire happened when I was being strapped into an accessible bus at a wheelchair tennis tournament. Luckily I was on the way back from the matches. My friend stared at me as the hissing sound began. I was such a newbie that I didn't even know what it was. She told me it was the valve and when the bus dropped us off, we spent a good 40 minutes putting a new tube onto the chair. Although we were late to the banquet, we had everything we needed right at hand.

I've had a number of other flat tires. After a while I learned what I needed to carry with me but I also realized that no matter how prepared I was, getting a flat tire fixed involves a little faith.

First there's the "a ha" moment when you realize you're not going anywhere. The air that you assumed would be in that tire, that you depend upon so you can roll just whooshes out and your next reaction is "uh oh".

This is where faith comes in. Hopefully you're prepared. Even then, you can't always plan for every contingency. It doesn't do any good blaming yourself if you accidentally ran over glass or blaming other people like bus drivers who don't know how to strap a wheelchair in.

The faith part has a lot to do with being open to all possibilities. Sometimes you have to ask for help. Other times you tinker long enough with it and you're good to go. I've learned that you can't go wrong as long as you refuse to sit too long on the flat tire.

That's probably the only reason any of us should blame ourselves.

You just got to have faith.

It is Enough

There are lots of lessons for me about this phrase lately, both in a material and spiritual sense.

Just when I feel like an utter fool for thinking I can pull off working and trying to afford what I need to do that as a person living with quadriplegia, it hits me again that it's all about faith. I know I have a lot of company out there in these hard economic times when I say that it takes a leap of faith to keep doing the footwork sometimes, especially when naysayers outnumber supporters. That's still the way it is in our present times for people with disabilities and employment and even more so in a recession.

The spiritual sense of "it is enough" encompasses not only those who are seekers, but those who may encounter a dark night of the soul of their own. I found this wonderful poem by Todd Boss entitled "It Is Enough to Enter" and would like to share it. I think its message might be encouraging to some.

And if you ask Roena Hall this morning about any of this, after she was rescued from her front porch steps during a house fire, I bet she would understand.

Mental Health Ministries presents a guide for faith communities

Mental Health Ministries presents a free guide for faith communities that can be downloaded. entitled Mental Illness and Families of Faith, the guide provides tools for use by clergy, congregation members, families and others.

It can be found here.

Via listserv NJCIM

A New Year's Eve Reflection

This year has been a series of lessons in faith for me. I've grappled with both giving - and receiving. In many ways, it's much easier for me, like many, to be the giver rather than the recipient and certainly much easier to be seen as a giver than someone who receives. Those who give are seen as heroes, as rescuers.

But there exists for some a grace about giving - and receiving - that can remind us that many of the miracles of love that happen here on earth can only be realized when we are open to both giving and receiving. It is often our limited human vision - and ego- that prevents us from seeing the worth of the whole, the joy of being a part of what is taking place, no matter whether we give or receive.

I hope this selection from Jars of Clay, some of which I've paraphrased because the clip is only 30 seconds, has meaning for you in some way. I wish everyone a Happy New Year

If you'd like to watch a livestream of Times Square 2010 Happy New Year's Eve, go here.

Welcome to the Virtual Abbey

I'd like to welcome readers to join the Virtual Abbey. Formerly the Urban Abbey, it provides daily prayer on Twitter of the Daily Office @Virtual_Abbey, a page on Facebook and a blog located here.

The Virtual Abbey offers insights and resources for living as a modern monastic in the Benedictine tradition.

The greeting from the Abbess states:

We're a community of modern-day monastics united by our practice of praying the Daily Office online. We are young and old, male and female, laity and ordained. We live and work in different places around the world.

We do not belong to one single Christian denomination; more than a few of us are practicing members of more than one faith tradition; some are active in the emergent church movement. You could say that we're ecumenical in the extreme. All are truly welcome to pray with us.

No worries about access at the Virtual Abbey. So come join us in prayer on Twitter @Virtual_Abbey, check out the Facebook page or the blog. We look forward to meeting you.

