Signs of New Life

It has been one of those weeks.
So many thoughts. So many questions.
What if I had...?
What if I hadn't?

What would I definitely do if I could do it again?
What would I definitely not do if I could do it again?

Why am I feeling this way?
What am I going to do about it?

What are my dreams?
What are my hopes for my future and the future of my family?

As I prepare for teaching class and leading the retreat in April, so many topics come to mind. So many signs of new spiritual and emotional life that are growing in the soil of my soul.

So many new trails - not to follow, but to blaze.
So much that I am learning as prepare to teach. isn't that always the case?
So many worries about hypocrisy - how can I teach this stuff when I have doubts of my own?
How can I explain this stuff to anyone else when I still have so many questions?
If they knew all that I wonder about and the many ways that I want to wander, would they trust anything i have to say?
Or perhaps, they will trust me more because my life, my quest, my confusion, my desires, and my queries are not so different from their own.

I am beginning to suspect that the reason they come to class every week,
that the reason they ask me back to speak is that they can tell that I still believe that there is hope.
I believe. There is hope.
There it is again: the audacity of hope.





Sometimes I think I'm crazy. Much of the time I am certain of it.
After all, who does what i do? who lives this way?
who travels alone, leaving behind spouse and children?
who craves more and more alone time rather than less and less?
who homeschools and teaches two other classes besides?
who journals like mad and tries desperately to convert others to do the same?
who persists in writing and sending her crazy questions and thoughts out into the blogosphere?
whose sends emails and text messages into the great virtual beyond on a wing and a prayer - hoping that this one will land on fertile soil? That this one will matter?
who hopes and loves and dreams and prays when all hope and love and dreams and prayers stop making sense?

Answer: Get over yourself, Gail. Everyone does. That's what human beings do.
We hope and dream and wander and wonder and pray that we matter.
To someone. To anyone. To the world. Even if only for a short time. For the time it takes a daffodil to bloom and die. We want someone to notice us, to pay attention, to reach out, and to love us.

And even if I were alone in my insanity, I would maintain this crazy hope
that something different is possible. that new love, new hope, new connections are possible.



In the face of a year-long drought and this morning's snow flurries, these flowers testify that there is hope. The tulip and daffodils bulbs that we buried two years ago don't know anything else to do: push. open up. grow. Sure, the drought will shorten their lives. Deer will come out of the woods and most likely eat many of them before they are in full bloom. Ultimately, though, they have no choice but to burrow their way out of the dry, hard-packed earth and dazzle me with their glorious blossoms.

When will I learn to do what they do?
In the face of all that I face, push, open up, grow.