We Need Each Other

In my travels last week I read a book called "Here if you Need Me" by Kate Braestrup. The author went to ministry school after the death of her husband and became a chaplain for a team of search and rescue workers. She relates experiences and some thoughts and ideas from her work and life. Some of my favorite quotes:

"At other times...all the specifics that separated me from Annie--age, race, class, state of health, who needed care and who provided it--would fall away, and we would just be there alive together. And that would be a moment vibrating, in some sweet and startling way, with all the electric potential of love."

"Mrs. Levesque (who's husband was just found dead in the water) will put me to use as a witness, as crutch, as Kleenex, as proxy for Jean-Pierre--a temporary substitute for all the neighbors, church folk, friends, and family members who will soon come bursting through her door to share her grief. I am a transitional love object, an objet d'amour...What a strange privilege it is to be so used."

"Sometimes I think I live and work in a parallel universe. That is, I know that I live in a crass and boorish culture, a culture of shock jocks and road rage, "reality" television and thong underwear, corruption and consumerism, mean porn and meaner theology. I know all this. And still, the world I move through is rich and beautiful, and the people I work with...are decent, discerning and good."

Don...has that enviable quality I see in some... It's as if, no matter what the circumstances--even staggering around in wet woods looking for a corpse--he is always centered and joyful, with well-being at his core."

"But then, a grateful heart beats in a world of miracles. If I could only speak one prayer for you, my children, it would be that your hearts would not only beat but grow ever greater in gratitude, that your lives, however long they prove to be and no matter how they end, continue to bring you miracles in abundance."

"Hell is when you die, and no one cares."

Good thoughts. Thoughts that promote more thoughts. And, while I don't agree with much of her theology, I was impressed with her love and compassion and faith in humanity. We really do need each other and, though I will never be an ordained minister or a chaplain of any sort, I intend to be more aware of others around me. I want to "be there alive together" and feel that "electric potential of love" and have a life filled with "miracles in abundance."