Praying isn't like a Christmas list

As we grow in our faith, we learn that praying isn't like a Christmas list where we tell God what we want or demand a certain result by a certain deadline. But when times are tough, as it's been for some of the folks who read this blog, it's pretty difficult not to have solutions in mind when you pray or to remember that it's about God's will and not our own.

Yet the truth is, if you prayed and suddenly an angel appeared out of nowhere offering to solve all your problems, you'd find that pretty unsettling.



This has been a tough year for some folks. Some face health issues or financial problems. Others may feel as if their faith is being tested. It's important to remember that the swelling music that heralds the arrival of instant help is just a Hollywood trick and that if you don't hear it, it doesn't mean you're not a "good man" (or woman). It doesn't mean that all is lost or that your prayer hasn't been heard. It also doesn't mean that you "prayed the wrong way" or you don't have enough faith.

Christmas is a time when we are reminded how much God loves us, yet we forget that and often place expectations upon ourselves and others that are impossible to meet. Those lists we make of things to do, things to buy, people to write cards to or call or visit can and do distract us from the real meaning of Christmas. Celebrating Christmas can and does include being in prayer with God as we mark this holiest of times. No matter what your circumstances, you can celebrate Christmas, knowing that its most precious gift is the gift of love, freely given to all of us equally.

"Are you willing to believe that love is the strongest thing in the world - stronger than hate, stronger than evil, stronger than death - and that the blessed life which began in Bethlehem nineteen hundred years ago is the image and brightness of the Eternal Love? Then you can keep Christmas."
-- Henry Van Dyke

I wish everyone a happy and holy Christmas.

Christians with Disabilities

Introducing a new site called Christians with Disabilities for people with disabilities and those who love and care for them.

via its site:

Friendship, Encouragement, Compassion, Comfort, Understanding, Joy ~ That's what you'll find here. We can never replace relationships with Christians who understand our journey. Everyone will have different experiences and God will use every single one of those experiences to connect us all together.

The site includes groups, a member spotlight, events, blog posts, photos, videos, poems and other writings, video chat, daily devotions - and more.

Check it out.

Inclusion and hope

Next time you feel like laughing at someone searching with a metal detector, remember Terry Herbert of the UK. He stumbled upon a fortune in Anglo-Saxon gold on a neighbor's farm. Over five days he unearthed what is now declared 1500 pieces of treasure with a 14 year old metal detector. Terry, who is unemployed, admits there are those who have laughed at him over the 18 years he's done this hobby. But he kept hoping to find something.

There's no doubt that Terry's situation is far different from those who seek eternal spiritual treasures, not material ones. But you have to hand it to him for persistence and optimism.

All this reminded me of Paul Tillich's The Right to Hope and his discussion of foolish versus genuine hope. Tillich's discussion about waiting in openness and the pull between despair and hope drew my attention:

There are two kinds of waiting, the passive waiting in laziness and the receiving waiting in openness. He who waits in laziness, passively, prevents the coming of what he is waiting for. He who waits in quiet tension, open for what he may encounter, works for its coming. Such waiting in openness and hope does what no will power can do for our own inner development. The more seriously the great religious men took their own transformation, using their will to achieve it, the more they failed and were thrown into hopelessness about themselves. Desperately they asked, and many of us ask with them, Can we hope at all for such inner renewal? What gives us the right to such hope after all our failures? Again there is only one answer: waiting in inner stillness, with posed tension and openness toward what we can only receive. Such openness is highest activity; it is the driving force which leads us toward the growth of something new in us. And the struggle between hope and despair in our waiting is a symptom that the new has already taken hold of us.

The inner renewal or transformation which cannot be brought about by will alone creates a spiritual tension that leads to resolution only when we realize that it is dependent on a worldview that is more mature, inclusive of everyone. Through our openness to those around us, we find what we seek.

As Tillich notes:

"We do not hope for us alone or for those who share our hope; we hope also for those who had and have no hope, for those whose hopes for this life remain unfulfilled, for those who are disappointed and indifferent, for those who despair of life, and even for those who have hurt or destroyed life. Certainly, if we could only hope each for himself, it would be a poor and foolish hope. Eternity is the ground and aim of every being, for God shall be in all."


