I was hiking at dusk on a trail in the Theodore Roosevelt National Park, the nearly full moon already beginning to rise. No one else was hiking in the area at the time, the quiet space between day and night. I was making my way around a butte, watching the trail. I came around a “corner”, lifted my head, and took in my breath as I came upon a beautiful mule deer doe. She was as surprised to see me as I was to see her, and we both stopped, our gazes locked for a moment, before she bounded off. It is an amazing experience to connect, even for a moment, with another living being in a beautiful place.
I had a close group of friends for a long time (decades) and after I came out, I never saw or spoke to any of them again despite living in a small town, it's surprising to me that I have never bumped into any of them in this twenty or so years that have followed. Sometimes I'll hear of someone meeting 'such and such' or 'so and so' and I experience these empty and uncomfortable feelings I might have in such a meeting vicariously. It's a lot, being seen and becoming invisible at the same time.
I love this! About 30 years ago, I moved to my parents new home in Gloucestershire from Essex. I was trying to recover from being ill and at the tender age of 23 I was finding this a real challenge. After about 18 months I was getting nowhere fast and was feeling so alone. I cried in the shower,a sort of beseeching prayer to meet someone, to be helped. A few days after I walked into the village, bought a newspaper, which I never did and went into the pub beer garden which I had not done before. I sat with my glass of water, reading when a man approached the table. I recognised him as someone lovely I had gone to college with in Essex. He had since migrated to New Zealand with his parents but was visiting his grandma in the same village where my parents lived. He was a salvation, a shift in my self and a big dollop of magic.
One of my spiritual heroes is Richard Rohr; he is a Franciscan priest who founded the Center for Action and Contemplation in Albuquerque, New Mexico in 1986. Rohr became popular in the 1970s with a cassette tape series on the great themes of scripture. In this series, he provided a penetrating analysis and contextual understanding of the Bible; his thoughtful and thought-provoking words spoke to the depths of my soul, even as a teenager. Throughout the last fifty years Rohr has become a prolific author and voice for spirituality and justice.
I have lived on Long Island, NY, my entire life. It was 1997 when I was participating at a youth minister’s conference hosted within a large hotel in Albuquerque. It so happened that I bumped into Richard Rohr at a supermarket across from the hotel. I was fairly certain he was on the cashier line in front of me picking up a few items. I quickly followed him out to the parking lot and sheepishly uttered, “hello, are you Fr. Richard”? His gentle voice replied, “I am”. We then had a brief and friendly exchange. I remember being struck by his humility and kindness. Wow, I bumped into my spiritual hero - someone I consider to be a true prophet of our day, who is human being just like the rest of us.
In th middle of the pandemic, my mother in law helped my wife and I to purchase our first house. The plan was to eventually add an in-law suite on the back of it (though apparently zoning committees don’t want you to call it that). The couple we bought the house from moved right around the corner to be next to a child and grandchildren who lived in town. After we had been in the house for a few months, settled but still a bit unsettled, I was outside doing yard work when man walked by and commented that he used to live in the house. It was a quick exchange, him conveying that he had always loved it but had to move to something bigger. Then, over the first summer, a package was dropped off to the wrong address. It happened that the owner lived across the street. I walked the package to the door and when I mentioned the circumstances she too said that she had lived in the house (before the previous owners whom we had bought the house from)!
We have stayed in connection with these former owners, all of whom are kind and generous and love our children. Small towns, as many are aware, breed these sorts of intimate connections; so I wonder how many other former owners are living around corners and across streets?
I bumped in to an old roommate at the MOMA on Dec 30, 2023. I wouldn’t have recognized her but she knew me even though we hadn’t seen or heard from eachother for over 30 years. She spoke my name. I turned around and heard her name. Then the flood of memories. Came to find out she moved to NYC 2 years ago, and is 2 subway rides away. Unlike the last time we intentionally stay in touch and enrich each others lives.
I treasure these words from Padraig’s Opening Prayer,
Several years ago, I was on Monhegan island, a tiny strip of land ten miles off the coast of Maine, walking the trails at dusk seeking a sunset. Coming towards me was a woman I knew only in passing, but on an island everyone stops to say hello, to catch up on all they have done in the off-season.
