Joy Comes in the Morning

It has been a long sadness. It took me a while to recognize that--that the sunrises and the sunsets were tinged not only with the gentle clear and yellow light, and the royal purple, and the bold and cheerful peaches and pinks… but also with a white grief, pale and retiring.

Her name would have been Indigo. At least, I think of her as a she… although she might have been a tumbling boychild.

She sailed out of my keeping very very close to the end of the first trimester. It’s hard to explain the invisible grief of a miscarriage… the child that was cradled in your body suddenly gone. Never seen. Never heard. Never really quite real. But still lost. Still gone. Still missed.

Two days after I lost her, a mockingbird perched outside my bedroom window, and sang to me through the night. Bold and brave and not quite sane, but joyous. It was the love of the universe pouring out and over me, like a river. Comforting. Singing hope through the night that there would be joy again. “All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well.” God couldn’t have done better if He had sent a host of angels to sing comfort to me.

A few months after I lost her, I told a friend who had also lost a baby that my heart just didn’t seem to be in things anymore. She was kind, and gave good advice: “Give yourself time.” So I allowed myself time. I allowed myself a spirit-winter, and a time to hide.

Recently, I caught myself relishing a thought: “There’s things to do.” I was actually relishing and looking forward to Work and Doing and Making With the Hands. It feels good. Spring is here, and the Warm Rain, and it’s time to be Up and Doing again. It feels good to feel strong and eager and hopeful again. And the mockingbird sings Joy.



Indigo child
Moon child
Meadow child

Child of the mist and of the rose
Child of grass

Lunatic brave throat of the mockingbird--
Dreaming wildsong, whispering.

O darling twilight child,
I saw you dance last night,
Your feet wet with dew...
Dancing with the fireflies--
Glimmering like the stars.

I'm Coming Out of the Closet

No, I’m not gay. But there’s a closet that I think a lot of Christians find themselves in. And I think it’s about time I came out of it. So, um, here goes. Gulp. *Deep sigh*

Homosexuality is not a sin.

There. I feel better already.

Yeah, yeah. Go ahead and laugh. I know this is not exactly a ground-breaking idea. I know that plenty of other Christians before me have said it. But it’s not a done deal yet for everyone, so – here I am, choosing where to follow. Serving God the best I know how, standing up for justice and mercy and truth and love. Because it’s about time we all did. It’s about time we all stopped setting the timetable for another person’s freedom. It’s about time we all remembered that “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere” (MLK, Jr.). I’m coming out a bit late, but Now I figure is better than Someday, even if it’s not quite as good as Yesterday. OK. Once more, with feeling:

Homosexuality is Not a sin.

***

Growing up, homosexuality never bothered me. Gay folks were just folks. My mother was active in civil rights, and accepting the sexuality of other people was part of the philosophy of equality I was raised on.

Then, at the age of 32, I became a Christian. One morning, the week after Easter, I found myself in a pew in the local Episcopal church, trying very hard to act casual (although I could count on two hands the number of times I had been to church during my whole previous life), and desperately doing my best to figure out how my lifeline—The Book of Common Prayer—worked. They didn’t seem to mind that I kept standing up and sitting down just a little late, so I stuck around. This was during the time when the Episcopal church was making up their minds about ordaining active homosexuals, so no sooner was I a Christian than I had to begin thinking it through.

I remember discussing it with a friend of mine in the church—I told her that it seemed to me to be fairly clear that the Bible said homosexuality was a sin, and if we took the Bible seriously we needed to accept that. She got terribly exasperated with me: “If you start taking the Bible seriously, pretty soon you’ll be wearing a bonnet and keeping silent in church!” (She was right on one count, anyway…)

During that first year of my Christianity, I came up with a tentative working theory that I maintained until recently: It is good for people to love each other. It is good for a man to love a man. It is good for a woman to love a woman. It is somehow not good to sexualize that love. Nonetheless, homosexuality is no different from the various sins I commit regularly… and I am (or hope to be!) acceptable to God and the church. So there is no reason to deny homosexuals a place in the church. And every reason to welcome them as fellow sinners.

I was never completely easy with that theory. I never felt that sense of rest and peace inside, that as a Quaker I have grown to expect when my beliefs and actions are in line with my understanding of the world and of God. There was always a vague sense of uneasiness, that told me I didn’t have it quite right yet.

