Last Monday night, it was a homeowners’ association meeting, in which people who supposedly live in community talked over one another and complained about the color of the flowers in the bed at the entrance to the subdivision. They’re blooming, so they look fine to me, but apparently a handful of people are horrified—horrified, I tell you!—that the colors aren’t different from last year. The fact that anyone remembers what the flowers looked like last year gives me pause, but I was so busy trying not to jump out of my skin that I didn’t have the energy to whisper a snarky remark to my neighbor sitting next to me. Martha would be proud.

On Tuesday night, it was twenty people who were strangers to one another a month ago in my pastoral care training class at a local hospital, in which we listened to one another and came together on issues much bigger than a pansy palette.

Wednesday was meditation group, led by a husband-wife team, in which the wife is dying of cancer and living out her last days with us in such a state of grace, acceptance, and peace that I can scarcely speak of it. Being in that sacred space gives me hope and lessens my fear. {Insight Nashville}

Thursday brought time with one of those friends you don’t have to see often to love much. {Hey Louise!}

On Friday I was thanked for doing nothing more than listening with intention, and Saturday found me writing with eight wise and tender souls. We call it the “magic table,” in reference to all the great stuff that’s created around it, but it’s not the table, of course. It’s the risks these women take with me, month after month.

Last week ended with pink peonies and a puppy named Hiram. Who knows what this week might bring?