I walked into a church today that I had never before entered.  It was a lovely space.  What I hadn’t realized was that it would be closing between 13:00 and 14:00.

Just before the time, a male voice came from above.  A short message, delivered in Dutch, French, German, English, Spanish and two other languages that I didn’t recognize.

I smiled at the symphony of words.  It felt like the whole world was sitting with me in the sanctuary.  We all were included.  We all were seen.

***

I read an article today in Tricycle magazine, a Buddhist publication.  It was written by Vanessa Zuisei Goddard.

One of my favorite stories is by Ursula K. Le Guin, called “Things”.  Set in a nameless country, the inhabitants are facing the end of the world, divided between those bent on destroying the last of what’s left and those celebrating the End of Days.  Belonging to neither camp is a bricklayer named Lif, who dreams one night that beyond the horizon lies a set of islands.  It’s a place he’s never been to, has never even seen, yet he knows, with a certainty that surprises him, that if he wants to live, that’s where he must go.  If the old world is dying, his only hope is to go to a new world – a world he somehow knows is possible, is real.  And so, the next morning, he gets down to work. 

…

Standing at the end of the path, water up to his nose, and wind whipping his hair, Lif paused for a moment at the threshold of the known, trusting this was the way to the unimagined.  Then he leapt.

***

I feel myself teetering on an edge

The comfort of the known

The vastness of the unknown

May I take to the air …

To a home that I’ve never been to

That I’ve never even seen