Finding A Match

Love consists in this:

That two solitudes protect, and touch,

And greet each other.

- R I  L K E

A soul friend of mine had a rough 3 months. After 20 years of marriage, she was kicked out by her husband. I am not much for details, but my friend is a good human being. I'll vouch for her. I can't say much more about her to protect her identity. So, please trust me that she didn't deserve the undignified way her marriage ended. No one does.

Fast forward to today. We had lunch. When I saw her walking down the street toward me as I wait outside the restaurant, she was smiling and with a little spring on her walk. We entered the restaurant and were led to our seats. We ordered identical tomato and basil soup with a side of baby greens and mandarin with raspberry dressing. After some brainstorming on a project we are working on, we went down to personal business.

"Guess what! I found someone on match.com!" She freaked out when she received the guy's email saying he read the same books she read and is in love with the way she uses words. The guy even told himself that "if I find someone with your bio, I would think I must have died and went to heaven." My 60-year old friend was telling me this like she's 16! She was having stomach cramps, and a little headache. She was meeting this guy at 4pm. It was now 2:30! She was giddy. She wasn't sleeping very much in the past two nights. She wanted to be at the meeting place early to calm down. I hugged the teenager goodbye and wished her luck. She blew me a kiss as she drove by.

This was how it felt when I became aware of my first God-moments. Those were moments when I felt the Divine Presence so strong it sends chills down my spine. The first one was as I was meditating on a daffodil and I burst out crying because my whole being did not have a response to the exuberant yellow openness of this daffodil! One time it was a sunset and I had to pullover to the side to just look - on the opposite side! Not were the setting sun is but on where the fading sunlight is resting. Or, just recently, an email with the words "Why are you angry?" and what I felt was gentleness and compassion instead of bulging eyes and a finger jabbing at my chest. These God-moments fire me up, and give me fuel for this journey.

How about you? How did you feel when you first met your match? What God-moments stoke the fire in your heart?

O God of Light-

You are the fire

I am the match.

You hide in me

Until darkness.

Then you strike me

And I am on fire.

Amen.