At 8:55 am, I clicked on the link to the Zoom gathering of SoulStream‘s Leadership Team. I like to be early so I can greet each person as they arrive.
I was feeling unusually peaceful. I’d given myself enough time to participate in Day 6 of A Novena for Times of Unravelling, got onto the mat for 20 minutes of Yoga with Adriene and had a shower before I clicked “Join Meeting.”
When I entered the “room” the team was already engaged in the first item on the agenda. My heart sped up and my chest tightened. I wasn’t five minutes early; I was 25 minutes late. I missed the gentle hellos, morning prayers and the beginning of this discussion.
As I took in my new reality, the embarrassment I felt began to subside. I already knew the back story that was being shared, I’d had lovely morning prayers, and no one was upset with me.
I’ve been learning to take my hands off the railing of my coracle, look up at the sky and trust. That’s exactly what I was doing yet God let me drift out to sea without a “Hey, girl. Don’t forget you need to be somewhere at 8:30.”
Why did God let me drift?
I wonder if the experience of messing up and it being okay was more valuable than arriving on time.
As I write about it, I feel my chest and shoulders soften and my wondering turns to a knowing.
The thing about letting go of the sides and leaning back into trust is the very real possibility that my little boat can drift out into the shipping lanes and be capsized by a freighter.
I recall one evening after dusk when we were sailing with our young family off the coast of India. I was at the helm and having a lovely conversation with our twelve-year-old son and nine-year-old daughter. Engrossed in the moment, I misread the red and green lights coming toward us. Fred came into the cockpit in the nick of time. He cranked the wheel hard to port and off the collision course we were on.
In a similar situation off the coast of Australia, we got a call on our VHF radio from the ship we nearly hit. “We’re having a barbecue on the aft deck. Want to join us?”
“We almost did,” I replied.
Fearing something like that can happen again makes it hard for me to relax back in my coracle. Yet these stories tell me two things: I can trust God to be there in the nick of time if a big danger ensues and God may have a different definition of “big danger” than I do. Apparently, being late for a meeting is not a big danger to God.
Come to me.
Get away with me and you’ll recover your life.
I’ll show you how to take a real rest.
–Matthew 11:28 (The Message)
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Zoom meetings I attend have been scheduled to start after 7 pm to free participants to go outside and bang pots and pans for the frontline healthcare workers. Meanwhile, a B.C. hotel chain, in conjunction with United Way and private donors, is offering free rooms to medical staff. Some have been sleeping in their cars to keep from bringing Covid-19 home to their families. Here is a poem in gratitude for health care workers. I love this video by Chris Mann and he has more. For a laugh, check out this one and this one.
What love mischief are you and God doing for the world?
Let me know and I will include it in an upcoming post.
An Everyday Pilgrim 
As always Esther you take me to a place of rest and exhalation…releasing the breath I didn’t realize I was holding onto. Thank you for sharing from your real life vulnerable places. I am so encouraged by the Love Mischief that you and Jesus are always up to! ❤️ Gail
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Thanks, Gail. That’s so encouraging.
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