.It is not just a distinction between earthly and spiritual treasure that matters.

Those seeking personal salvation separate from others, those who seek a relationship with God apart from all fellow human beings, will miss the mark entirely.

Being strong

I was speaking with a woman (let's call her Ann) who recently acquired a spinal cord injury. Ann was in tears because of some of the changes in her lives she was going through. Her husband is divorcing her and Ann had to move to a small apartment, giving up a large and comfortable home. But those changes weren't what upset her most.

Ann was distraught because a friend told her she wasn't being strong enough. The woman told Ann that she wouldn't be around her until Ann got her act together and 'was herself again'.

I asked Ann if she believed in God.

Ann said she did.

So I told her about this blog post I read a while back that a military mom wrote. And I thought I'd share it on here too.

The writer said it was a good thing that God didn't throw away those of us who are at our weakest and only keep those who are at that moment strong. She wrote:

I've had some weak moments in my life, particularly during this deployment, where I've felt very close to dried up. I'm not bursting out with color, I'm barely making a mark. And yet, God in His incredible way, knows how to infuse me, how to strengthen me, how to bring me back to my original condition that He created me to be.


We all go through difficult times. It's not necessary to label ourselves- or allow others to label us- in hurtful ways if we show some emotion. I explained to Ann that she will find out who her real friends are. True friends find ways to be helpful in concrete ways or offer constructive suggestions rather than casting judgment in one sentence zingers.

And sometimes they just know enough to listen quietly.

Contingent on walking?

Yesterday I received an email from a Christian acquaintance with an attachment to a story about a dog born with two missing legs and a front leg that had to be amputated. It said

"He could, of course, not walk. Even his mother did not want him."

It spoke of the dog's owner's efforts to teach the animal how to walk on his two back legs and how she just would not give up. Included were photos of this dog parading about. I've included one photo above, showing the dog walking on his two hind legs behind his owner on a sidewalk.

Interestingly enough, this was referred to as a piece about faith. I kept thinking as I went through pictures of the dog walking in front of classrooms, etc. about how we apply the word faith to disability.

Far too often I've seen people with disabilities suffer because someone linked a lack of faith to an inability to walk, etc. There are those who believe - and even say- that if you have enough faith, you wouldn't be disabled.

This is spiritual abuse and an affront on so many levels to those living with disabilities. It judges not only our faith, but implies that our quality of life is contingent on things such as walking. Anyone who says they believe all humans are created equal and deserve dignity is contradicting himself or herself by saying this.

Why is this important? Because these assumptions are dangerous. There are people like Peter Singer who openly espouse rationing health care to people with disabilities and others on the basis that there is a lesser value to their quality of life. In this article, the author quotes the section about quadriplegics :

If we return to the hypothetical assumption that a year with quadriplegia is valued at only half as much as a year without it, then a treatment that extends the lives of people without disabilities will be seen as providing twice the value of one that extends, for a similar period, the lives of quadriplegics," he writes.

The value of a life. My life. Your life.

When there isn't enough of a resource, concepts like rationing get applied. Withholding medical care or resources from certain groups of people is seen as a utilitarian way to control costs for the general good, morals be damned. And God help you if you fall into a class where you are one of those to whom it's rationed.

Oh no- I will not mince words when it comes to a public piece in the NY Times challenging my quality of life and the lives of my nearest and dearest friends who are also quadriplegics. It is summer. Many of them are holding barbeques with their families, wives, husbands, sons and daughters. Our lives are not as different as some would make them out to be.

Singer appears to make arguments on behalf of disability advocates and then concludes that those arguments paint disability advocates into a corner. This is a debatable position, whether he believes that or not. He also uses Christopher Reeve as proof- since it was clear he wanted to walk again- that not walking gives one a lower quality of life. Also debatable.

Not walking does not give one's life less value.

We need to be careful about all of our underlying beliefs and assumptions, particularly beliefs that life only has value when one is able-bodied. Rationing health care "would put bioethicists of the ilk of Peter Singer in charge of who received or did not receive wanted care. If that doesn't turn you off the rationing agenda, what will?" asks Wesley Smith.

