Nashville, TN:
We all make mistakes.
Sometimes the mistakes we make aren't necessarily malicious or on purpose. Sometimes, it's just being negligent with needs or haphazard with hearts.
Today, a friend was careless with me. It hurt me specifically because she knows me better than most people & understands the kind of struggles I am going through. I guess the saying 'you hurt the ones you love the most' rings true. But it still sucked and made the rest of my day pretty grey.
Tonight, the same friend showed up at my door and tried to fix it. Along with her sincere apologies, she brough a bottle of white wine, white chocolate covered strawberries, a bag full of savory nuts and cooked me a little pasta. Well.... at least we're off to a good start.
But then, she instructed me to come outside with her and presented me with the ultimate I'm-sorry-and-I-really-mean-it gift:
The Prayer Lantern.
On the very thin consistancy, she had written down prayers for me... prayers only a real friend truly knows.
In the evening air, in the back of my condo unit, she sacredly lit the bottom of the prayer lantern,
and held it up to let the flames fill the hot-air-balloon-type apparatus.
She looked towards the heavens,
and released it.
There, in the night air, we watched the lantern -- with my deepest desires written on it -- float away,
and I could only hope that my prayers would make it up to God's ear... or at least somewhere in the general vicinity of His peripheral vision.
I've learned that even in the midst of messy mistakes, sometimes all it takes is showing up at the door and saying "I'm sorry."
(Prayer lanterns & white chocolate-covered strawberries are not required, but encouraged.)
thanks, a.