When Lynn appeared I was deep in thought about my eldest child’s upcoming top surgery, equal parts hope and apprehension for all the surgery might entail. I knew it ultimately would be their healing, but in the moments prior I became a mother full of concern. For some reason I confided in Lynn, a stranger in many senses, but someone with whom I also felt safe.
She asked me where the surgery would take place, and I said Florida, a state where neither of us reside. Lynn probed further, “Who is their surgeon?” When I uttered the name, she smiled and said “Oh, that’s who my child went to as well. Would you like to speak to them about their experience?”
What began as a walk alone turned into tea in good company with a woman whom I knew but had no idea of what we shared as mothers.
I’ve ceased trying to understand how such grace can appear when one least expects it to be offered, but I am forever grateful to receive it nonetheless.
During our recent Good Friday prayer vigil, I had the privilege of praying for my someone with whom I have had a very difficult & traumatic relationship for over two decades, yet whose health & well-being were precious to someone we both love. Had I been asked to do so a year earlier, I could not have done it, but in that moment, with tears in my eyes & my heart moved by the request extended by my loved one to a Love & community greater than he, I knew I was on holy ground.
One of the many gifts of prompts in this community is that they bring back memories long forgotten and stuffed in dusty drawers of my mind—thanks for the invitation and witnessing!
I am reminded of the time when I literally bumped INTO a friend- but it was the bumping that made them into one. I was walking the Camino De Santiago and (like another one of my generations, fully instagramming while in the midst of a beautiful experience) - and straight up fully bumped into another pilgrim. He too was on his phone, ALSO INSTAGRAMMING. Both of us stumbled a bit, me spilling some of the caffe con leche (coffee with milk anyone?) I was slurping while he dropped his walking stick. I imagine that in my regular life, I would have either responded aggressively (defensively aggressively?) or been super apologetic. But the friendship within the experience of the pilgrimage, distance from the demands of being productive, and perhaps the irony that both of us were Instagramming while IN THE MOST PICTURESQUE PLACES made me laugh. And him as well.
This encounter led to us, a Pakistani American (me) and him (from Denmark), both walking the Camino for the first time, developing a friendship full of questions, philosophies, banter, and, when needed, tenderness. This bumping into each other was followed by a week of walking the Camino together, and a friendship that has lasted over seven years.
Perhaps it was the bump that catalyzed the friendship......
On January 10, 1992, I received a call from my older brother Larry's doctor at San Francisco General Hospital. Larry, a gay man, had been HIV positive for years, but in spite of a normal liver panel three months prior he was in liver failure and not expected to live through the weekend. I checked available flights from Cleveland to San Fransisco and then called my parents and younger brother. My father and brother were unsympathetic toward Larry's being gay and refused to make the trip. My mother, age 75, and I flew to San Francisco the next morning. My husband Joe would fly out later to drive back with us in Larry's Toyota van with his belongings. We found Larry in a mostly obtunded state, with a few minutes of lucidity early on when he recognized both of us briefly. I called his friend Irma in Albuquerque. She arrived that evening. On arrival, she asked if I had called Enrique, who lived on the Big Island at the time. No, I'd forgotten. Irma called, and Enrique arrived late Saturday night. Sunday morning, Mom grew unsettled. There was nothing she could do for Larry. Irma and Enrique joined us as all the lights in my brother's brilliant mind slowly burned out. He was unconscious and unresponsive. By mid-morning, Mom had become increasingly agitated. A doer, who could do nothing for the son she adored and who had already left her. She complained of heart palpitations. She refused to see a doctor. She wanted to go home. I needed to stay with Larry. I needed to look after my mother. She wouldn't hear of my leaving Larry. I made her a reservation for a late afternoon flight to Cleveland. My father agreed to pick her up. At the airport, she was overwhelmed by Larry's imminent death, the coldness of the two men in the family refusing to comfort anyone but themselves, the cacaphony of the weekend flyers. I was desperate to assure her. As I searched the chaos for her gate, my eyes found a face I knew. My friend Reid, from Cleveland. Over quick hugs he said he was returning from a solo ski trip in Lake Tahoe. I explained our plight, asked what flight he was on. It was hers. "Reid, would you please take care of my mother?" And he did.
