closed letter made open.

hello. it was good to talk with you today. the place where we were made me think of a thing i wrote to you a long time ago maybe i can't write this to you, but it still applies.

there is enormous strength in what you say! 

i'm trying to express this enormous concept, but it is recursive, interlocked, alinear. one thing proceeds from another, except back to the basic root, which springs up and flowers so widely, riotously, unpredictably and yet in order.

do i make any sense?

you're one of those rare people who carries God's light and grace by way of faith and by way of the words you speak and life the life you lead. it does no good to have gifts without bringing them out into the world.

and you are also possessed of a warmth and light all your own; you are a sweet soul, kind and gentle, good and fierce.

sometimes you speak with conviction; sometimes you speak with Authority.

i love to look at the edges of you; the landscape where you keep your public personae, your sharp thinking, your businesslike competence, your easy confident appearance, your gracious way.

i love to see the small places, the tiny signs that a placid surface covers a much larger service the scope of which is known only to you and your Lord.

i love to stand sometimes at the doorway of great giant sacred spaces in you, where out of reverence i do not dare go in, and if invited, only a few tentative steps and that even with my eyes down.

i love to see the places in you where beauty and grace, things of joy, of balance, and temperance dance and recombine in your soul: the form of a rose window, the riot of leaves, minuet and bergamask, sonnet and saga, silver and stone.

and i love also the tender little places where you hope and cry and bleed and laugh, where you keep your courage and your doubt, your sorrows and your joys, your pleasures and your longings, your faith.

your heart.



so. i maybe can't say all of what i was going to say but instead i'll say "here is a recipe you maybe will like".

and that piece of work we were talking about maybe me doing? i'd really like to do it. it'd be fun for me and it gives me an excuse to write to you and the text of the message will be "hi. is this color ok?" but the meaning of it is "i am still here. i am still listening."

sometimes things get awkward between people. sometimes there is silence even between the best of friends.

so. if you're reading this, you know who you are. i will dare tell you that sometimes people read this and they comment anonymously. sometimes i know who they are, and sometimes not so much.

there will be days when you wish for me to know that you are still here, still listening. you can leave an anonymous comment to say no more than that and even if i know it is you, i will pretend for your comfort that i do not know who you are.



as for the rest of you, you odd collection of random readers and the occasional follower: sometimes that  friend from whom you are estranged misses you. sometimes small talk will have to do because for the time being it's all you can manage.

it doesn't matter why. accept the cup of coffee, even across silence.

still here. still listening.