Being Fully Known

I went to a Women's Tea, because a woman that I love invited me. Upon arriving at her table, she handed me a gift that I adore, with the attached pendant she made from an postcard. She knows me and running and I adore this pendant in a way I can't describe! She got me!

Once she and I caught up, I turned and observed the others at my table. I instantly wanted to bail. There were hats and fancy dresses and women who had lovely scripts, articulate speakers and a label that said Be on your best behavior. I thought I should write a scene about it, creating caricatures of people who go to teas on Saturday afternoons, juxtaposed against me, who doesn't own a hair brush.

Then each woman opened her mouth and spoke. Each one had a heartbreaking and hope-filled story. My internal jaw kept dropping as each new story unfolded. One lady shared a severe health issues, another parenting struggles, another the journey of she and her husband living apart for several years, a few of the heartache of aging parents, one a late divorce, and each of us entering into an ache for being loved. We talked while nibbling at thumb-sized cucumber sandwiches.

Then came a speaker named Joanne Beckman, talking out of her life and recent book, titled Groceries on a Saturday Morning (available on Amazon). I tried to retell one of her stories and sobbed to my husband just before arriving at a dinner party last night (oops). I had no idea how much it would hit me. She talked about being known, saying the worst thing a child can say to a parent is, "You don't know me." One story she shared was about how her adopted son from an early age was fixated on if his "Real Mom," would recognize him if she saw him. Joanne's answer goes something like this, "If all the Chinese boys age four were lined up in a row (some huge 9 million or such number) and I went down the row, I would see you and Know you."What a picture.

It relates to the idea of Christ knowing me. It does not matter how much I know him or how much I have changed since college or what I did yesterday good or bad, but he knows me. He formed and continues to grow each finger nail and eye lash.

One of my best friends sent me a Bob Dylan song, I am learning to play before she and I go camping next month, that I just have to end with.

In the time of my confession,
in the hour of my deepest need
When the pool of tears beneath my feet
flood every newborn seed
There's a dyin' voice within me
reaching out somewhere,
Toiling in the danger and in
the morals of despair.

Don't have the inclination to
look back on any mistake,
Like Cain,
I now behold this chain of events
that I must break.
In the fury of the moment
I can see the Master's hand
In every leaf that trembles,
in every grain of sand.

Oh, the flowers of indulgence
and the weeds of yesteryear,
Like criminals,
they have choked the breath
of conscience and good cheer.
The sun beat down upon the steps
of time to light the way
To ease the pain of idleness
and the memory of decay.

I gaze into the doorway of
temptation's angry flame
And every time I pass that way
I always hear my name.
Then onward in my journey
I come to understand
That every hair is numbered
like every grain of sand.

I have gone from rags to riches
in the sorrow of the night
In the violence of a summer's dream,
in the chill of a wintry light,
In the bitter dance of loneliness
fading into space,
In the broken mirror of innocence
on each forgotten face.

I hear the ancient footsteps like
the motion of the sea
Sometimes I turn, there's someone there,
other times it's only me.
I am hanging in the balance
of the reality of man
Like every sparrow falling,
like every grain of sand.