When given sick orders to stay in and rest all day, what books I take to bed with are usually written by Anne Lamott, among others. What even made it even more "Desert Island Disc-y" was that I had a double eye infection which limited the amount of reading that was comfortable for my vision. So, I had two books with me besides the Bible, Traveling Mercies and Spilling Open by Sabrina Ward Harrison, the last one is slightly embarassing to admit. (One not-so-gentle old friend refers to a period in my life where my advice could not be trusted bc I was reading SARK. SARK writes the forward to "Spilling Open.") Anyway, my trusted friend Anne Lamott is to me what C.S. Lewis is to Tim Keller, someone whose words are deep in your veins. I feel like I could confidently dialogue in her voice about things I never heard her speak of. (My Boston pastor who also read her reminded me numerous times that she wasn't even on board with the Trinity. Pas du tout.) But anyway, the passage that was my bouy that day was about how AL wanted so badly to visit a dying friend. It seemed that everything was conspirining against this car trip to see her friend, cars breaking, viruses being caught. Distraught, she shares this with an acquaintance who happens to work for the Dalai Lama who gently explains that when alot of things seem to go wrong at once, it is often because something big is trying to get itself born. And in order for it to get born perfectly, there need to be distractions so it can make its own way. And so, being overdue for this baby, something I know is trying to get born, I am trying to weather the distractions, the preschool virus-cloud, the undone house-chores, the unsewn (but cute brother blue bird) costumes in the closet, and just SURRENDER. Anyway, AL did get to go visit her friend, it was her childhood friend's mother who was dying and she did get to see her. It seemed to be a day that distractions could not touch and it just seemed holy. She and her friend got to pray and breathe with her mother and bathe her and just gently love her as she passed into death. I hope this for our birth, a holy space, gently loving someone as she passes into the next part.