Text this week is the Gospel of Life, living in the present moment.
Reflection Waiting for the BART yellow line to San Francisco, chill wind whipped hair into my eyes while the screaming thunder of the approaching train signaled my senses, “Be on guard.” Minding my posture as well as the gap, I settled into the welcome warmth of the less than half occupied car. Unwashed train windows were fitting backdrop for the long winded woman who joined us at the first stop.
It took me awhile to figure out that the wired woman was pontificating to London Breed, the mayor of San Francisco. Words were lost in the river of her emotion as she balanced her bulging backpack on the seat, leaving scarce room for her to sit while reaching into a tattered sack to retrieve a can of beer. I resumed my vigil surveilling fly by cardboard villages buried beneath overpasses and caravans of dilapidated vehicles parked nose to tail along their curbside home. Gazing through dirt stained windows tears caught my throat and blurred my vision.
Screeching to the next jarring halt, like a neglected proscenium the train doors part revealing a mammoth man squeezed and restrained in a wheelchair, a ghoulish red haired doll strapped to his shoulder as a disheveled caretaker bumps, bangs and locks the scene in place. Within a matter of seconds London Breed’s provocateur renews her protestations, the wheelchair man’s head falls forward and we dive to one hundred and thirty five feet below the San Francisco bay.
Now staring straight into oblivion, the damn in my blurry eyes bursts as a fiery tong pierces my heart. “Oh my God, such anguish and adversity, such misery and misfortune. And here I sit on my way to sip wine and slurp oysters. I am so blessed, so incredibly blessed. I could be barely surviving entombed beneath train tracks or restrained in a wheelchair with a diabolical doll strapped to my shoulder.” Then something broke open and it occurred to me. I am.
I am not other than London Breed’s agent provocateur. I am not other than wheelchair man or the dispossessed box dwellers.
When Moses asks God for God’s name, God answers, I AM. (Exodus 3.13) I AM is that which we all are, made in the image and likeness of the One, Holy and Living I AM. We are One I AM. When we allow ourselves to settle into the fullness and messiness, the wounds and the wonder of every stinking real life moment we not only find our selves, we also find God in the faces of every I AM.
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