I was sitting in my living room, having just turned on the TV because WNYC reporters had said - just before the radio cut out entirely - that there were reports of a fire at the World Trade Center. I was looking at the smoke and fire billowing upward from the plane-shaped hole in the side of one of the towers, foolishly thinking that - although it was certainly horrible, and everyone above that point was almost certainly dead - at least they might be able to get up there somehow and put out the fire and save the building.

At 9:02, still watching in disbelief, I saw the second plane hit. I saw it before the reporters did; they were talking away and chattering and suddenly exclaimed about the explosion in the other tower. They had only seen the result. I had seen the sleek, deadly shape swooping in from the right of the picture, taking its aim, preparing to strike. That was when we knew it was all on purpose, that somebody had done this deliberately. But still, I thought, if they could just put out the fires...

At 9:40 or so, as the second tower hit was the first to collapse (I apologize, but I get so confused between "tower one and tower two," "north tower and south tower") - I never even thought it possible that they would collapse. It never even crossed my mind. I was devastated. Unable to really think about the loss of life, all I could seem to think of was that I had loved that skyline, I had loved the sight of those two shining steel-and-glass pillars anchoring the island, and it was gone...but maybe they could at least save one of them.

And then at 10:30, as the first tower hit collapsed in slow and stately horrible elegance, I just screamed. Just sat in my living room and screamed.

I'm still not really used to the new skyline. I still feel a twinge, flying into Newark and seeing the Empire State Building and not seeing the towers, even though I know they're long since gone. I feel anger at the people who did this thing, who thought it was a just thing to do. I feel anger at the people who lead this country, who have used this thing that was done to us as an excuse for all manner of unconscionable things. I feel overwhelmingly sad at the turns the world has taken since then.

Yes, you're reading right. I'm currently cruising at 35,000 feet aboard Continental's flight 1165 to Atlanta, Georgia, which (according to the pilot) will be ten minutes early, due to circumstances beyond [their] control. There's just not a thing they can do about it, he says. Go ahead, break my heart, get me an extra ten minutes...see if I care.

Mind you, I'm not posting from here. I'm very good at spending money, but some things just are not worth it to me. There's not a thing I'm going to say in this entry that's worth spending $16 to post it from here, instead of waiting until I get to my apartment in Atlanta.

And those of you who know me oh-so-well are wondering about now, "What's she doing with the laptop up, typing, at 35,000 feet. Doesn't she usually bury her head in her needlework from about the time they ring the 10,000-foot bell until the captain tells the flight attendants to be seated for arrival?"

( read the rest of the long-ish musings on flight )

You can also find me at the following address: http://yarnspinner.typepad.com/

It's a blog; I'm not entirely sure what it's purpose will be as opposed to this journal, but we'll see. In any case, come visit and stuff. It's my one accomplishment for the day, aside from packing to go home...which isn't done yet, so I can't stay long. I'm trying to straighten and clean up the place for my colleague who's going to stay here next week, and get my stuff packed, and right now I'm exhausted and working on a migraine...not good.

Forgot to mention one of the most amusing side incidents from hell week: The Bet.

Last Friday, going into hell week, the project manager made a bet with me: "Five dollars says N tries to hijack this deliverable away from you." I laughed, and said, "Him and what army?"

And at first, I have to say, everything went just fine. The PM looked at me inquiringly Wednesday morning when we returned with the printed copies, and I shook my head. "No dice; everything was just fine."

Thursday, after the incident previously mentioned, I pulled a five out of my wallet, walked over to the PM's desk, tossed it in front of him on the keyboard, and said, "You win" as I turned and walked back to my desk. He roared, put the five in his wallet - then looked a little sheepish and tried to give it back. I wouldn't let him, of course - a bet's a bet, and until I saw N's behavior on Thursday, I'd've said the odds were firmly in my favor.

So Friday, he insisted on taking me to lunch. Sigh...

