Margaret's Bench


In January and
February, I told about my early
years on the winding path toward (and around and through)
vocation and profession in life. At the end of last
month’s piece, I was headed to graduate school at Ohio
University, marching steadily toward what I saw as my true
destiny: to become a professor of English literature and
composition in an accredited institution of higher learning.
It didn’t happen that way.
We’ll skip the details on how I ended up outside academia. The
long version is too long to tell here, and the short version too
short to make much sense. I’ll just say that after three years,
I left grad school with a master’s degree in English literature
but not the doctorate needed to start a career in higher
education. Over-educated and under-qualified, I moved across
country to Seattle, took odd jobs, wrote a couple of novels that
no one was fool enough to publish, stumbled into a career as a
technical writer, earned some money, had a religious conversion,
and found myself writing about that.
In the year 2000, while working on parts of what would become
Stumbling Toward God, my first published book that is truly
my own (that is, not technical writing for hire), a memory from
childhood flashed to mind. I suddenly remembered being about ten
years old, looking ahead to the millennium, and seeing myself
not the teacher I’d always expected to be, but, to my
disbelieving eyes, a real writer.
I was both literally and figuratively taken aback. That
childhood vision, which felt so unlikely at the time, had
actually been a premonition.
Today I am the author of three books about one aspect or another
of the spiritual path. My books are not best-sellers (yet), but
I know that they make a difference, because I occasionally hear
from readers who tell me so. And—another surprise—after a long
hiatus I have dipped into teaching again, wondering if I might
actually turn into the teacher I always thought I would be.
It’s strongly tempting to suggest that everything wraps up
neatly, and that one finally “arrives” at one’s rightful
destination. But the truth is never so simple. Life is a journey
with many way stations but no destinations, or at least none
that I have seen. Some of the paths feel right and true, others
like a long detour through a dank wilderness. At any step on the
way I can tumble once again into confusion and doubt, forever
asking or demanding of the Cosmos and the Creator—
What am I supposed to be doing?
Where am I going?
When will I get there?
WHO AM I?
The answers, as far as I can tell, are in the doing and the
going, in the hope and the faith, in the confusion and the
doubt, in the road ahead.

On February 6, 2010, I met with five other women at
St. Placid
Priory in Lacey, Washington, for a retreat called “Stumbling
Toward God.” At the close of the day, we joined together in a
brief worship service, each of us offering a prayer or blessing
for our time together.
Here are our prayers, offered for your inspiration and blessing,
with the promise that wherever you are on the stumbling path of
life, you are not alone.
"Yours is the day, O God, yours also the
night; you established the moon and the sun.
You fixed all the boundaries of the earth; you
made both summer and winter."
-- Psalm 74:15-16
May God bless our feet as we stumble.
May God bless our eyes
with light to see the way. May God bless our hearts with gratitude for the
path. May God bless our feet as we stumble.
May we bless God with our courage to journey.
-- Chrysty, Renton
Lord, thank you that as we stumble toward you, you meet us more than halfway. Thank you that as much as we desire to know you, you
desire to be known. Thank you for the times of insight and clarity and
for the times of confusion and doubt. You speak to
us through both. Thank you for giving us this time to stop our business and enter into quiet sharing.
-- Sharon, Packwood
Thank you for the gifts of this day. For meeting
these women on courageous journeys, which gives me
the courage to feel that this experience can be a
beginning, that I may find my path in spite of fear
and hesitancy and move closer to connection with
others and relationship with you. I pray for your
patience. Amen.
-- Jennie, Olympia |
 |
Today I believe you have shown me
that stopping to reflect on who are you, stopping to
acknowledge your presence in my life, and stopping
to re-energize really allows your grace to work
inside and outside of self.
-- Kim, Packwood
Thank you, Spirit of Love, for this day of words,
tears, and muffins. Bless ____(*) for her humor which she has been given
in exchange for a fearful childhood. Bless _____ for loving a little boy in her class and
therefore changing his life. Bless _____ for loving her community, through thick
and thin. Bless _____ for making music, as necessary for life
as bread. Bless me in the ways only you know I need. (Like
forgiveness.) Bless Margaret for bringing us together in this
peaceful, holy place, then stirring us up so that we
can use our dark places to make light.
-- Barbara, Olympia
(*) Barbara wrote a blessing for each woman at the
retreat, drawing from all we shared in our time
together. For privacy’s sake, I deleted names in the posting… then realized that when I
look over her list of blessings, I can fill in each
blank with the name of someone I know well—a friend,
family member, or neighbor. Maybe you can do the
same. |
And bless us all, you and me and everyone else, on this
surprising road into life.
-- Margaret


Archives: Margaret's Bench
February 2010 --
All through childhood I thought I’d be a teacher when I
grew up, except for one moment of epiphany at the age of
about ten, when I had an surprising vision of myself as
a writer in my middle years...
more...
January 2010 --
When I was a kid,
I thought I’d grow up to be a teacher. In the first
grade, I wanted to be a first grade teacher. In the
second grade, I wanted to be a second grade teacher. In
junior high, I saw myself as a junior high teacher, and
in high school I wanted to teach high school...
more...
December 2009 --
Happy Birthday to the Courtyard – three years old this
month. 2009 was my year of haiku.
more...
November 2009 --
Last month, I wrote about being in the in-between time,
waiting for my haiku book to arrive from the printer.
After reading what I wrote, my sister Rose emailed from
her home in Australia and asked, “What does the
in-between time feel like...?”
more...
October 2009
--
I am in the in-between time.
My new book,
Haiku – The Sacred Art, went to the printer in
mid-September. I can’t change anything in it anymore,
which is a good thing...
more...
September 2009
--
more...
July/August 2009
-- Six years ago, my faith community of St. Paul’s
fell into a fiery pit of internal dissension that, at
times, looked as if it might be hot enough to consume
and destroy the parish...
more...
June 2009 --
A numen is a spirit that inhabits and gives life
to a place, object, or natural happening. The word’s
Latin root means both divine power and a ‘nod of the
head’...
more...
May 2009 --
A few weeks ago, our 21-year-old Plymouth Voyager
finally gave up the ghost. Time to say goodbye...
more...
April 2009 --
Near the end of March, David and I traveled to Portland
so that I could attend a lecture and workshop given by
Diana Butler Bass at Portland’s Trinity Episcopal
Cathedral...
more...
March 2009 --
My first-ever Episcopal service occurred fourteen years
ago, just a few days after Ash Wednesday. It was the
first Sunday of Lent, and the preacher’s message was not
at all what I expected...
more...
More archives of
Margaret's Bench...
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