There are topics that divide us. Perhaps you have noticed. Sometimes we skirt them like manholes that have misplaced their covers,  yawning precariously in our path. Best to go around. Other days we clamp our twitching mouths shut lest they unleash a belch of controversy. 

 

The other day I walked into a collection of people unsure if the conversation would rupture into fragmented opinions. The potential peeked out like the lace of a too long slip beneath my hem. Not that I wear them anymore. 

 

I introduced myself to someone whom I knew by name but have never spoken with. For reasons I can't justify he was willing to share the story of his circuitous path, including the tender parts pointing to where he has landed. It was precious. We returned to the here and now and filled our plates with food. I chose a table with a person I knew no better than the first. My great fortune continued as she trusted me with some of the vulnerable stretches of her experience, pulling me into shades of compassion I was ignorant of minutes before. Maybe because sweetness arrives in triplets, another guest chose to grace me with his company. This was a man who taught me decades ago, that I have not conversed with since. Again I was invited into the sacred space of another human who has grappled with life on life's terms. 

 

The hours spent listening felt higher, more expansive than the concerns I had brought like rocks in my pockets when I first arrived. All three dialogues were rinsed of popular sentiments like self pity, or blame. Commitment to their faith plumbed each of the speaker's choices in a way that reminded me of the promise in Isaiah. Their lives have been rough. The climbs have been arduous. Yet those difficulties are muted by time, as if the detours had been the intended itinerary all along. 

 

 

Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low: and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain.

- Isaiah 40