Even broken, my heart loves big.
I feel like it fills so full it overflows.
Today I am in love with the world. Is it that I can see God in you? Is it that you, too, are so full you are overflowing?
Let's sit together and overflow together.
Because even broken, my heart seems to work.
This week I accepted a job as the Executive Director of CareNet, RI. CareNet is a pregnancy resource center that supports women facing unplanned pregnancies. I have been volunteering for them for about 3 years now, teaching childbirth classes. For a brief time in the fall, I also worked there as the volunteer coordinator.
I am excited to be doing this job. CareNet offers critically necessary support to women who are often in a crisis situation. Everything we do is free of charge for the clients, and our services range from free pregnancy testing, peer counciling, limited ultrasound, childbirth classes, and parenting support. We also offer post-abortion counciliing.
Please keep us in your prayers.
When I wake up, it is the first thought that enters my mind. My friend. My loss. My sadness.
And at night, as I am drifting off again, it is the last thought of the day.
Day in and day out.
During the day, if you bump into me at the grocery store, or see me in a drumming class, or chat with me by phone, you may not recognize that something has changed. It's not the brave face, exactly. More like the organic part of me that feels joy and love and is happy to be living in such a beautiful world. That part of me is alive and well and real.
But in the silence of the morning, or the darkness of my room at night, my thoughts turn to Mali. My mind drifts to a dusty red courtyard. I imagine I am there and we are talking. Laughing. Playing. I go over and over the conversations. The moments that I thought were just the beginning turned out to be the end, as well. I hear your rhythms in my head, play them in my heart.
I am having a hard time with this.
When my friend Mazé died, I spent a week crying. It was one of the saddest weeks of my life.
And I noticed some things.
People had a hard time dealing with my grief. My mom kept trying to rush me off the phone. Some of my friends didn't want to be near me when I was crying. Others seemed to be having a difficult time understanding why I was so upset since I had only known Mazé for a short time.
The pain came in waves. Sometimes I would be ok. And then, suddenly it would hit me that I was never going to see him again, never play the drum with him again, and I would lose it.
This went on for a full week.
I prayed a lot. Prayed to God for Mazé. Prayed for his children and his fiance. And then I started talking to Mazé. Sometimes in english... sometimes in french. Sometimes a crazy mix of the two.
Then one day I woke up with such joy in my heart. I felt joy for having known him. I felt like I had had great luck to have met him.... so soon before his unexpected and untimely death. I felt an almost manic elation at the realization that God had given me this enormous gift. I spent a week feeling grateful. I began to believe that Mazé himself was praying for me. I knew he wouldn't want me to grieve. And I knew he wouldn't want me to feel alone in my grief. I felt the warmth of his love pouring down on me.
And then it was back. Little by little, the joy began, once again, to recede and the grief crept back in. All this week I have had moments of it. Not the racking sobs of the first week, but the dull ache of loss. The stomach churning pain of it. The moments of remembrance, followed by a sense of such sadness it takes my breath away. I know that when I travel back to Mali, the loss will be even more acute. I can already imagine what it will be like to get off the plane, knowing that there is an empty place on the drumming bench.
I am three weeks in and while it is changing, shifting, elusive, the grief doesn't seem to be going anywhere. And maybe some of my friends and family think I should be over it by now. Moving on.
But I am not.
It isn't over.
I think it is just beginning.
My dear friend and teacher, Mazé Kouyaté, died unexpectedly this week in Bamako. We suspect it was a cerebral hemmorhage.
Mazé was a very intuitive and powerful teacher. When I studied with him, he never said a word, or even used facial expressions, but would just demonstrate what he wanted me to do and wait until I got it. I will never forget what a thrill it was when it all finally clicked. I didn't know until afterwards that it was a thrill for him, too!
I came back from Mali with his drum, which was, for me, an extraordinary honor.
And while this is a profound personal loss, I also feel deeply grateful that I got a chance to study with and be friends with this gentle and wonderful man.
Tu me manques, mon cher. Toujours.
When I work at Nicole's, I often cook several dishes at once. I feel like a kitchen dervish, chopping here, tasting there, lifting lids on steaming pots and stirring stir fries while the smells of baking things emanate from the oven. I am a culinary mad scientist.
My life is kind of like that, too. Together, the many dishes can sometimes be overwhelming, but each is a labor of love. Each dish is carefully prepared, the ingredients are lovingly chopped, the recipe developed from years of experience, the main components are brought together into delicious and complex relationships which yield tasty results.
Does stuff get burned? Sure, sometimes.
But at the end of the day, my crazy kitchen of a life is a great joy.
Yum.
God surprises me.
I never know what to expect from Holy week. And each year it is different.
This year, I did all the same stuff, but the big surprise was that the moment... you know, THE moment, was during the Great Vigil tonight. It was when my priest was singing the beginning of the liturgy, in the darkness, in the candlelight. When suddenly I was overcome with gratitude and love and filled with such joy I could barely contain myself.
Some years, the resurrection sneaks up on me some time between Easter and Pentecost.
This year it came, a few moments early, at the very beginning of the Vigil.
Christ is risen, indeed.
Praise God.