It was a good lunch; he was looking for perspective on what had happened, and how to handle the various personalities going forward. Now, he had had information that I didn't: he had worked with N before also, but in different kinds of situations. And in every one of those situations, this behavior had surfaced.

I, on the other hand, had only worked with him in one-on-one situations, essentially: he was providing a document or documents as part of a larger package, but he was only involved in his documents, and didn't have any real participation with the other deliverables. Now, it was like pulling teeth to get him to release his documents for review; he was always 'still tweaking a few things.'

But I had never seen him get possessive and domineering, trash-talk other people's work, and act like the only important opinion in the world was his own. Never.

Which, of course, is why I was confident enough of my odds to take the bet in the first place, and so shocked later at behavior I would never have expected.

Very bright, clear, sunny day - gives me hope for tomorrow. I just love it when there's real sun on Easter.

Still feeling curiously light and detached - yet on the knife-edge of tears; I remember once saying that this is where I live now, on the knife's edge, balanced between laughter and tears. So it is.

Sleeping better; this is good. With some great good fortune I may not be too wiped out for the week.

Still trying not to lean too heavily on the things I thought I was deciding, this Lent. I think some of the grief is spent; I think some will have to be spent every year for a while, and the full store may never be exhausted.

Of course the looming shadow of the airplane keeps taking over my thoughts. The writer of The Purpose-Driven Life, in the last chapter, says if we're worrying about something, it indicates that we haven't put God at the center. Reasonable advice, but maybe a little too simplistic - and judgmental.

And yet, a part of me feels that if I can just keep knowing that sense of being held in that great loving heart, if I can just get inside again, I can be safely inside even if what's outside is all misery - like the cross. I sensed yesterday not the outward horror of it, but the inner love that held it all together, that kept the very universe from flying apart at the thought of God dying.

As always, on this day, there is the renewed shock of emptiness. We ceased bowing in the side aisle after Thursday - well, most of us did. I think there are those of us so on autopilot we simply forget why we bow - to reverence the Lord, present in the reserved sacrament in the tabernacle. And since the tabernacle is flung open to demonstrate its manifest emptiness...no bow.

The bow in the church is trickier. We bow in the aisle for the sacrament, bow again toward the high altar and take our seats. From the end of the Solemn Liturgy until the end of Compline, while the crucifix rests against the altar, we genuflect.

Today - we do nothing. We simply take our seats quietly. The statement is clear: there is no one here, nothing here alive to reverence. All signs of life, even life in the process of dying, are gone.

All signs of life are gone, but we can't seem to just go away. We keep coming back, singing psalms, reading lessons. We keep returning to poke at it, just to see - is it really dead? Is there maybe some little thing, some tiny spark we missed? We cannot let it rest.

Of course, we know the whole story. And it is interwoven throughout these liturgies, in a way that insists we cannot consider any one aspect in isolation. As it says in the haggadah, "Together they shall be: the maror of slavery, the matzah of freedom."

Later - that was the point at which I went to the library looking for a copy of the haggadah, except that it's not in the guest library. And in wandering around I got chatting with people, and then it was dusting and sweeping and mopping time, interspersed with Bede's talk on the Easter Vigil liturgy. And then Diurnum and dinner and more polishing, and rehearsal (which was hilarious) and Vespers and supper and more hauling of holy hardware. The chairs are set, the bells are set out - all is ready. Between the bell sets Elizabeth and I made, and the ones I made last year, there are more than enough for every chair.

Feeling sad, a little flat...William (who I for some reason called Bill earlier, God knows why) seems a bit touchy, and even Kevin was getting a bit threadbare by the end of the day. So now I'm afraid I was pushy and obnoxious rather than helpful...but that is because I'm wired to be afraid.

Still far too much stirring about to even consider setting out the baskets - I'm afraid I really will have to get up at 3:00 for that (four's too late - by then someone will be down making coffee...I'm thinking of going for a third and final labyrinth walk; maybe when I'm done writing I'll throw clothes back on to do that, and if the house is pretty quiet by then, I'll sneak the baskets down.

