I have a three month old check on my desktop made out to the Omaha Friends meeting that belongs to Marshall Massey. The check was written to support Friend Massey’s walk from Omaha to the Baltimore Yearly Meeting where he was a keynote speaker this summer. There was, to my mind, an underlayment of inducement associated with the check, and I have had a hard time writing the cover letter and mailing it off. We sense that Marshall Massey has something to teach us, and that his presence in Wisconsin would help us gather like-minded Friends to address environmental concerns. But after speaking with him this summer it wasn’t clear whether or not he would want to use his time this way, and it was even more clear to me that sending a check hard on the heels of our conversation could be misinterpreted.

A week ago, he wrote the last posting in a journal that he began in April that documented his leading and his journey. The time has come to give up the money.

Tomorrow, in place of the regularly scheduled First Day worship at Madison Meeting, we are gathering for an extended worship sharing around the draft “Northern Yearly Meeting Faith and Practice” chapter titled “Concern for the Earth.” Any Friend Jonesing for an hour of Sunday worship can come for the regularly scheduled 9am worship, but the 11am worship, the more heavily attended, will begin at 10:30 and end at 1:00 and address our concern for the planet. This is a big deal, and the rescheduling actually might throw the planet out of orbit, so hold us in the light, please.

As part of my witness tonight or tomorrow, I’ll write something simple for a cover letter and mail the check off to Marshall Massey’s meeting, thus hopefully quieting the voice within that has begun to nag me into action.

Elisa has posted a notice about room 8111, a quiet space for breast feeding moms, and then - Friday afternoon - a quiet space to gather and remember meg. Earlier today I was wondering how, why, I took on this assignment. I had just gotten out of a two hour meeting where I’d taken responsibility for a web site, reported on my connection with Marshall Massey, put off discussing this year’s draft counseling and counter-recruitment efforts and basically exhausted myself on the first day of vacation.

This morning we took sweet Molly Bloom and Veneta the cat to the kennel where Molly will get special treatment for a week’s convalescence. It pained me to leave the dog. It was just a month ago that I got a call in San Francisco that she’d been hit by an ambulance. She’s healing, but her right rear leg is still pretty painful and useless. Will it heal? We hope so. It;’s getting better.

That same weekend the world lost meg. Will we heal? I’m sure we will, but I’ve been having a pretty rocky ride for the last several weeks. Snappish. Inappropriate. Grieving within.

I talked to a few people then and Jeneane was right there supporting the idea of a face to face memorial at BlogHer, and I thought I could help make that happen with Jeneane, the original Blog Sister, there at BlogHer backing it. Now we don’t know if Jeneane will be well enough to come. And how can I support her in her pain when all I can offer even my puppy is some medication?

Well, Beth’s doing the laundry and I have to do the dishes if we’re going to be able to get out of here and get on the road. Portland tomorrow. The ranch by Wednesday. San Jose Thursday night. meg’s memorial Friday. Meeting with old friends and new acquaintances Friday and Saturday, and back to the grindstone by next Sunday.

We had planned our travel to include lunch in West Sacramento on Thursday. Now I think we’ll skip the five, drive out to the sea, and come down one-oh-one.

The memorial will be simple, some people sitting together quietly and speaking of meg and our remembrance. I’m sure love will fill the silences between memories, and in the end we will go back out into the daylight and resume our daily lives. I hope some of meg’s friends are at BlogHer and can join us.