It's a late winter's day here in The 'Kan EWA and the sun shines beautiful and weak, warming itself up, getting ready, for what surely will be a long and delicious spring.

So many inputs and stimuli rolling around my head and my heart. Went to Pat and Diane's Golden Wedding anniversary yesterday; it was brilliant. Had a million pictures, three videos and her dress on display in the foyer of the church. So, so loving, romantic and sensual--the entire afternoon. Fifty years.

Got beautiful flowers at the Pike Street Market on Friday: daffodils, cherry blossoms and laurel. It's gets so dark here, so still and so cold. I do love winter in the great Pacific Northwest and yet every year without fail, spring relieves a very real longing and yearning deep inside me and brings respite. Hope.

Been watching the Olympics as if my kid, my brother and my roommate in college was on every single team. God, what a magnificent time it's been in Canada. Loved the bobsled, loved the ski cross, speed skating, and the hockey. But those guys that do the skeleton are absolutely nuts. But then, they always were, I guess. Have just loved the games in Vancouver.

And would really love to go to South Africa to the World Cup. Have to go to Las Vegas next weekend instead. Gonzaga basketball is utterly boring and without one spark of inspiration. It's now officially become formulaic basketball, a perfect equation to bring profit and acclaim to the university, with heart not being a factor in Gonzaga's game and program because it's not necessary to the bottom line. I'll go and wear my red shirt and be Zaggish but I'll be thinking about the new Elvis/Cirque du Soleil show that I'm going to see and the spring scarves at Hermes and about making my deadlines at work and trying to find my way back home.

I've gotta find my way back home.


JBelle
Bellemaison
The 'Kan EWA

So it's comforting to have a place to go when things really start to fall apart. It's good then that finally the words start to come but still-- it feels guilty a bit, as though I only come here out of need. Maybe it's okay to only come here out of need. Fact, it's got to be okay for now.



I was watching The Godfather movies long, long, long before they become cinema classics and the lessons of The Godfather became chic talk at cocktail parties. Part II was always the most painful because of course, it drilled down into that relationship classic, treachery and betrayal. Michael's betrayal by his brother in Part II is not the main course of the story however; it's Michael's response to betrayal, his reaction to treachery that is the real story and the stuff that entire lives are made of, both on the screen and in our own personal little stories. And how one embraces and absorbs treachery and then betrayal just well may be the only story worthy of telling once the house lights of our lives come up and the janitors enter the vanquished darkness to sweep.



Our Lord, Jesus Christ, set the model that probably is the source from where all other reactions to treachery and betrayal are spun and derivatives arise. Unlike Michael Corleone, He leaned into his betrayal and did not respond nor fight back, becoming his closest's post use waste. It worked fine for his betrayers because it allowed them to enact what they might have believed was their destiny and at the very least allowed them to have their way. Express themselves in the oppression of the ministry and the generosity that was Our Lord's. He let them have what everyone thought surely was the last word. And they were triumphant. Mighty.

In the moment. We all know ultimately how that story ended and how each of the parties' subsequent lives played out; I would summarize it briefly by saying this: love conquers all. everytime.

Everytime.


So. You want a piece of me? Help yourself. There's enough to go around. Take all you want and take your time. And don't worry about turning out the lights when you are done. It'll all be taken care of.


JBelle
Bellemaison
The 'Kan EWA