My friend Karen and I used to call each other “Bubbelina,” our own construction based on the Yiddish “bubbela,” a term of endearment. Karen’s not on the earthly plane any longer, but she is with us in spirit. To honor her, and the kindness, humor and compassion with which she greeted each day, I’ve taken to thinking of everyone I meet as a bubbelina, a dear one.

Loss has been an in-your-face theme for many of my bubbelinas, and to you all especially I offer prayers of healing and hope. Part of grief, I think, can be to feel lonely and isolated. Perhaps that’s also part of the human condition in general. Yet separation is an illusion. We are all here together, interdependent, connected, needing one another. It can be hard to own the need, yet reaching out to help and be helped is so very powerful, consoling and healing.

The gift of heartache is a softened, open heart. And the gift of a softened, open heart is the joy of joining together in spirit. Lord, make me an instrument of your peace, just for today. And please bring  a smile to the hearts of all my bubbelinas, old friends, new friends, friends I haven’t met yet. Amen.

Plant seed. Water. Weed. Wait. Boom, bloom!

You’ve heard of Build-A-Bear? I’m offering Invent-a-Prayer. It goes like this. You’re chugging along, lower than whale poop. You’re exercising, meditating, staying out of unhealthy foods, etc, cuz you’ve had a number of losses, the latest of which was your job, and you need to keep on keepin’ on. Dig your way out and so on.

Did I mention you’re so far down you’re forgetting what up looks like and you don’t even care that you’re kind of of whiney and self-pitying? So you’re trudging along, and you throw in some teeny-tiny meditations because that’s all you can sit still for. And you talk to a few select folks who have more tolerance for you than you have for yourself.

Then, weeks and weeks in, bingo! A prayer begins to pray itself. This is the one that came to me yesterday morning: Bless my gifts to your service. Then along comes, Bless my heart to your service. Then, today, Bless my work to your service.

Well bless my soul! Someone once said that spiritual experiences are accidents and it’s our job to make ourselves accident-prone. See?
All that trudging along, and along comes my very own perfect little out-of-work mantra-prayer.

Result: I’ve done—and noted on my little list of what’s-so-great-about-Gay—some cool things today to bring messages of healing and hope to people just like me who are suffering, mostly just by listening and being present. And my heart is full.