Home from Maui

A few days ago, I was walking a sacred labyrinth on the coast of Maui, which is located on the edge of a sacred Hawaiian burial ground; beautiful rocks, a calm ocean of breath-taking color, a calm, cloudless sky, and whales¾whales playing, blowing and breaching as they showed off for those who would stand still long enough to watch.

Together with a group of ministerial friends, we walked in total silence and the silence remains with me now. Whenever I participate in an activity such as this, it reawakens in me a place that exists at my core. The fullness that I feel is almost overwhelming; at the least, it expands my heart and brings tears of joy to my eyes.

Walking in the company of seven ministerial friends and comrades who traveled from all over the United States to gather, pray, vision and design an experience to satisfy our ministerial field. Together we cooked and laughed and processed and allowed spirit to inform our being. I am so incredibly grateful for being elected to serve on this committee of individuals.

But more than being happy about this team, I am simply so glad to be called to the service that I give. My position offers me a unique role in life that is unlike many others. Each day, I am called to be a witness to the private lives of people in their darkest and their most joyous hours. This up-close-and-personal view alternates between being appreciated and resented. When I am doing my job well, it is because I bring to the table my intuition and my ability to see the truth. But there is a very thin line between students and congregants wanting to be seen, and feeling horrified when I am able to see things that they were hoping to hide.

The saddest part of this is that, If people realized that the more open, available and authentic they are, and the more visible and transparent they are, they would see how much more beautiful they are

This is true at the core of each, even though I sometimes have to pass by some of the ugliness of their humanity: when it is pure and unprotected, it has a beauty to it unlike anything else. True authenticity allows the witness to see not only the end result, but the path to that end result, and when you are able to see the entire thing, all you have left is elegance. Pure, beautiful, human elegance

This up-close-and-personal view holds for me the same kind of experience that the labyrinth walk on the coast of Maui provided. Both have an exquisite harmony and beauty to them and my heart feels the beauty and the healing of being a witness to this. I am so grateful.