The Ronan Song

 Below is a note I sent to my Heartworks Advisory Board members today. They are 9 women dedicated to the ideals and principles of Heartworks. They are very tolerable of my emails that ramble on and on about my thoughts about life, Heartworks and everything and anything in-between.

So….when you are done reading this email, your assignment today :) is to google Taylor Swifts performance of her new song "Ronan" at the Stand Up to Cancer Concert that she just sang over the weekend. She had read a blog by a woman who's 4 year old son had died last year and she and the mother wrote this song together.

 I got an email about it Saturday from Heartworker Beth B to watch it. I ignored it. Then last night I got a text from Katie B about the same song. I put down what I was doing and listened. I watched Taylor Swift sing and bawled my head off. I allowed God to penetrate my anxious thoughts about the legal issues being presented to our group by another non-profit, the dirty laundry piling up in my basement, how Heartworks is getting ready for the  9/11 meeting, how many people are coming to the fundraiser, the new pimple on my chin, figuring out the carpool schedule for Madison's soccer this week. 

I let myself listen to the song and connect to the tread of suffering in the world, the suffering in my own family, the suffering of my friends, of Heartworkers and neighbors and strangers I have never even met before. I wanted to work on Heartworks before going to bed. I sent an email to Mary, the friend of Amy (the beautiful woman who lives in Bville, has breast cancer, came without any hair on her head to the July meeting) to ask when the date is for the drawing for the beach houses. She wrote me back that they had to do the drawing last week…because Amy has gotten very sick, very quickly and is in her final days and the needed to get the money to them…..She shared with me that when Amy got in the car after the meeting she said she is coming to help as soon as she gets better…

So early this morning I went on an early walk, listened to "Ronan" no less than 20 times in a row and went to the Heartworks House to sit in the meditation room. 

I hung up the American flag with the names on it of everyone who was killed on 9/11. I put out the article I found about Syria. I began the process of transforming the room into a quiet place of reflection for the meeting Tuesday night. My vision is the meditation room filled with pictures and stories from all over the globe of acts of terrorism and war. It is important on Tuesday that we do not all just bow our heads in a robotic gesture without feeling what it means to be alive on the planet right now. That there are countries being torn apart and having "9/11" days over and over and over again. When My sister's husband was killed, the world responded. She was brought food and given money and  people did anything in their power to make her life manageable. There is a woman somewhere tonight, her house is being bombed and she has nowhere to go. No lasagnas being brought to her, no soccer coaches welcoming her children back to practice, no lawyers, doctors, orthodontists, teachers or mechanics showing up on her doorstep to help her. No resources to call on. And I think as Americans it is important for us to realize how different our experience is with terrorism than most of the world. 

The "September 11th pit" as I call it is slowly growing in my stomach. Between the song about Ronan, New Heartworker Amy from Bernardsville sitting in the Heartworks House 2 months ago and now she is getting ready to let go of this life after a courageous adventure with Breast Cancer, thinking of Garrett on a camping trip last night with his 3 boys under the same tent, thinking about going to sleep on September 10th 11 years ago and crawling up the stairs the next day to tell Eddie to turn on the TV….I feel in sacred space and basking in the love of my life. The blessings that are right in front of me that I take for granted everyday. My gratitude for all of you and all the things you put up with from me, for the vision of Heartworks. For your commitment. For your internal work so that we can always be coming from a clear place when we intermingle in other people's lives. So please be patient with me if I seem "particular" with my vision for Tuesday's meeting and my reasoning for things…I am never trying to be anal or bossy, just intentional. If you feel I am off course with something, please share your thoughts in case it is the mud in my own eyes keeping me from seeing a certain view. The world seems so lost in the "busy" and Tuesday is a sacred day of opening, faith, trust, crucifixion and resurrection for me. I don't necessarily feel sad, I feel reverent. 

I am staying open to the pit in my stomach, knowing that it is my physical body processing the contradictions and complexities of life that we so willingly look at through Heartworks. I do not want a "normal" few days…I want to be dedicated to my family and the work we are being called to do. I want to be open to love. Eddie just texted me from Madison's soccer game that he misses me. (so friggin cute!)  I want to be open to the love God is blessing me with instead of being too distracted to notice it. 

I pray that I am able to do this

I pray that every woman who needs the meeting Tuesday is able to get there

I pray that ideas and organizing comes easily to us for meeting nd fundraiser

I pray that we can stay focused on why we are doing Heartworks

I pray that we all feel God's deep, unfailing love for us

I pray that we can live intentional lives of receiving and giving.

I pray. 

I encourage each of you to be intentional this week within your own lives. Come to the House and help if you are pulled to do so, there is plenty to do. 

THANK YOU FOR LISTENING TO ME 

I loveyou all XOXOX M

Later today I received another email from Heartworker Mary telling me that her dear friend Amy who came to her first and only Heartworks meeting in July, had gone to God last night. My laundry is still piled up downstairs. I still have a pimple. But my day was full of love. I had lunch with my mom and my sisters and nieces and nephews. Eddie and I watched Madison win a soccer game and we  hung out with our friends tonight. I am acutely aware of the life around me. I am motivated to live as clearly as I can and to love as much as I can while I am here. I thank God tonight for my healthy body and the opportunity to go to the Heartworks House tomorrow and prepare a space for 40 women to come and remember 9/11 and ray for peace. From terrorism, from cancer, from life.