Sunday Sojourn

Today I’m leaving the beauty of Athens and will first make my way to Madison where my son Jeremy and his brilliant wife Marie live. They’re having an open house today and Jeremy left some things in the room so I’m dropping them off. I don’t mind. It’s the other town that Sherman didn’t burn when he marched through Georgia. It is quaint and beautiful and I always enjoy that drive.

Then I’ll hit I-20 and sail into Atlanta.

I know. Atlanta? There are some things that I need to do there today so what do you do?

I’ll actually be in Atlanta twice this week, retuning on Thursday and Friday to do some work for the Mary Hall Freedom House.

I’ve been laying low through the summer, as least professionally speaking. That is not to say that I haven’t been doing a lot of things. I have. They were just things that were nurturing to me after a very intense and relentless time.

Three years ago I was sitting on my Beloved back deck with Dr. Kathryn Martin who was visiting. I was slumped in my chair looking sad. She told me that I looked exhausted.

“I’m ready to leave Union Mission,” I replied.

“What?” she seemed shocked.

“It’s time Kathryn. I feel it in me. What else is there to accomplish professionally? And the needs just never go away. It’s killing me and Julie. I want to do something else.”

She told me how too many people rely on me to leave and that just made the sad tired grow.

I didn’t leave then and the ensuing years were the hardest and most difficult things that I’ve ever had to get through, both professionally and personally. I should have listened to my gut, which is another way of saying that God was telling me what to do but I listened to other people instead. And it cost me a lot!

So the summer has been spent walking away from the public life, controversial decisions, and people who told me that they would do things but never did. Now it’s been a lot of time alone and long walks with Goddess.

In this time I have come to appreciate the beauty of a thousand shades of green, the majesty of the marsh, the lovely sound of a choir of mussels, the suns daily dance on the ocean and the nightly show that the Milky way puts on for free. I had forgotten how to receive these gifts.

I’ve also come to love and appreciate the people who have gone out of their way to take care of me when I had precious little to give them in return. Many rearranged the way that they live their lives to make certain that I was doing alright. So the Beloved community returned to my life.

Now I am waiting on the sound of my gut to speak. I didn’t listen to God last time. This time I am determined to respond to Her. And I know that I have to wait a bit longer but it will come. I just have to keep preparing myself. Then the fire in my belly will explode.