I loved reading about these encounters before getting out of bed this Sunday morning. What came to mind for me was a lady a saw a few weeks ago in a department store who reminded me of my mother, who I lost in 2001. I immediately thought about the song, Please Pardon Me, by Chaka Khan.
Love of poetry allowed me to bump into an good friend I see often.
It was an unlikely encounter because she hasn’t cared about writing like I do. We were together on a trip and stopped for lunch at a brewery along the way. I was having trouble getting some ideas down and asked for her help, which was outside the norm of our relationship. We have been good friends almost 20 years, but we like different things. She is the friend I do things with when I want to “get out there” because she is usually busy. I am the friend of hers that will disappear for my solitude in between our times of doing. Enjoying our break from the road, I was brainstorming to help me break through on an idea. I wrote down her ideas as she began to help.
Looking back on those notes, I realized she had written a poem. I shared it with her. We talked about that winter’s day as we revisited her words. She is now up to 3 poems. My old friend, the new poet!
Thank you for the opportunity to bump into you here, Padraig. :)
I was waiting in line at a book signing at ALA. I noticed a woman who looked very much like a dear friend who I had worked with years before. I knew it wasn’t her, but then I remembered that her sister was also a librarian so I spoke to her and we had a delightful conversation. It was her sister and I made a new friend.
I was hiking at dusk on a trail in the Theodore Roosevelt National Park, the nearly full moon already beginning to rise. No one else was hiking in the area at the time, the quiet space between day and night. I was making my way around a butte, watching the trail. I came around a “corner”, lifted my head, and took in my breath as I came upon a beautiful mule deer doe. She was as surprised to see me as I was to see her, and we both stopped, our gazes locked for a moment, before she bounded off. It is an amazing experience to connect, even for a moment, with another living being in a beautiful place.
I had a close group of friends for a long time (decades) and after I came out, I never saw or spoke to any of them again despite living in a small town, it's surprising to me that I have never bumped into any of them in this twenty or so years that have followed. Sometimes I'll hear of someone meeting 'such and such' or 'so and so' and I experience these empty and uncomfortable feelings I might have in such a meeting vicariously. It's a lot, being seen and becoming invisible at the same time.
I ran into my authentic self on my post-menopausal journey to the second half of life.
I almost didn’t recognize her, but we are getting along marvelously. 🦋
I love this! About 30 years ago, I moved to my parents new home in Gloucestershire from Essex. I was trying to recover from being ill and at the tender age of 23 I was finding this a real challenge. After about 18 months I was getting nowhere fast and was feeling so alone. I cried in the shower,a sort of beseeching prayer to meet someone, to be helped. A few days after I walked into the village, bought a newspaper, which I never did and went into the pub beer garden which I had not done before. I sat with my glass of water, reading when a man approached the table. I recognised him as someone lovely I had gone to college with in Essex. He had since migrated to New Zealand with his parents but was visiting his grandma in the same village where my parents lived. He was a salvation, a shift in my self and a big dollop of magic.
One of my spiritual heroes is Richard Rohr; he is a Franciscan priest who founded the Center for Action and Contemplation in Albuquerque, New Mexico in 1986. Rohr became popular in the 1970s with a cassette tape series on the great themes of scripture. In this series, he provided a penetrating analysis and contextual understanding of the Bible; his thoughtful and thought-provoking words spoke to the depths of my soul, even as a teenager. Throughout the last fifty years Rohr has become a prolific author and voice for spirituality and justice.
I have lived on Long Island, NY, my entire life. It was 1997 when I was participating at a youth minister’s conference hosted within a large hotel in Albuquerque. It so happened that I bumped into Richard Rohr at a supermarket across from the hotel. I was fairly certain he was on the cashier line in front of me picking up a few items. I quickly followed him out to the parking lot and sheepishly uttered, “hello, are you Fr. Richard”? His gentle voice replied, “I am”. We then had a brief and friendly exchange. I remember being struck by his humility and kindness. Wow, I bumped into my spiritual hero - someone I consider to be a true prophet of our day, who is human being just like the rest of us.