UPDATES FROM THE BLOGOSPHERE:

Peter Singer in the NY Times: Disabled Lives Worth Less Hypothetically

The 1/2 Compromise and Health Care

Being a Wally about QALYS

Shorter Peter Singer: Being Disabled Sucks, or How to Wallow in Ablism

Faith communities and disabiity

An article over at pbs.org discusses various faith communities and inclusion of people with disabilities.

Reverend Bill Gaventa of the Boggs Center on Developmental Disabilities:

In every faith community there is a scriptural basis for welcome and hospitality. But you’ve also got congregations who live in cultures where people with disabilities have been hidden and ostracized and devalued in lots of ways, and too often faith communities sanctify prejudices in the community rather than challenge them. It shouldn’t be easier to get into a bar than a church.


Rabbi Grossman of the Adath Israel Congregation in Lawrenceville, NJ, notes how his synagogue is known as a 'special needs community' when it makes up a small percentage of who attends, but says "I think it defines the synagogue because it simply doesn’t happen elsewhere." He adds that "you got to create the environment where everybody has a place, and if you start with that notion, then everything flows from there."

On faith and adversity

Amy Welborn writes about Michael's last column, in which he talks about Father Benedict's writings and "the big lie":

The “big lie,” Father Benedict said, (and I’m paraphrasing him at this point), is to think that if we say all the right prayers and live correctly, then nothing bad will ever happen to us. Sadly, there are many good people who have lost their faith by believing such a lie, and that makes it a big one indeed!

The opposite of the big lie? Trust.

But go on over and read it for yourself.

There is also information up about the services for Michael.

A contest and an agenda about people with disabilities

Across my desk this morning is a bit of everything, including the Commonweal article by Douglas Kmiec about the election and the blogosphere, in which he discusses the reaction of the Catholic blogosphere to his support of Obama. He writes:

A longtime Republican who served in the Reagan administration, I nonetheless endorsed Obama last spring. Ever since, I’ve been subjected to unrelenting personal attacks launched from right-wing Catholic keyboards-blogs (and bloggers) so coarse and uncivil they make the insults of talk radio sound like actual journalism. Further, the lack of civility that rules the right-wing Catholic blogosphere has infected mainstream Catholic journalism as well. In a syndicated assessment of the 2008 election, one usually thoughtful conservative columnist employed the following descriptions of Catholic Obama supporters: “decadent,” “tribal,” “immoral,” “certainly stupid,” “mindless,” and in need of basic “adult education.” And those were all in a single paragraph! Such highly concentrated rhetorical venom is not calculated to invite discussion.

My support of Obama led to the loss of almost half my Catholic blog links at one point. 54% of Catholics voted for Obama, by the way.

Speaking of Obama, his agenda for people with disabilities is now up over at the White House site. Bill Peace writes about it here in Day One Agenda: Obama Hits a Home Run and you can read it yourself here.

Also across my desk is a piece from Lawrence Carter-Long over at the Society for Disabilities list serve about a contest starting on February 1 for the PBS show Arthur, where kids 6-12 are invited to create a special needs friend for Arthur.

According to a press release on the contest, the character should be

"one who can show that having a unique ability, character trait, or disability might make life a little bit different, but not any less fun. Kids can mail in their entries, with a drawing of their character and a description of what makes them special, starting February 1, 2009. The child with the selected idea, along with their character, will be featured in a live-action segment on the Arthur show. In addition, he or she will receive a visit from Arthur creator and author Marc Brown at the child’s school, local library, or PBS member station. ... The character search is designed to educate children about the importance of inclusion and how children of all abilities can play together. It also encourages parents and children to think about what life is like for someone they know who has a disability.

Our nation's creed: our nation's need

As I read about the progress our country has made as we celebrate the inauguration of our first African American president, I remember the words of Martin Luther King when he addressed those fighting for their civil rights.

Some of you have come fresh from narrow jail cells. And some of you have come from areas where your quest -- quest for freedom left you battered by the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality. You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive. Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back to South Carolina, go back to Georgia, go back to Louisiana, go back to the slums and ghettos of our northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed.