I have met plenty of homosexual people over the years, and they were just like everyone else. Some were nice, some not so nice. Some were smart, some not so smart. Some of them had a spiritual maturity that I admired, and felt would be an asset to my faith community. I wrestled with that. Sinning is stepping away from God, yet these were people who I felt could teach me about following God more closely. How could that fit in with this theory of mine? Over the years, my theory became gradually much less satisfactory, and much more tentatively held.

Recently an online friend, a gay Anabaptist, pointed out to me that the New Testament Greek words that are usually translated as having to do with homosexuality have nothing to do with a committed loving relationship between two members of the same sex, and everything to do with non-loving/uncommitted/dehumanizing/exploitative sexual practices, like prostitution (temple and otherwise). I remembered hearing something about this a long time ago, but I had never looked into it myself. So now I did. It turns out that the words that are typically translated as condemning homosexuality, are so far from actually condemning committed loving relationships between two people of the same sex, that I am appalled that we have mistreated and disrespected homosexuals for so long, as a society and as a church. Appalled. It would be like taking the word that is commonly translated as “fornication,” and translating it as “heterosexuality.”

The New Testament most definitely condemns the misuse of sexuality. It most definitely condemns certain activities that are wrong whether heterosexuals or homosexuals commit them …. Rape and prostitution and pedophilia, for example. But it does not condemn a loving committed sexual relationship between two people of the same sex. It just simply doesn’t.

I mulled over this new bit of information, and I revised and significantly shortened my working theory: Homosexuality is not a sin. Well. All the pieces fell into place. That sense of rest and peace arrived, and stayed. This fits. Everything fits.

I was still receiving this new awareness with joy and relief, and considering whether there was anything in particular I needed to do with it, when another friend on the same forum, an atheist, wrote a post. In it, he said that all forms of religion are bad, because the apparently benign religions make religion look more acceptable than it really is, and shield the bad religions from criticism. He said that the survival of our civilization depends on getting rid of all religion and all belief in God, and that society shouldn’t tolerate any form of religion—good, bad or indifferent. I was devastated and hurt and heartbroken that someone who had befriended me would say that society was better off without “my kind.” That “my kind,” in fact, was responsible for destroying civilization.

But God had once let me know that every time I let my heart get broken, He would mend it and make it bigger. For the first time in my life, I had the opportunity to experience first-hand what it was like to be on the receiving end of intolerance. To have someone I cared about tell me that something that is a part of me, that I cherish and hold to be True and Right, that I couldn’t deny at this point even if I wanted to… to have him tell me that this was wrong. Not only wrong, but an abomination. It hurt. It hurt like hell.

But it was a very important lesson, and it came at just the right time (God’s timing is very very good). Because as I was meditating on the hurtfulness of intolerance, I was able to see the parallels between my current situation and the situations that homosexuals face regularly. And I was given a job to do. Thank you God, for broken hearts.

So, here I am, coming out of the closet. In 1994, Ohio Yearly Meeting disowned Cleveland Monthly Meeting for recognizing that two women felt they were married to each other. We owe Cleveland Monthly Meeting and those two women an apology, because homosexuality is not a sin. I am going to ask for a clearness committee from my monthly meeting to help me discern how best to go forward with this leading. I will let you know how it goes. If I get disowned, does anyone know of a Meeting willing to take in a raggle-taggle heretic such as myself?

An incredibly incomplete sampling of links about homosexuality and the Bible:

http://www.religioustolerance.org/homarsen.htm
http://www.religioustolerance.org/hom_bibc1.htm
http://www.keithboykin.com/arch/2002/08/21/what_the_bible

I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in the stride toward freedom… is the white moderate, who is more devoted to “order” than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: “I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action”; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a “more convenient season.”
--Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Letter from Birmingham Jail

You Have Reached Your Destination…

A few Sundays ago, one of the ministers of our Monthly Meeting eloped. She had met this very nice Baptist, you see, and Baptists take a lot less time to put together a wedding than Quakers do.

