Guiding people through ritual rocks. Finding a sweet spot in the midst of hope, reality, and the work that follows the celebrations is an epic puzzle. My people will tell you that I love a good puzzle.
Raw emotion is tapped. Joy, grief, love, hate, and everything in-between. Weddings are blinding joy bombs. Standing with a couple whose family and friends are pouring big energy toward them defies description. Weddings also scratch at grief in the absence of family and friends who have died. Funerals ache with unresolved tension as life is celebrated through the pain of loss, the promise of good news, and the reworking of family relationships among the living.
Family is a complicated mix of dependence, independence, and interdependence. I'm especially struck by this truth on a global scale as we in the U.S. celebrate Independence Day while struggling to live well in the actual interdependence of the human family.
A hummingbird made a prolonged appearance in the trumpet flowers at Sunday evening's wedding. Some things that happen during weddings and funerals are pure poetry with multiple interpretations. More pieces to add to the epic puzzle. I'll keep working on it...