It would be sugarcoating history to forget Martin Luther King Jr.'s own Letter from a Birmingham Jail, this man who went on to say:


I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.

For years we have said that any child can be president in the U.S. Tomorrow, a historic inroad will be made as our first African American president takes the oath of office. It is a day to celebrate the progress we have made and take stock of the work left to do so that our actions can match our beliefs, so that we can honor our nation's creed and meet our nation's need to be whole.

There is much work left to do. Obama's election does not erase the poverty of those in the inner city, those whose educational opportunities are determined by their school district, those whose futures are circumscribed in ways that do not honor our nation's creed.

As for people with disabilities and the struggles they still face that are often not even acknowledged or part of the public discourse, Terri writes in her post Impossible?:

We can say we don't know how (yet).... we can say we don't want to... but we cannot say "that's impossible" in 2009 and retain any credibility.

I believe Barack Obama in yesterday's speech in front of the Lincoln Memorial extended Martin Luther King's Dream beyond skin color, mentioning disability by name (once again--and yes, I am counting!)

So...

Access to
-Education
-Employment
-Healthcare
-Community events and activities (and inaugurations!)
-Citizenship (ie: membership, belonging, contributing)
-Economic opportunity
-ETC.....

Challenging? Sure. Difficult? Sometimes. Stressful? At times.

Possible? Once we decide to do it.

Necessary? If our country is going to live up to the mission and vision our Founding Fathers laid before us, yes indeed.


Martin Luther King Jr. believed that it is only when we let freedom ring for all people that we will as a nation be free. It is only when we live our nation's creed that we will meet our nation's need.

It is about having no invisible citizens. It is about working together in a way that acknowledges the equal rights of everyone.

Back to Terri:

There is much to do. Nothing is impossible. Your gifts are essential. We are going to be friends.

Works for me!How about you?

Getting to awe

The magi have arrived, bearing gifts, after their long, arduous journey. As I wrote the other day, as pilgrims they made their journey looking for a source of awe.

Sometimes I think we all have lost that sense of awe toward God in a world that is so full of distractions, it's difficult to even lift our gaze toward spiritual things. Our eyes are fixed on iPods, tech devices, computer screens more than ever and less on each other, and as for prayer and talking to God, many of us say we don't have time or, if we do, precious little, for our Creator and Savior. (Of course adding those last two words puts a perspective on it that makes the statement rather inane.)

Yet, with a bit of thought, it takes very little to get to awe. Just thinking about the fact that God is omnipresent, for example, makes me feel awe. He is everywhere. Not just in the sense of everywhere as we think of it - in our homes, our offices, the store, etc. but also in our heads. Call it mind reading or thought recognition, but God is all knowing or, as I used to write out in grammar school All Knowing.Which means He knows why we 'don't have time' for prayer and communication with Him.

Of course He knew the magi were coming. He knew they were bearing gifts. He also knows what gifts and talents we bring to the table. He knows whether we use them or not. There are opportunities put in front of us every day to do so and He leaves it up to us to make choices. We can make the pilgrimage, take the journey or go another route. We can choose convenience and the express lane. We can go to bed without praying, wake up without expressing our gratitude and live as if we don't have a Creator or Savior and don't know him.

We can choose not to get to awe.

On this day, as the magi arrive, I'm spending some time thinking about what's getting between me and awe. I wonder where unnecessary limits in my life arise and how to deal with those. I'm thinking about ways I miss opportunities to get to awe. I'm checking my road map with a different kind of GPS - not for the fastest physical route, but the best spiritual one, the one where I can be of most service to my brothers and sisters in Christ. That's the road I need to travel. I know if I listen closely and take God's direction, I'll find it.

For those needing encouragement

Stay strong.

dedicated to my mom.

My greatest gift

I get to witness the interplay of faith and action in so many lives that I consider this to be my greatest gift from God. I see people who are in despair experience hope from others, I see spiritual generosity on small and large scales, I see friendships form out of want and need. I see great resilience in others. And, yes, sometimes I see human failure to respond to opportunities.

