"So I am praying while not knowing how to pray. I am resting while feeling restless, at peace while tempted, safe while still anxious, surrounded by a cloud of light while still in darkness, in love while still doubting."--Fr. Henri J.M. Nouwen

Fr. Henri's words resonate with me as I prepare to start life at L'Arche D.C. in a few days. Currently, I am placeless, or at least in a transitional state. I drove from NC to Mt. Orab, OH on Thursday. I am here to be a groomsmen for my friend David's wedding. We had the rehearsal yesterday, and the wedding will take place at 5.30pm. I'm really happy for David and Rachel, and lucky to be able to be part of this journey for them. I got to meet some of David's family and friends from his LSU days.

Being with family and friends that are not my own has made me reflect on my own cadre of connection from college, california, to L'Arche Dabyreak days. I've been able to stay in touch with folks with L'Arche Daybreak in a way I haven't been able to with folks in Cali. Folks I met in Cali and my life there feels like a distant yet pleasant dream.

I feel pretty old for keeping and maintaining Live Journal, even though I haven't been posting regularly.

I was accepted to L'Arche DC community, so I will start in June:

http://www.larchewashingtondc.org/template/index.cfm

So most of you know this, but maybe not everyone. I came back from L'Arche community with a different way of being. Part of this new way of being includes exploring a relationship with a gal that i had originally broken up with last march. so not pursuing celibacy and life in the monastery, at least not directly. still going through the process to be received in the catholic church. still a feminist, and committed to racial awareness, gender awareness, and queer theory. queer christians gives me hope to be a voice within a larger institutional hierarchy and be a subversive voice within it. the more outside voices cry out from the inside, the more interesting it will be. i have no loft visions of radical revolutionary change, but just going where i feel led.

hoping to live in a l'arche community nearby NC, maybe the ones in dc.

When I was in college, I bought a small booklet, which is a written tract by Seng-Ts'an [the Third Zen Patriarch]. It's 5 x 7 booklet of maybe 20 pages filled with ink drawings, and Sen-Ts'an's verses on Faith-Mind. The early chinese zen reminds me of the Taoist sages, and hermits who went off into the woods. they were eccentric, crazy, and maybe saints. i used to read this book everyday in Thailand as I took my 40 minute bus ride from my dormitory to Thammasat University. I would gaze at the vast wasteland of Bangkok, teeming with people, but there was still infinite beauty all around me. i remember the morning sun bouncing off the wooden floors of the bus, and how the floor would rattle. I'm not sure why I turn to this writing now, but I brought it with me with L'Arche. I reckon it's helping me to let go and be open to life here and now. Here's a bit from the last few pages:


This Dharma-truth has nothing to do with big or small, with time and space.
Here a single thought is a ten thousand years.
Not here, not there-
but everywhere always right before your eyes.
Infinitely large and infinitely small: no difference,
for definitions are irrelevant
and no boundaries can be discerned.
So likewise with "existence" and "non-existence."
Don't waste your time in arguments and discussion
attempting to grasp the ungraspable.

Each thing reveals the One,
the One manifests in all things.
To live in this Realization
is not to worry about perfection or non-perfection.
To put your trust in the Heart-Mind
is to live without separation,
and in this non-duality you are one with your Life-Source.

Words! Words!
The Way is beyond language,
for in it there is no yesterday
                                        no tomorrow
                                                        no today.

Here's a quote from Fr.Louis [Thomas Merton] from Sign of Jonas:

When you're tongue is silent, you can rest in the silence of the forest. When your imagination is silent, the forest speaks to you, tells you of its unreality and of the Reality of God. But when your mind is silent, then the forest suddenly becomes magnificently real and blazes transparently with the Reality of God...

i'd like to share some thoughts i wrote down in my leather bound journal:

5.27.2010
the 30th Birthday party was a success. it was everything that gatherings with juli were not. i imagine that we are both more fully alive without each other, which leaves me both happy and sad.

6.16.2010 Gifts
what have i to offer to the world? i am learning to receive from others their gifts with openness of heart. i have to learn more about receiving joyfully, before i can freely give from my own heart.

6.17.2010 Untitled Poem

My soul waits for you

in the

         s
         i
         l
         e
         n
         c
         e

I

awaken
                            to the music of

life
                            the gentle breeze

rustling
                            of leaves
     
                                                           
dancing
                            of trees

it's taken me a long time to get here, but maybe it's taken the the time needed for me to arrive at this point. "here" being able to at peace with how life has unfolded for me. i can be at peace with my failed relationships, friendships, mistakes, and the joyful choices i've made.

being at l'arche has made me realize how difficult it is to receive and give with an open heart. a small bit of negative feelings can taint our perspectives and receive someone's gifts as a burden or as something to be hated.

there's beauty in strange intimate moments. bathing the body of another, one who cannot move or speak, there's something extremely frightening and beautiful in it.

This is a post for my Hamilton friends in Canada, and other Canadian friends if I have any. I'll be living at L'Arche Daybreak near Toronto for the summer. Let me know if you'll be around the area.

http://www.larchedaybreak.com/

I arrived in Toronto with my friend Seth, who is a 2nd year Divinity School student. We were greeted by John, Mary Anne and Sifu. I really enjoyed the van ride and conversation with M.A.

I'm just getting to know my house mates. I grilled some hot dogs with an assistant in the house named Carlos, who's from Brazil.

My Lord God,
I have no idea where I am going.
I do not see the road ahead of me.
I cannot know for certain
where it will end.

Nor do I really know myself,
and that I think I am following your will
does not mean I am actually doing so.

But I believe
the desire to please you
does in fact please you.
And I hope I have that desire
in all I am doing.

I hope
I will never do anything
apart from that desire.
And I know if I do this
you will lead me by the right road
though I may know nothing about it.

I will trust you always
though I may seem to be lost
and in the shadow of death.

I will not fear,
for you will never leave me
to face my perils alone.

Thomas Merton, Thoughts in Solitude