We all knew she was engaged, of course… but when they decided on Thursday to set the date for that Sunday, she didn’t spread the word beyond her family and a few close friends. That’s when my Baptist spy gave me the word. The groom’s niece is a friend of mine, and she called me on Friday to make sure I knew when the wedding would be, and to give me general directions to the church. “You might want to Google that, and make sure I’m right…”

So I shook the mud dauber nests out of my good skirt (mental note: must wear good skirt more often), rounded up the kids and the husband (who had providentially arrived home for that weekend), and set off. The church was about 50 miles away, in unfamiliar territory. When I sat down to Google it, Kevin said, “Naaah. Let’s just use Emma. I’d like to see how she does.”

Emma is Kevin’s new GPS unit. She has a lovely breathy Australian accent. Now that he is driving trucks cross-country for a living, Emma is a necessity. Getting lost and missing your turn, while driving a 50-foot long, 13-foot high, 48,000 pound truck, is a recipe for ulcers... sometimes even disaster. He had owned her for less than a week the day our minister eloped, and he was still learning her ways.

It was a beautiful day, and a lovely drive. Emma was fabulous and accurate, and pleasant to listen to. The navigation was so easy… no looking for street signs or straining to pick out landmarks. Just turn when she says so… what could be more grand for a Sunday drive?

That is, it was easy until she said, “Just ahead, turn right.” And I looked, and there was a bit of gravel road ending in a marsh, complete with cattails swaying where the road ended, roughly 50 feet from the highway we were on. There? Oh no.

“Uh-oh,” said Kevin. “We’ve entered strip-mined country.” Oh no. In strip-mined country, the world no longer looks anything like it used to, but the old roads are usually still on the map… just to keep the right-of-way open in case the county ever wants to put a road there again.

So much for easy. I ignored Emma and stayed on the road, and she silently recalculated a route minus marsh. “Just ahead, turn right.” No, Emma. I’m not driving up that narrow dirt track into those trees either. So Emma recalculated, muttering under her breath. “Just ahead, turn right.” No, Emma. I’m not turning into a gravel road with a gate across it marked No Trespassing that leads into the local exotic animal preserve. I don’t want to see any rhinos at the moment. More muttering from Emma. “Just ahead turn right.” Nope. Looks like another locked gate, my girl. If Emma had cursing in her vocabulary, she might have utilized it by now.

“Just ahead, turn right.” Now that road, I will take. And right we went. We drove along and drove along, and got to the T-junction ending our road. “Just ahead, turn right.” But Emma, I can see a sign for the church that says, Left 1.5 miles! Oh. Wait a minute. The road is closed to the left. We can’t follow that sign. OK, Emma. You must know a detour. Go for it, girl.

One and a half miles later, she announced with evident satisfaction, “You have reached your destination.” Hmmm…. Trees to the right. Trees to the left. Trees ahead. Trees behind. A beautiful woodsy little spot. Quiet. A bit quieter than I had expected a location that was about to have a wedding. A bit more barren of buildings than I had expected too. Perhaps these were wild Elven Baptists. Or perhaps Emma, being Australian, didn’t know as much about strip-mined Ohio as she liked to let on. No gray-cloaked deacons appeared to lead us into the woods. “Gimme those directions the niece gave me!” I sez.

Her directions weren’t quite complete, but they were accurate as far as they went. We made a few good guesses, and navigated by the seat of our pants a bit, and eventually found, without too much trouble, a lovely little white church, and an eloping minister standing on its steps. I think someone had tipped her off, because she didn’t look at all surprised to see us. She hugged us, and said, “I’m glad you’ve come. We’re still waiting for the best man. He should have been here by now.” As we took our seats, Kevin whispered to me, “He’s probably using a GPS.” We never did find out what delayed the best man, but the wedding eventually went off beautifully.

I suppose there’s a moral to all this. I suppose it has something to do with depending on your own good judgment, as you navigate the path of life. Or about not relying on other people to tell you when you have reached your destination. One thing for sure. When you seek the wild Elven Baptists, make sure you shake the mud dauber nests out of your good clothes.

It's All very Simple, Really

This Sunday, in meeting for worship, we were blessed to have many guests. Among the guests were two visiting Friends from Kenya. One of them spoke in what I think was French and then English, and the other one spoke in English and then a language I did not recognize. It was sort of a moot point… their English accents were so unfamiliar to me that I was barely able to determine that I should have been able to understand what they were saying. Non-understanding being a given, I relaxed into their voices, listening for where the words came from.