Sometimes people email me for assistance and I try to find them what they need, whether it's a wheelchair or accessible housing or a local hookup to support. Some people tell me they've lost their faith because they have prayed for certain things to happen and God didn't fix the problem. I tell them that going through spiritual "dark" times happens, and has even happened to saints. Life can be tough. I also tell them, however, that praying without taking action is not what I recommend. There are some areas where we have to do the footwork and make ourselves ready for God's help. This means taking action.

Although I believe that God works in our lives, I also believe that if an opportunity comes along, you need to be as ready as you can be to make it work within your own abilities. The spiritual side to this is that God knows what we can and can't do. In other words, what I've seen in my life is that if people do what they can, opportunities often come along that fit their circumstances. I'm no Pollyanna and I'm not saying things always work out - at least they don't appear to, based on my limited human perspective - but I've also learned that praying for specific outcomes for people is humbling since God generally has a better plan in mind than I do for most, including myself. But if we don't do what we can to better things, we may not be ready for what chances come along.

The good news is that God continues to work in our lives even if we miss opportunities. It's understandable, of course, to feel down when things are tough and to feel as if our efforts aren't worth making. Sometimes in my own life, only hindsight has shown me that I failed to act when I could have. Learning from this, rather than blaming God or anyone else, has taught me to make myself ready for the next opportunity.

This morning I heard from a woman who told me that she found an accessible place to live. When I spoke to her about options several months ago, she didn't like any of them and blamed me - and God - for not fixing the problem. She was facing going into a nursing home when her aging parents sold their home. A scary and frightening problem. But I knew that she had to take some action on her own to make it all happen or it wouldn't work. She now tells me that she did take action and is living independently of her parents for the first time in an affordable apartment.

Faith and action. If we look around us, in these tough economic times, we can see how those work hand in hand to solve so many problems, some of our own making. Facing our own need to take responsibility as well as asking God for help may lead us to solutions we never dreamed of.

Joe the Author

Upon hearing that Joe the Plumber has a book deal, a NY Times guest columnist wrote about how unfair it is:

Most of the writers I know work every day, in obscurity and close to poverty, trying to say one thing well and true. Day in, day out, they labor to find their voice, to learn their trade, to understand nuance and pace. And then, facing a sea of rejections, they hear about something like Barbara Bush’s dog getting a book deal.

Writing is hard, even for the best wordsmiths. Ernest Hemingway said the most frightening thing he ever encountered was “a blank sheet of paper.” And Winston Churchill called the act of writing a book “a horrible, exhaustive struggle, like a long bout of painful illness.”

Yes I know this because I know authors.

I'm watching a number of my friends, both with and without disabilities, losing their jobs. That's not fair either. Sometimes it's about working in the wrong place at the wrong time, as I read this morning and yet - the personal devastation runs deep.

And then I found this original song, that talks about having a change of heart. And God. And mercy. So I decided to post it.


.
The lyrics via YouTube-
Oh, when you look back, do you smile on all that or have, or do you cry, cry out in pain cause it's not what you thought it would be?

Oh life's not fair
when you try to win everything by hand
Oh life's not fair, but I will be there
when you change your mind.

So, when you look on all your old burned pictures of God, then do you still think that the steriotype fits with the mercy He's shown you? He's always known you by name.

When everything feels like nothing is safe, you can call me and I'll change your heart. Hold still for a moment and hold your soul open and let me love you.

Being guided

A number of my friends are going through "stuff" .

Last night I saw this BBC article about a Quantas plane that lost its weather radar. Another commercial plane guided it safely to land - with a change in route.

And it struck me that perhaps reading this story might make some of you feel better and/or serve as a reminder that being guided to safety and following another is what we do in a crisis. We're forced to do it - in fires, for example. So why are we so hard on ourselves when we need to find guidance in more everyday circumstances?

You're all in my thoughts and prayers.

We need to stop

A message of peace from Mattie - this song is set to the words of Mattie Stepanek's poem For Our World.

Stop, be silent, and notice…
In so many ways, we are the same.
Our differences are unique treasures.
We have, we are, a mosaic of gifts
To nurture, to offer, to accept.
We need to be.
Just be.

The rest of the words can be found here.

A post about the recent dedication of a statue in Mattie's memory can be found here.