I'm Walkin Here!

I had a truly startling moment this afternoon. A strange audio synchronicity like I have not had in quite some time.

As I mentioned on one of my other blogs last week, the demise of my latest commercial endeavor in New Orleans has me finally falling back in to a deeper sense of home and a softer, gentler state of mind about being in California instead of New Orleans. This is a state of mind that began two years ago when I last left NOLA, but it's been a long, uncomfortable process... fighting a battle that I think my limey friend pegged in his comment on that blog the other day.

The simple fact is that I've been fighting a long hard emotional battle since I evacuated from New Orleans on August 28, 2005 and the most difficult part of it has been the emotional struggle of the last two years... not giving myself permission to settle into home and place and love, but instead continuing to struggle with soul and place, and probably even left over guilt about love.

Because of several other things racing through my mind these days, I wound up having an extended email conversation with an old friend who passed on a link to the City of Refuge church in San Francisco. There I fell upon a brilliant sermon by church pastor, Bishop Yvette Flunder. A sermon that feels like it was presented to be heard by me today, but which made it's way into the world several years ago.

You'll find the whole amazing sermon right here and for those of you who aren't used to this kind of preachin' you might have a bit of a time with it. But stay with it... It'll bless ya.

If you don't have the time (or the patience) to walk through this sermon, you can listen to this little short portion that I pulled out because I think it's important.

The long story - short on this, is that this sermon, which was posted to the website on the day after my birthday two years ago, right at the exact time when I began the part of the journey that I'm just now ending, feels like a strange flash forward from the outer edge of the spirit. It's as if the sermon was sent to me right at the time when I began to need it... but didn't get here until I could actually here what the preacher had to say.

To summarize the point... I seem to have come to a place where I am no longer flying... and where I don't have to keep running... I've come to a place where my war seems to have ended and I can actually rest in a settling and safety that I have not felt in a very long time.

As Ratso Rizzo says in Midnight Cowboy... I'm walkin' here!