Following the Leads

Yesterday Erica, my sister, had her appendix taken out, at about 4:30 in the morning. I went to stay with her a bit during the day and I brought her, among other things, my book Glimpses of Grace by Madeline L'Engle. It's similar to a devotional book in that it has short readings, marked with dates of the calendar. My sister likes devotionals and L'Engle's writings deal with life, therefore a lot of the readings refer to spirituality and philosophy and other reflections. It was a whim, Erica doesn't really like to read, but I thought some short substantial pieces might be nice. As it turns out she didn't have use of the book but as I was talking about the book I remembered that L'Engle had had her husband die of cancer and I started greedily skimming for references to that. I came away unsatisfied but determined to find out where I could get more "meat" to her writings and searched online last night. I ended up ordering three books online and requesting five more from the library. All have to do with dying and/or ritual and/or the sacred and other related. I don't know what I'm doing. I'm sure there's a part of me that's trying to find out "How To Do This Correctly" and while I KNOW there's no correct way, no way to make this 'good', no way to avoid the confusion and chaos... I want all the information I can get. I want all the help I can get. I expect I'll skim books and be led into some passages and have no connection to others. I guess I'm trying to make sense of it the best way I know how. I guess this is part of my coping mechanism. Though it's almost yucky to compare the two, I realize, this is similar to what I did during my engagement to Seth - voraciously sought out info from books and wise people (and always God, who happens to work through books and wise people as well as one-on-one :-) ) on marriage and what in the heck I was getting into, what the heck was going on, what the heck was I feeling, what the heck were things I should be thinking about.

My sister is doing well, probably has arrived home now and is being settled into her safe apartment with my parents bustling about her.

Shortly, Seth and I will go to my aunt and uncle's to drop off the long awaited cds containing the photos of our wedding. Our community is secure. The circle of life is. God is with us.