What I found was Joy, and Love, and Kindness, and Gentleness, and Peace, and Patience, and an abiding Trust in God. It felt so good to just listen to the foundations of those men’s words, that I began to do the same when other people stood to speak… I let their voices wash over me, without attempting any form of linguistic deciphering at all. Sometimes a word or two would wash up on my ear drums, but mostly I found myself listening to foundations.

Guest or homey, my brothers and sisters all seemed to speak out of the same place. Joy. Love. Kindness. Gentleness. Peace. Patience. Trust in God. They were all singing verses from the same song… It was so healing just to sit and listen to the spirits of those around me sing. Such voices.

Afterwards, I thought about how easy it is sometimes to get caught up in the details, and how easily we can get distracted from what is important. I think that spiritsong I heard yesterday doesn’t come from grasping and studying and debating, but from Letting Go. There’s nothing complicated about finding God. It’s just Letting Go, and relaxing into God.

Lord, let my own song come from Your Foundation. Amen.

Merry Christmas

It had been a rough couple of days. The traveling had been hard, as pregnant as she was. Nothing was comfortable. Not walking. Not riding. Not even sitting and resting was comfortable. And she was always out of breath.

Then, that last day, the baby dropped, and she was really uncomfortable. She felt so heavy. And the contractions were so, well, not quite painful, but pleasant they weren't. She had wondered, during each one, is this the beginning for real?

Wandering all over Bethlehem with Joseph, as he looked up his relatives who lived in town. Discovering at each house that they already had a bunch of guests staying. No room. No room. And the whispers, that no one had really tried to keep her from overhearing... "Joseph is Waaaay too nice...." "Did you hear what he told his mom, some ridiculous dream..." "That's not as ridiculous as the story She gave--an angel no less!" "Well, she's not staying in my house. She might make a fool of Joseph, but not me...."

Finally, among strangers, a kind face. No room. "But yer missus definitely needs to lie down; she's looking pale. Go round back to the shed and make yourselves a bed on the hay."

It was warm and quiet, and at last the contractions began to settle in regular and deep. She remembered with a smile what her mom had told her, "By the time your labor starts, you'll be so uncomfortable that you'll be glad."

Did she have a midwife? Surely Joseph dashed out and found a midwife to help guide Mary and the baby through their perilous time... or was it just Joseph by her side, whispering encouragement, trying to remember all the animal husbandry a good carpenter knew?

And then it was finished. And the child was the most beautiful child she had ever seen. Ten perfect toes. Ten perfect fingers. Such beautiful eyes. Such a perfect mouth. She cleaned him off, and nursed him, and wrapped him in his swaddling clothes to keep him warm, and laid him in a manger of clean, sweet-smelling hay, whispering, "Jesus. Little Jesus. The angel said to name you Jesus, sweetheart... such a perfect child..." And his little eyes closed, and he slept.

Suddenly, she was so tired. She remembered the whispers and the mockers. Joseph was a good man, but what if he decided her story was too ridiculous after all? It did sound ridiculous... an angel no less! What if he...? Oh Lord, help me. Then her fears and her worries and her tired fretting were interrupted by a knock on the door.

A dirty ragged man peered around the door. Behind him, in the dark, others stood craning their necks this way and that, trying to catch a glimpse inside. He looked vaguely embarrassed, but hopeful, almost pleading. "Um, excuse me, mister, ma'am. Um, I, um.... Well, this is going to sound crazy... but, um, there was this angel.... well, actually, there was a whole bunch of 'em.... well, ok, at first there was only one...." Yes, yes, let them all come in. Let them see.

The whole story came out slowly, as the ragged shepherds clustered round the sleeping baby, touching him with reverent fingers and looking at him with shining eyes. Murmuring to each other, "What was it the angel said? Good tidings of great joy..." "A savior, Christ the Lord, the angel called him..." "And here he is, in the manger, just like...." "It was like thunder, all of them together--Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace, good will toward men--just like thunder..." A few of them were wiping away tears with the backs of their hands, a few just smiled foolishly at the babe, as they murmured the story back and forth to each other.