In th middle of the pandemic, my mother in law helped my wife and I to purchase our first house. The plan was to eventually add an in-law suite on the back of it (though apparently zoning committees don’t want you to call it that). The couple we bought the house from moved right around the corner to be next to a child and grandchildren who lived in town. After we had been in the house for a few months, settled but still a bit unsettled, I was outside doing yard work when man walked by and commented that he used to live in the house. It was a quick exchange, him conveying that he had always loved it but had to move to something bigger. Then, over the first summer, a package was dropped off to the wrong address. It happened that the owner lived across the street. I walked the package to the door and when I mentioned the circumstances she too said that she had lived in the house (before the previous owners whom we had bought the house from)!
We have stayed in connection with these former owners, all of whom are kind and generous and love our children. Small towns, as many are aware, breed these sorts of intimate connections; so I wonder how many other former owners are living around corners and across streets?
I bumped in to an old roommate at the MOMA on Dec 30, 2023. I wouldn’t have recognized her but she knew me even though we hadn’t seen or heard from eachother for over 30 years. She spoke my name. I turned around and heard her name. Then the flood of memories. Came to find out she moved to NYC 2 years ago, and is 2 subway rides away. Unlike the last time we intentionally stay in touch and enrich each others lives.
I treasure these words from Padraig’s Opening Prayer,
May we start again
where we have failed before.
Thank you!!
Several years ago, I was on Monhegan island, a tiny strip of land ten miles off the coast of Maine, walking the trails at dusk seeking a sunset. Coming towards me was a woman I knew only in passing, but on an island everyone stops to say hello, to catch up on all they have done in the off-season.
When Lynn appeared I was deep in thought about my eldest child’s upcoming top surgery, equal parts hope and apprehension for all the surgery might entail. I knew it ultimately would be their healing, but in the moments prior I became a mother full of concern. For some reason I confided in Lynn, a stranger in many senses, but someone with whom I also felt safe.
She asked me where the surgery would take place, and I said Florida, a state where neither of us reside. Lynn probed further, “Who is their surgeon?” When I uttered the name, she smiled and said “Oh, that’s who my child went to as well. Would you like to speak to them about their experience?”
What began as a walk alone turned into tea in good company with a woman whom I knew but had no idea of what we shared as mothers.
I’ve ceased trying to understand how such grace can appear when one least expects it to be offered, but I am forever grateful to receive it nonetheless.
During our recent Good Friday prayer vigil, I had the privilege of praying for my someone with whom I have had a very difficult & traumatic relationship for over two decades, yet whose health & well-being were precious to someone we both love. Had I been asked to do so a year earlier, I could not have done it, but in that moment, with tears in my eyes & my heart moved by the request extended by my loved one to a Love & community greater than he, I knew I was on holy ground.
One of the many gifts of prompts in this community is that they bring back memories long forgotten and stuffed in dusty drawers of my mind—thanks for the invitation and witnessing!
I am reminded of the time when I literally bumped INTO a friend- but it was the bumping that made them into one. I was walking the Camino De Santiago and (like another one of my generations, fully instagramming while in the midst of a beautiful experience) - and straight up fully bumped into another pilgrim. He too was on his phone, ALSO INSTAGRAMMING. Both of us stumbled a bit, me spilling some of the caffe con leche (coffee with milk anyone?) I was slurping while he dropped his walking stick. I imagine that in my regular life, I would have either responded aggressively (defensively aggressively?) or been super apologetic. But the friendship within the experience of the pilgrimage, distance from the demands of being productive, and perhaps the irony that both of us were Instagramming while IN THE MOST PICTURESQUE PLACES made me laugh. And him as well.
This encounter led to us, a Pakistani American (me) and him (from Denmark), both walking the Camino for the first time, developing a friendship full of questions, philosophies, banter, and, when needed, tenderness. This bumping into each other was followed by a week of walking the Camino together, and a friendship that has lasted over seven years.
Perhaps it was the bump that catalyzed the friendship......
