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Today I am flying from Salt Lake City, Utah to Denver, Colorado. The skies are clear from one high altitude (4,300 ish feet in SLC) to even higher (5,500 ish feet in Denver, the “Mile High City”). I will be working with a group of eight United Church of Christ ministers and lay people to imagine the possibility of a kind of academy to support ministers at more deeper layers as they support congregations, “in times like these.” I love the call to ministry and to deepening ministry.
I don’t recall who wrote this poem below, but I loved finding it in a file folder I keep called, “A Few of My Favorite Things.” Here’s to clarity.
d
Absolutely Clear
Don’t surrender your loneliness
So quickly.
Let it cut more deep.
Let it ferment and season you
As few human
Or even divine ingredients can.
Something missing in my heart tonight
Has made my eyes so soft,
My voice,
So tender,
My need of God
Absolutely
Clear.
Hafiz
Barbara and Laurence sang this to me once in the dark in a bunker at a fort in Port Townsend. One of my favorite lifetime memories ever.