Mary sighed happily. Such unlikely comforters! Everything they said, she treasured in her heart. She looked at Joseph, and saw that the lines of tension around his eyes had eased. He looked at her and smiled, as if to say Not so ridiculous after all, eh? He leaned over and kissed her forehead. "Definitely a special baby. Definitely a special mama."

Have a merry merry delightful and special Christmas! May we all always receive the comfort and support we need, during our own times of doubt. And God bless us, everyone.

Disappearing Act

I have been thinking about something that happened long ago. Maybe it was that little white spider we found a few nights ago, near the orange juice machine at work. Maybe it is just that, after years of raising kids instead of flowers, I have finally decided that it is time to garden again. So I have been thinking about the gardens I have had in the past.

Whatever the reason that brought it to mind, it was 17 years ago. I was a different person, living a different life. I was a technical writer in Silicon Valley California, writing manuals for IBM. I was an agnostic: thoroughly practical, level-headed--nary a spiritual bone in my body. I was never a crystal twiddler, navel contemplator, Ouija board operator. If God or angels… or spirits or fairies… or ghosts or demons… existed, they certainly had nothing to do with me.

I owned a little suburban house on a tiny piece of ground that I lived in with my first husband.

And I had a garden. In California, the lavender will grow four feet high and as wide around. The buddleia will grow to nearly 8 feet high, with a hundred panicles of purple flowers drooping over your head and releasing the scent of cooking cherries for 60 feet around (at least it, smelled of cooking cherries to me). It mixed with the clove smell of the ankle-high dianthus, from their bright ragged flowers…. There were red climbing roses on the West fence--so dignified!--and sweet alyssum growing at their feet. And I had bright California poppies everywhere, cheerful fluttering orange flags, every spring.

It was the kind of garden that made a friend say, the first time she had lunch with me on the patio, “Oh, this is too Disney…. Talk about Disney moments!” (I think it was the flutter of house finches at the birdbath that clinched it for her.) It was the kind of garden that made little children exclaim to their mothers, as they walked by on the sidewalk… “Look, Mommy! Flowers!” And unnecessarily delay the walk, as the child knelt over each orange and pink and white and purple blossom, showing Mama the prettiness…. “Yes, dear. They’re lovely. Come along, dear. No, come along. Yes, sweetheart… come along…”

As far as I was concerned, there was no better way to spend a weekend, than puttering about in my little garden, among the flowers.

But I have been thinking about one particular day. I was working in the garden. On the east side of the house, was a little narrow strip of backyard between the house and the boundary fence (a tall privacy fence). It dead-ended in a fence that separated the front from the back yard. Mostly I just stored pots and extra bricks and tiles and such back there, although there were some jumbly low-lying plants that liked the shade back there, and there was a nice honeysuckle vine on the part of the fence that separated the front and back yard. It was in bloom. I was puttering about back there with some tools… I don’t remember exactly what project I was working on.

I glanced at the honeysuckle vine, and I happened to notice a spider, sitting in the middle of a web. It was an ordinary spider, and an ordinary web… which is to say, they were quite lovely. They caught my eye, and I looked at them a little closer. Then my eyes focused in closer, and this sort of telescoping thing happened, and pretty soon the spider and the web were filling the whole of my vision. Then something very difficult to explain happened, because for some period of time… I do not know how long… there was Nothing. It is very hard to describe Nothing… but there it Was. I wish I could find some way to explain what I mean. There was no fence and no house and no honeysuckle and no spider. There may have been a Me, but even that is uncertain. There was no body of Me, no eyes, no hands, no breath, no feet…. Nothing. Then my eyes were again looking at the spider and the web, and they were just ordinary lovely. I teetered for a moment, between wanting to try to plunge back into that Nothing and wanting to pull away…. But finally I said to myself, “Well, I can’t waste any more time staring at spiders….” And I went back to my gardening.

However, when I went into the house to get something, my then-husband pitched a fit. “Where have you been?! I’ve been looking all over for you!” I was in the back yard, working in the garden. “Why didn’t you answer when I called? I’ve been hollering all over!” I didn’t hear you. “What do you mean, you didn’t hear me?!” I was just in the side yard; I don’t know why I didn’t hear you. “I looked in the side yard! You weren’t there! Oh, fer Pete’s sake…”

But I was in the side yard. Wasn’t I? For years, I assumed that he hadn’t really bothered to look in the side yard; I would have been clearly visible if he had even casually glanced around the corner of the house. And people don’t just disappear. If a person is in a corner of the yard, That is where a person is…. Isn’t she?

