My Bank Account Had $108 Dollars In It

Any kind of knowing would do.

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Communing, dare I say, praying, on the beach in Florida shortly after I married my now husband.

I went outside in the 38 degree morning yesterday, just as the sun was making shadows of things and turning clouds pink, to watch the full moon set, and its fullness seemed to hold all the wonder of itself.

As I stared at the moon, I wondered if it saw in me the same light. Glowing, full of dents, yet radiant. When are we full enough to hold all of our own wonder?

Two years ago, I made a necklace for a new friend. It was meant to help soothe her in a time of stress and grieving and healing. She wore it like a talisman, every day for months.

As we sat on my couch talking and drinking tea a couple of weeks ago, she said, "I have to tell you something and I haven't been able to." I am not a worrier by nature, but I felt my stomach tighten as I held my breath. "I lost the necklace. Or it was stolen. I don't know. But I can't find it. It happened during our move." I was relieved it wasn't herself and her health she hadn't wanted to tell me about, but I could see the depth of the loss in her flushed cheeks and attempts not to cry. Sometimes an object is more than its physical form, it's a gossamer thread, as strong as silk that tethers us to ourselves as we move through dark canyons, looking for the light.

I moved over to sit on the couch with my friend. I held her tight and told her I would make her another one. It wouldn't be the same, but it was okay. It would be okay.

I asked God this morning to tell me something, something I needed to know or wanted to know, or should know, any kind of knowing would do. I sat still and let go of thoughts and I had a lovely few minutes just being and breathing in my room in the early morning dark, the lights from my little Christmas tree shining on my eyelids, my blanket tucked under my feet and pulled up to my chest.

Anne Lamott says about praying to God: the problem is God rarely replies as soon as we want.

This was the case for me this morning. It was quiet, my mind was clear and yet, nothing. Although one message did come through, but it's so common to my days now, I discounted it. Isn't that the way. We ask for help, advice, wonder, soothing, answers, and when we get them, we say it isn't enough, we want something new, something else, something more.

The message was this. Everything will be okay. Everything, in fact, already is okay. I've been hearing this message for years now. It seems for every question I’ve asked:

How do I stay or how do I leave?

How do I bear this unbearable loss?

How will I cope with my mother's death when it comes?

How do I hold each new devastation that comes in the form of more war, less resources, fires and ice storms, rights and safeties strangled?

How can I be more present, not less, and not lose my mind?

The answer is the same. It is all okay. It will all be okay.

I’ve come to hear this answer, believe this answer, not as a panacea, not as a way to hide my head in the sand, but as a way to walk through it all with my eyes wide open, and my heart too. Rage and fear and devastation are the fastest ways I know down the hole, into the place where there is no room for light or love or forgiveness or going on. Because let’s be clear, much of this life is about going on even when.

Believing that everything is and will be okay is my deepest and most powerful act of resistance.

It's strange, this believing in God, or whatever name we give this wise source that is so much bigger than names and knows so much more than we do.

It is strange to admit I pray. The association with religious institutions based on misogyny and power-over, fills up my throat like a rock when I say it.

But I do believe.

I do pray.

Or at least my form of prayer, which looks like talking to trees, inhaling the singular scent of the creek water as I move my body through it, communing in the dark with the moon.

I also believe in angels, unseen but powerful beings who help us when we ask, and sometimes when we don't.

So there, I've said it.

I believe in God and angels and I pray. I've been wanting to say that for a long time now, but it's scary. I am not a church person. I'm not a religion person. Organized religion has done us far more harm than good, has been weaponized, dare I say it, but religion is not God.

I have only been to church, on purpose, to hear a service once in my life. Otherwise, I've gone as a kid with a friend after a sleepover, or with my mother on Christmas Eve way back before I was a teenager, before she was a single mom. And the last time, to a Catholic ceremony with the man I dated between husbands. The message was so brutal, so punishing, I vowed I would never force myself to go to church again.

But this once, when I went on purpose, I needed help. I had just left my husband, and my grip on the world was loose, wobbly. My bank account had $108 dollars in it, and I walked out with a single black duffel bag, my yoga mat and our dog.

The mom of a close friend could see I was untethered and she invited me to a Sunday service. She said it was small, she said it would help. The church was intimate. There might have been 20 people filling up the wooden pews. I wore a sweater. It was cold, or I was cold from the inside out. It was hard to tell in those days. The priest talked about love, about helping others. It was a message of kindness.

When we all stood to line up and accept the cracker, which I understand in some vague way represents the body of Christ, my friend's mom told me I could just stay seated, or I could line up and cross my arms to get a blessing. I remember a little warmth started in my heart and I thought, if anyone needs a blessing it's me.

I waited in the short line and when I stood in front of the priest in all his robes and sashes, I crossed my arms, wondering if it mattered which arm went on top. He paused in his rote handing of the cracker and met my eyes. His seemed to light up a bit as he put the cracker down. He looked at me for the longest moment and then nodded his head, as if hearing something I couldn't. Then he waved his hand over my head and nodded at me again.

I was terrified of having left my husband. Between our friendship and our marriage, he had been in my life for 26 years, over half my life at that time. He had been my person. He was the one I knew would always be there for me, and I had walked away. His family was my family. I was walking away from them too. I had no money and nowhere to go. I was unsure if I could stay away, if I could survive this voluntary amputation.

But what I heard when the priest gazed at me and then waved his hand above me? It is okay. You will be okay. He will be okay. Everything, and I mean everything, my love, will be okay.

I didn't even hear those words exactly, I felt them. I was suddenly warm, like stepping into a bath and feeling the heat rise up as my body sinks into the water.

I know my friend's mom wanted me to keep going to church with them, to stay with my husband, to let the dog we loved lead to having babies. But I did not go back, to any of it.

It was terrible, the rending of myself from my husband. Like peeling skin away from flesh.

But somehow, I found people along the way, who were steady enough to hold me up, to give me a place to sleep, to help me understand why I needed to leave, each one of them in their own way an angel, each one of them seeing me as I was, looking me in the eyes and pausing to hear the message and pass it on, that I was okay. That everything would be okay.

All of us, together, full enough to bathe in our own wonder.