Uprooted and Rooted

Tonight I cram in an assignment for my Masters with a bunch of furniture bits around me. From the outside, it may look like disarray. Yet, I am at peace. We've scaled down a lot this time and I am only moving the simple basics across border - and it feels freeing. What is most important I bring? It's the sentimental bits really - pieces of the children's art, gifts from friends and family, bits that brings some form of comfort. Cameron, my 19 year old son, has returned home from Victoria to help us move to West Van tomorrow. His presence, unbeknownst to him, offers a depth of rootedness a midst my uprootedness. Family, whatever we define that as, whether friends, our church, our work, blood kin or deep friendships, is our root system. Returning to Vancouver is a homecoming, a profound returning to rootedness in more ways than I am able to articulate. So rootedness may also be found in a place where one has been shaped and nurtured to experience the world. After spending time with friends and family up in Canada these past two weeks, I felt I had arrived "home." It may be as simple as feeling known for who you are- a state of fully being at rest with oneself. Perhaps it means a place where I can be all that I can be, aligned and congruent - freedom of soul. Or as my son Cameron says when I ask him where "home" is replies confidently, "it's where the heart is." Two weeks ago, I went from small rural island town America to work with the disadvantaged in the poor inner heart of the city of Vancouver. I have assumed clinical practice leadership of two hospices with one of them in the heart of East Van skid row neighborhood where there are massive amounts of "single resident occupancies" call SROs. I didn't know this term before I started working there. Night to day overnight. And while on the outside, the neighborhood appears deeply cracked and dilapidated, there is such a truthfulness in brokenness. No masks. Less ego and more eccentricity. I appreciate this rawness and depth of humanity. It's honest. While the people are oppressed, there is an admirable resiliency in their story. They are life teachers. Resilience is evident not only in the patients but those who work in the area to continual rebuild and improve quality of life within skid row. While I may be uprooted now, nothing can can dismantle the rooted love I have within me. Resilient rooted love paves the way forward, thanks to my kind and loving family. We huddle together, like I see the huddles in parks in East Van. Rootedness. New season and a new day. I sing an uprooted and rooted prayer. I dance an uprooted and rooted Amen.