Mary Chadbourne
On January 10, 1992, I received a call from my older brother Larry's doctor at San Francisco General Hospital. Larry, a gay man, had been HIV positive for years, but in spite of a normal liver panel three months prior he was in liver failure and not expected to live through the weekend. I checked available flights from Cleveland to San Fransisco and then called my parents and younger brother. My father and brother were unsympathetic toward Larry's being gay and refused to make the trip. My mother, age 75, and I flew to San Francisco the next morning. My husband Joe would fly out later to drive back with us in Larry's Toyota van with his belongings. We found Larry in a mostly obtunded state, with a few minutes of lucidity early on when he recognized both of us briefly. I called his friend Irma in Albuquerque. She arrived that evening. On arrival, she asked if I had called Enrique, who lived on the Big Island at the time. No, I'd forgotten. Irma called, and Enrique arrived late Saturday night. Sunday morning, Mom grew unsettled. There was nothing she could do for Larry. Irma and Enrique joined us as all the lights in my brother's brilliant mind slowly burned out. He was unconscious and unresponsive. By mid-morning, Mom had become increasingly agitated. A doer, who could do nothing for the son she adored and who had already left her. She complained of heart palpitations. She refused to see a doctor. She wanted to go home. I needed to stay with Larry. I needed to look after my mother. She wouldn't hear of my leaving Larry. I made her a reservation for a late afternoon flight to Cleveland. My father agreed to pick her up. At the airport, she was overwhelmed by Larry's imminent death, the coldness of the two men in the family refusing to comfort anyone but themselves, the cacaphony of the weekend flyers. I was desperate to assure her. As I searched the chaos for her gate, my eyes found a face I knew. My friend Reid, from Cleveland. Over quick hugs he said he was returning from a solo ski trip in Lake Tahoe. I explained our plight, asked what flight he was on. It was hers. "Reid, would you please take care of my mother?" And he did.
The old part of Ramallah, Palestine,
A bookmobile blocking a street,
Rows of tiny chairs filled with children,
A tall, thin, elegant storyteller, entertaining.
Enchanted, I began to play the flute
To accompany a story, understood only
Through gestures so sweet, for I knew not
This lovely Arabic tongue,
And this storyteller and I swooned,
Intimately, held by the tender hands of this tale. 🏮
I loved reading about these encounters before getting out of bed this Sunday morning. What came to mind for me was a lady a saw a few weeks ago in a department store who reminded me of my mother, who I lost in 2001. I immediately thought about the song, Please Pardon Me, by Chaka Khan.
https://youtu.be/yNSiB4zZGc0?si=SYSczBNHkVxIAOya
Please pardon me, but I'm longing to speak
I hope you don't mind my staring
I don't mind
'Cause your face looks so kind
Seldom you'll find someone so daring
You remind me of a friend of mine
Ooh, I've lost the time, yeah
Every time I see your face
You remind me of that someone
In fact, it's true, it's you
Runnin' right into you, yeah
Hope you don't mind
You look like a friend of mine
And it's seldom you find
A face that's so kind
Love of poetry allowed me to bump into an good friend I see often.
It was an unlikely encounter because she hasn’t cared about writing like I do. We were together on a trip and stopped for lunch at a brewery along the way. I was having trouble getting some ideas down and asked for her help, which was outside the norm of our relationship. We have been good friends almost 20 years, but we like different things. She is the friend I do things with when I want to “get out there” because she is usually busy. I am the friend of hers that will disappear for my solitude in between our times of doing. Enjoying our break from the road, I was brainstorming to help me break through on an idea. I wrote down her ideas as she began to help.
Looking back on those notes, I realized she had written a poem. I shared it with her. We talked about that winter’s day as we revisited her words. She is now up to 3 poems. My old friend, the new poet!
Thank you for the opportunity to bump into you here, Padraig. :)
'A small generosity of time is possible' is lovely.
I was waiting in line at a book signing at ALA. I noticed a woman who looked very much like a dear friend who I had worked with years before. I knew it wasn’t her, but then I remembered that her sister was also a librarian so I spoke to her and we had a delightful conversation. It was her sister and I made a new friend.