But since then, I have met God. He has spoken to me. And I have seen angels. Not with crystal-clarity the way some have, but I have seen the waters stirred, that showed their presence. And I have seen the world *shimmer* like the surface of a pond, as God showed me that Reality was more than I had ever dreamed of in my philosophy.

So, I have slowly and recently come to the tentative conclusion that I may not have been in my back yard for at least a little while, anyway. Long enough for someone to discover he couldn’t find me.

But, if I wasn’t where I Was, where was I?

The Power of Prayer (Part Two)

Recently, I have had the privilege of walking a while with an old soldier, who has fallen in love with our Peace Testimony. I don’t know exactly how much blood is on his hands, and I’m not sure I want to find out. But he loves the Peace Testimony with a passion and a faithfulness that is only possible from creatures who know that they have been terribly lost, and are found at last. To him, the Peace Testimony is more than a witness against war. She is Shalom. Wholeness, reconciliation, healing, love, caring, life, joy, abundance.

He sees in her the shining face of God’s abiding, overarching, impossible, mad love for us and for the world. He sees in the Peace Testimony an affirmation of life, an affirmation of God’s love for all of us. He sees in her the hope of living beyond despair, of living in “the covenant of peace which was before wars and strife were.” (Fox) And he has determined never to leave her.

So I paid attention when, one day during our walk, he said to me with some anguish, “She’s broken. She’s hurt.”

He stretched out his hand, and nestled in it was a bright thing with feathers, iridescent and brilliant and bejeweled. Her eyes were bright. When I touched her, I could feel the strong beat of her heart, measuredpatientwildgreen. She’s a beautiful thing, Peace is. She looks so delicate, but she is strong. As I looked closer at her, I saw what the old soldier was trying to say: her wings were crumpled, stuck and sticky, coated in the crippling adhesive of the compromises of the Spirit of the World. How long had it been since she’d really flown and soared? She is so beautiful, it is easy not to notice how broken she is. She was singing a song beyond words, of wholeness and joy and love and reconciliation. But how long had it been since she’d been able to soar?

The old soldier looked at me, and I could see it in his eyes: What can be done? Oh, Lord. How could I tell this man that That was the best we Quakers could do… that there was nothing to be done to help her soar, that our Peace Testimony was forever doomed to compromise and failure? With the song of Peace ringing through my brain, how could I tell this lost-and-found child of God that there was nothing to be done to help her, and that he would have to settle for good enough?

Well, I couldn’t tell him.

Shalom speaks against war and violence, and for generosity and gentleness. Shalom speaks against abortion, and for life for the powerless. Shalom speaks against euthanasia, and for care for the helpless and despairing. Shalom speaks against the death penalty and for mercy.

Shalom speaks against expedience and “logic” and “pragmatism.”
Shalom speaks against anger and hatred and fear and despair.
Shalom speaks against Death.

Shalom sings:
Let justice and mercy kiss.
Choose life, o child of God.
Choose life in all your paths.

Shalom sings:
Love one another.
Love thy neighbor.
Love thy enemy.
Love the poor and the lame and the sick.
Love the little ones and the littlest ones—even those yet unseen.

And still my old soldier looks at me with grave eyes (O found prodigal, brother mine—I have nothing, no answers, less than a dying thief).

All I have is a prayer:
Lord, open the eyes of our hearts. Heal the brokenness in each of us that makes it hard to follow your path. Help us to live fully in the covenant of peace that was before and is beyond strife. Make us true citizens of your Peaceable Kingdom, true witnesses to Shalom. Make our Testimony to the world Whole and True so that we love and cherish ALL of your children, including those unborn. Help us to choose against Death and the Reasoner, and the entangling snares of the World. O Lord, grant us thy peace. Amen.

The Spirit of Shalom has beautiful wings. Wouldn’t it be wonderful for the whole world to be able to look up into the blue blue sky and see her shining, and glorious and whole… and hear her song roll down like waters…

Wilt thou pray with me?