Funny - there seems to be a nursemaid side of me assigned to the caretaker now - every time it starts whining, a part of me just hushes it, says, "Be still, now. Learn, and grow."

Last year I baptized it - brought it into the family of God. It still isn't really integrated; it still acts without permission, and primarily exhibits behavior that is less than useful. Almost demonic in its ability to twist reality, to look at things through the funhouse mirror of fear and rage that are its window on the world. Ever and always ready to see or sense abandonment, to feel left out and afraid and sad.

But not as prominent this year. Not as dominant; so maybe that's why not so much weeping and deep grief as there has been some years: the person who meets these days, this year, is more at peace and more all of a piece.

Some deep part of me just keeping singing, "Home! Home! Home!" Feeling the lovely spirits gathered around me, and feeling "Home!"

There's too much temptation to think ahead, to start fretting over things. Not now. Now is the time for resting, for letting Jesus continue his quiet, behind-the-scenes harrowing of hell.

If I were asleep now, I'd get six hours - if I could believe deeply enough in myself to set the alarm right and to turn it on.

Bede was funny this morning - he pointed out that he will be Celebrant, and he intends to give the Easter acclamation enthusiastically, and he expects enthusiasm in return. I said to him on my way out of rehearsal that Douglas must realize that those of us who can a) read music and b) read chant notation and c) sing will in fact sing the antiphons, and he nodded, and said, "Don't take that stuff too seriously about only ringing the bells on the last verse of the last hymn, after the Gloria - start a subversive movement."

It's easy to get scattered and unfocused; all this energy comes out in its various ways, and it's too easy to let it get away, to become unsettled and forget about being.

So...I think I'll go do my labyrinth walk - I think if it's clear I should have moonlight by now - and see if the coast is clear for eggs.

Sigh...I have endured, and I am here - as always, struggling somewhat to just be here, without expectations.

The trip Sunday night [back to Atlanta after Palm Sunday] was lovely and without unpleasant incident; the trip Tuesday night was slightly bumpier but not bad.

Monday was good; turns out I didn't have to beg the car, because Shreesha needed to stop for groceries! God does provide.

Weather's been lovely; it's even been pretty today but very cold. I got up and did the packing and stuff yesterday, and it was gloriously warm but I'd seen the reports that it would turn cold, so I brought essentially two of everything: warm weather & cold. Did not however bring the silk long underwear. May wish I had...I know I did last year, and bundled up and got down to the crypt for vigil and was roasting...but I'd recalled a time when I was freezing instead.

So I departed about 1:50, with a side trip to the Mall for the Easter eggs. Between that and having to stop for lunch and gas, I thought I'd miss Vespers - but I arrived with time to actually fling everything into the room. And at least one person has seen the baskets, which were sitting in the back seat; knew I should've put them in the trunk! Oh, well - hopefully he'll forget...or won't say anything.
Last little bits of comfort, Vespers and Compline - last times to say the Gloria Patri, the antiphon on the Nunc dimittis, the hymn (The royal banners forward go)...all to be stripped away in the starkness of the Triduum.

It isn't the shock, the surprise - it's become blissfully familiar - the antiphons and responds now well-known, well-remembered. The choir's rehearsing them now.

It's not surprising to us, that this betrayal happens. It feels very different, this week, in light of the present state of the world. It's easier to feel the precariousness of the situation, to feel a little hesitant on Palm Sunday...to feel a little like we're making too much noise and somebody's going to be upset.

All week, that sense of, "Now what? What happens next?" Like the Iraqis, waiting and watching to see what their great liberators will do. They danced in the streets, and cheered as we rode in triumph in our tanks; what will they be doing today, and tomorrow, and the next day? Will they turn ugly, throw rocks (or worse) and say, "Go away! We don't want you! We never did!"

