Saturday February 27

They put five total strangers in a room together and told us to be a covenant group.  Tell your stories and pray them together and you will have the bonds of compassion and support.  When pigs fly, I thought.

 I wasn’t here to make friends.  I came for personal spiritual renewal.  I wanted to get close to God, not four strangers.  I wanted a free trip to Italy, not touchy-feeling gush.  I would go along with the routine- but only to a point.  I didn’t see a thing these women could give me that I really needed.

 So we sat and shared-

 Karin, a 67 year old Episcopal priest from Virginia.  Her husband is dead, her kids are all spread out.  She is in an awful church mess.  One of those vicious congregations that chew up clergy then spit them out to watch them die.  She is so broken and so angry.

 Betty Lynn is United Church of Canada, a co-pastor with her husband.  She is brilliant but also a tad bit naïve.  She seems pretty steady, sharing her wisdom and experience as appropriate.  She is so strong and gutsy.  But finally through tears we learn of her father’s death, just days ago, and the pain and sorrow she has been kept to herself.

 Laurie is young, beautiful, smart, athletic, and sweet.  How perfect can one person be?  She has a beautiful daughter and a handsome husband, a Lutheran Church job she loves.  What kind of support can a perfect person want or need?  But as Laurie speaks we hear the pain and begin to see the empty space in her core.

 Linda, a Mennonite from Boise, speaks so softly we must strain to listen.  She will need the support of this group.  She is sick.  The victim of childhood abuse, chemical poisoning in Zimbabwe, food allergies, drug reactions, a heart problem.  She will need us.  But all we can do is listen.

 I just started a new job.  I’m not even sure why I am here.  The support group I used to have got me thru a divorce, thru cancer, thru so much.  But it took years to build to build that trust, the love, the respect.  What can we possibly accomplish is three short years?

 During the silent retreat we made 1237 beads to put on rosaries.  We rolled and cut and poked holes- and sliced- and cussed- and messed up- and doubted- and wondered- and amazed ourselves.  In the kitchen we baked into the wee hours- drinking- laughing- loving our art and the women represented in the beads. 

 Through the years we told the stories of our lives, our joys our pain.  We prayed Karin into retirement from pain and misery, then through her daughter’s cancer.  We prayed Laurie into a sabbatical of exploration and discovery as she filled herself with new creations.  We prayed Linda through a broken heart, an irritated bowel, and the sorrow of missing Italy.  We prayed Betty Lynn through her graduation, then from Saskatchewan to Toronto, from the parish to a new phase of her life.

 Now we gather as five women who would never have self-selected and we simply relish the company of one another.  We drink deeply of the spirit we share.  We touch each other with no more than a glace, a smile, a nod.  We light the candle and share the box of Kleenex on the table.