I thank God every time I re-member you… meeting you there in the recesses of a seemingly hopeless psych ward loaned me hope whether you knew it or not. Thank you big brother!

For me, by far the best part of that sojourn was interaction with other patients - especially you. And most particularly, your inviting me to the refuge. Altho my attendance has been spotty so far, i want to be there and feel a part of this loving community.

When you wrote about needing each other, about the community, you connected with me profoundly and reminded me of something I wrote about three weeks before my June 23 crisis. I believed it then - but now, since my world crashed, I am coming to believe it more fully, not as a word addressed to others but maybe even as a a truth for me. I was reflecting on one of my favorite scriptures: “I thank God every time I remember you.” (Philippians 1:3) Here’s some of what I wrote back then:

“When you remember somebody with gratitude, you not only bring that person to mind; you re-member them - there’s a hyphen in there - you re-connect with them, you restore the ties that bind.

“When we connect with other people, we re-member them. Everyone, everyone feels dis-connected in some way. In everyone you meet there is loneliness and pain, in varying degrees. In some it is suppressed; in others, expressed. In some it appears from time to time and in others there is a lifelong sense of being cut off - dare I say the word, “dis-membered”?

“Can we re-member people? Can we help them re-connect to the human family, the beloved of God? Can we, ourselves, tend to our connections with each other so that we don’t have to pretend that we’re good, we don’t have to pretend that we’ve got it all together, in order to be connected, in order to be re-membered?

“The word ‘religion’ comes from the same root as the word ‘ligament.’ Without ligaments, our bodies couldn’t function. Muscles and bones would be useless. Ligaments are the ties that bind, the connections that hold members of the body together. The function of religion, at its best, is to be like ligaments, to connect us and our neighbors.

“Everyone has the image of God within them. Yet everyone is wounded - everyone is dis-connected, even dis-membered, in one way or another. Everyone. From the most notorious sinners to the most self-righteous denunciators, everyone is broken, everyone is carrying a burden. Everyone.

“Can we re-member each other? Can we remember the wounded ones, the broken ones, in our midst and in our communities an around the globe? Can we see the image of God in them; can we honor the image of God in them? Can we be gentle with them? Can we re-member them?

“It is my prayer not only that you will tend those connections between yourself and your neighbors, but that you will notice your own connections. That you will be gentle with youself. Nobody knows the burden you are carrying; nobody but God. And God knows you. God re-members you.

“Thanks be to God.”

And thank you, Tami, and my new refuge friends. I’ve always believed, somewhere inside, that the Gospel was for people who had screwed up their lives and knew it. Except me. I had to be good, admirable, respectable, wise. I had to pass the theology exam. I knew the words, and intellectually I accepted the idea that the gospel was for me, too. But I had this terrible secret; I knew that I was living a lie even while proclaiming the Truth. So I had to pretend to be good - or so I thought.

You wrote, “We need each other!” I didn’t know I needed the refuge until I met you. I’m just getting acquainted, but I sense in the refuge a place of unconditional welcome, where people like me - remorseful, humiliated, busted-up, terrified - can feel love’s embrace.

Thank you. Thank you.

Richard

Thank you, my friends! I’m so glad it really does make a difference and that the journey is accompanied by many good friends. It’s so good to be home! Saw some of you tonight– yes, step 5 was a bugger, but grounding and a little sunshine is just around the bend.
Good night, you kings of Colorado, you princes of The Refuge… ;0)