They would be justified. We've destroyed homes and marketplaces, killed and maimed civilians, then stood by deaf and dumb as priceless archaeological treasures were looted or destroyed, as houses of worship were plundered. Not our archaeological treasures; not our houses of worship - not our faith; not our problem. We've secured the treasure we care about: the oil is safely protected.

How differently Jesus comes to Jerusalem! No mighty army, no bombs, no tanks - not even a warhorse does he ride, but a humble workaday donkey. He doesn't come to take over, to impose his will - he just comes, simply, quietly, He isn't taking over, he's coming to be with us.

But we want him to take over; some of us do, anyway. Everyone is nervous, expectant - even though we don't quite know what to expect.

We should know, by now. We who have followed him on the road, have eaten and drunk and walked and talked and slept and rose with him - we ought to know. He's told us plainly enough: to do what God wants will put him at serious odds with those who do not want what God wants, and they are willing to kill to silence those who challenge their comfortable security.

But the disciples don't seem to know what's coming - or maybe they do. Maybe as they prepare the Passover, they sense the turbulence and uneasiness around them, and fear that bad things are about to happen.

We don't want to know. We feel squeamish shouting, "Crucify him!" on Palm Sunday, but we'll shout "throw the switch" at an execution. We want to pretend we would never do such terrible things to people - all the while being willing to dismiss an armless, orphaned Iraqi boy as "collateral damage."

God keeps telling us about his love, and we keep trying to kill it.

God keeps saying, "Love!" and we keep shouting, "Die!"

God keeps whispering, "I love you!" and we keep screaming "I'll kill you!"

But God's whisper wins.

New echoes, this year. Darker ones. As the altar is stripped, I see images of looters ransacking mosques and museums. Betrayal and political murder and exigencies of war are all too easy to believe in, right now.

The task, as always, is to be here - and to be here. Hard again, this year, with all the crazy chasing around. The more demanding my life gets, the less likely I am to have a clue how I really am; I don't have time to know, and if it isn't good, I can't afford to know it, because there's no time for it.

I didn't do this earlier in the day, and felt unprepared for tonight - though I don't think we're ever really prepared...Douglas shaking all over as he washed my feet, and I could see him shaking throughout. Many moments of distractedness and mental wandering. One deep, awesome moment when I could feel all of us held, embraced into one beating, bleeding, loving heart. One deep, awesome moment when our voices reciting the post-communion prayer seemed larger than the room, when they seemed joined down a long echoing nave stretching back to Jerusalem and ahead into heaven. Several moments when I could not sing or speak for weeping.

I am not, in some ways, as well as I was last year. In too many instances, that part of myself that is not well has gotten the upper hand. I still eat too unconsciously, too unmindfully of what I'm really feeding and why.

But I don't think I've regressed entirely. I did go crazy when Don's condition got worse, but I'm not having ongoing rages or bouts of wanting to jump up and down on the pill bottle. Partly that may be because I know people don't always have to take this particular medication forever, or even for a very long time. Partly it's because I'm onto the caretaker's tricks, and the mature adult part of me knows that it's much better to medicate this condition and control it than to leave it uncontrolled, which it was for a few months at least.

I got too busy with work and fell away from the task of grieving the hurts and betrayals of my youth. In some ways, this is good - I got past and away from the immediate sense of insanity. But it is still there, and it is good for me never to forget that it is still there - when I forget, my betrayer gains power.

The claws, the deep embedded thorns are still there; their poison is perhaps neutralized but not entirely dispelled. That one could still touch the strings and make me bleed, if he chose. I do not feel it as keenly, right now, but I know it.

To grieve and to let go; those have been my tasks. I have no idea how well I've done them. This panic-fear about flying has sort of superceded all else. Of course it's the ultimate fear of abandonment; it is the cross. It is the thing that God will allow to kill me, the horrible death to which God will abandon me.

