ninevolt - tales from a complete circuit

About 4 years ago I met a catholic nun through my twin bereavement group who lives with her order in San Francisco. Sister William Eileen's twin passed at 82 of heart failure but really it was Alzheimer's that took her, the way Sister tells it. Yet this identical and living twin is remarkably cogent; she drives a car, she actively serves God through embodied good works and labor. Since her "twinless" journey began she's amassed a cadre of other nuns who are grieving their own twins; they talk on the phone, they meet in fellowship whenever possible, they network, they reach their own kind. This morning I reconnected with Sister William Eileen and was set adrift anew. Growing up Episcopalian in the South I gleaned that to encounter the spirit realm was to deprive God and His Ghost of their rightful mystery. Other lesser mysteries robbed Him of street cred, or whatever, or at least that's how it spilled out of bigoted paradigms and into my...family of origin and religious faith. I bucked against some of this in the tomed Witchcraft verticals of Hege Library, but none of the dark arts truly broke the mold. This youthful, misguided conceit and influence is so very wrong. Sister William Eileen speaks of signs, visions, experiential encounters with her beloved Noreen in concrete sentences. She purrs "Noreen" as if a name is a jewel. Patron Saint of Parking, healer, guardian of children at the school next door, a holy mercy. Noreen moves among us, keeps Sister William Eileen alive, appraises God of their eternal union.

59mos, a real shower.

I told my agent to make us old together. Happy Twin Day. 👵🏼 ♾️ 👵🏼

My dad passed away four years ago today, and in this past year, I’ve discovered more about his faith than I ever knew while he was alive. Last December, I tried to leave the Episcopal church, but I couldn’t figure out how to quit—couldn’t figure out how to set aside the language and traditions that are woven into both my genetic and lived history.

So instead of leaving, I found another church. Now I attend two churches and practice contemplative prayer at dawn each day. It’s almost as if the more I resist, the closer faith pulls me in.

I think that’s what my dad saw in his faith. He was such a dreamer—he pushed the church to do more, always envisioning greater inclusion, deeper fellowship, broader outreach to communities who had nothing. “When you have more than you need, it doesn’t belong to you.”

Even when he’d never seen it fully realized, he held onto his vision, the blueprint. Even when he couldn’t live out the complete expression of his faith openly, he could see a beautiful future.

“I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me.

I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you, and I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing.

I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this, you will lead me by the right road, though I may know nothing about it. Therefore, I will trust you always, though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death.

I will never fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.”

- Merton

It has been 52 months since Anna died. In the past few months I started being able to say that she “died.” Previously I could say she “passed” but I could not say that she died, or that I lost her. But she did, and I did.

I lost Anna to a transformation completely unknown to me—one I have not had to walk through myself. Yet living without her has become its own transformation, to be transformed by suffering, by grief, by the relentless drum we cannot describe but that moves us deeper into life by a silent and forceful cadence.

So here we are together at 52 months, the transformed and the transforming.