It’s been a long afternoon in the outreach office—
crying clients, dying clients, clients who were high,
clients who were schizophrenic, clients without power,
clients without water, clients sleeping under the bridge.
We are discouraged. Overwhelmed.
Then one of the other volunteers says:
“isn’t it amazing how much Jesus loves us?”
I would have laughed, I would have been embarrassed,
but he is such a good man, a kind man,
and for a moment I have that feeling in my ribcage
that is both a feeling of emptiness, of hollowness,
and yet of something filling me up.
I am called to the emergency room to bless
an old woman who is dying.
Only the machines are keeping her alive.
Her devoted friend is there, her loving and faithful friend,
and she quietly takes one of her hands and strokes and kisses it,
then moves to the other side of the bed and strokes
and kisses the other hand, then moves to the top of the bed,
between the monitors, to stroke her hair and lean down
and say how much she loves her, how much she will miss her,
but that now it’s time to let go. Let go, my dear.
Let go.
I visit an old woman who was once a dancer.
She is leaning to the right against the cushions of her couch,
which is facing the window in her big, rambling house,
beyond the window a hill of maples and firs and oaks
just turning yellow and red. It’s been raining but now the air
is clear. The sun is bright between branches.
There are people who give off a kind of light.
You want to be around them.
When you’re with them it’s like you’re standing by a fire.
“It’s all God,” she tells me, bringing her hand
to her heart. She is looking out at the trees.
“Everything is God. Everything is love.”