Rolled Away Stones and a Surprise

After I last blogged, I had a much needed telephone conversation with an old friend from whom I've grown apart in many ways and it has not been an overly pleasant separation. The reason the conversation was much needed was that I have done, in my time, my share of crappy things and unfortunately, this individual was on the business of many of those. Old wounds that had never healed, just covered over with new, fragile skin and left to fester cause an enormous amount of discomfort and have a great tendency to flare up, renewing past pain. I have needed to summon the courage and humility to apologize to this person for my transgressions but pride has heretofore prevented me. No longer. By the grace of God alone and through prayer, I was able to finally call this person and have a good, long chat with them. We concluded that, to some extent, we were both living in the past with past experiences of one another forced awkwardly onto the present. Five years, especially at our age, is plenty of time for people to do a lot of changing. Neither of us is the same person we once knew, but we were holding onto to those images because of past hurts. I told them that I no longer even really knew them and I say that not to be mean or spiteful but because it is the truth. They agreed, vice versa. Though it would be impossible to say everything is solved (we still stand on opposite sides of a great theological gulf), the right path has at least begun to be blazed, and, for now, I am comfortable (for the first time in years) with the differences. I feel as if a great burden, a heavy shadow, has been released from my soul and I can stand more upright than I have been able to in a long while. Reconciliation is a good thing; it is the gift of God.

Now, onto an excellent surprise. I went to Canterbury tonight, as I said I would do. Jackie's husband, also a priest, celebrated the Eucharist tonight as penance. He apparently didn't use a bathmat this morning while showering, creating a slippery and hazardous bathroom environment. When his wife came to shower, she slipped, fell, and broke her big toe. He took her to the doctor, like a dutiful and loving husband should, and she looked at him and said, "You know, you're on tonight because of this." Anyway, that was a long aside. A wonderfully kind person came up to me and surprised me with a really cool revelation. I have a new reader! Hooray!! So, to you, I say welcome and enjoy.

That's not the end of the surprises though. I also learned this week that the grill downstairs, which I formerly thought to belong to the tenant below me, actually belongs to all of us in this building! Grilling will commence this week with great delight and a sense of long overdue outdoor flavor! Now, to my new reader, I ask you to put two and two together and see what you come up with...

-R