. . . Fear.
That came to me so powerfully at meeting this week.
It’s so easy to “feel the love” when I’m in worship, with my family, in community, sitting around the flickering candles of our Wednesday evening circle for “the formerly incarcerated and those who care about them.”
But . . . (Don’t even have to finish that sentence, do I?!)
Just finished the “astonishing” The Hare with Amber Eyes , a memoir about the Ephrussi family. But also about netsuke—tiny, exquisite Japanese carvings once used as toggles. So have been thinking about carrying in my pocket/on my person some thing that I can touch (the author of The Hare with Amber Eyes, Edmund De Waal, is a potter and has lots to say about touching things as a way of learning) to, ahem, feel the love. To be sustained and comforted when I find myself in that scary and dark valley.
Sure beats a hairshirt!
I’m working with that idea, also, and studying the Mes de Morado in Peru. The people (perhaps most of them are Catholic) wear purple as a visible reminder wile they make their appeals to God. They believe in Miracles in Peru–imagine that!