But there - there is the heart of it. God will abandon me. Even God. I will be totally alone.

Just saying, "That's not true. God never abandons us;" that won't do it. I need to live it, enact it, remember it - be present to it. Then maybe...gotta get some sleep now before vigil.

Point to Ponder: The heart of worship is surrender.

Verse to Remember: Surrender your whole being to him to be used for righteous purposes. --Romans 6:13b (TEV)

Question to Consider: What area of my life am I holding back from God?

The author is certainly right about one thing: surrender is not a popular word, and it certainly is associated with capitulation, with giving up, with giving in, with compromising one's truth...all manner of things that I don't think are meant by surrender to God.

Surrender is a way to describe what I did when I trusted that there was a place out there for me, that I would come to it eventually, that I would know it when I came to it. That spring and summer were very much my Exodus from Egypt (and anyone reading this who knows anything about my time at Wit(less)co will know exactly what I mean).

It's what we do when we admit we're not God and that maybe it's better if the one with the map and the directions is allowed to be the one driving the bus. It's also - oddly, paradoxically, ironically - the one way to discover who we truly are, who we are truly created to be.

Not everything that happens may be pretty. That's the part I especially don't like. Letting God drive doesn't mean nothing will ever be bad. People will still do what they do, and sometimes what other people do may be harmful, to themselves or to me, or both. That's the secret: we weren't in control of what those people do or do not do, even when we thought we were in charge. So why not admit we're not in charge?

When I'm trying to run things, I get so involved in trying to control everything and so frustrated and frightened when I can't, that I'm incapable of acting freely, lovingly, or generously. I'm too busy being domineering and pushy. I'm too busy being afraid of what may happen if I give in and stop trying to control everything.

All that will happen when I do that is that I'll be able to find who I truly am, allow others to be who they truly are, and accept whatever happens and try to find the grace of God in it.

As to what aspect I'm most likely to be trying to control for myself, well...that's probably my husband's health. See notes about controlling what other people do.

...for anyone reading this who isn't my college roommate! :)

We're reading together a book called The Purpose-Driven Life, by a guy named Rick Warren. This is something we do periodically, usually for Advent or Lent: choose a book, usually a seasonal devotional or at least something that fits handily (like this book) and read it "together" over the miles, and then discuss it. It's a way we stay close, and keep doing something we always enjoyed when we roomed together: discussing books!

Of course, we're both rather busy people, so the discussion gets a little slow sometimes...but bear with us, or skip those entries if they're not interesting. I promise other interesting things in addition to them.

Point to Ponder: It's all for him.

Verse to Remember: For everything comes from God alone. Everything lives by his power, and everything is for his glory. --Romans 11:36 (LB)

Question to Consider: Where in my daily routine can I become more aware of God's glory?

Very Celtic chapter, this. Very Celtic idea, too - that absolutely everything can be done in awareness of the Divine within and around it and us. The Celts had prayers for building the fire in the morning and banking it at night; for carrying water; for doing the laundry; for milking the cows.

They had this attitude even before they encountered Christianity, and when they accepted Christianity, they practiced it in the same way they had always practiced their religion - in the day-to-day activities that made up their lives.

I think perhaps where I can become more aware is when I'm doing things I don't necessarily enjoy, like when I'm stuck in traffic or grinding away at something deadly dull at work. It's easy to feel the presence of God in singing, in cooking, in cuddling my cats or my husband. It's much harder when I'm sitting here coaching a silly-ass consultant through something a seven-year-old could learn from reading the directions...

Yet even there, God is. Even there, I have the opportunity to be patient and kind, and to be aware that this person who is making me crazy is also a child of God, and no doubt has a right to be here, no less than the trees and the stars.

But it does get difficult, sometimes.

These little tests are so cute...silly, but cute.

You're the FONT tag- some people ignore you, some people adore you. When you like someone, you like them a lot, but when you don't like them- watch out.