Text Box: Interfaith Celebration Gathering Sunday, August 6, 2000 Interfaith Celebration Gathering Service Service agenda: Opening Prayer Readings Message OPENING PRAYER: Dear Mother, Father, Great Spirit, God, please hear my prayer. Merciful God, help me learn to share who I am with others. Teach me that my time here is not for making money or accumulating things, but for connecting with my brothers and sisters. I ask this knowing that all I need do is ask and it is granted. AMEN READINGS: Putting off an easy thing makes it hard, and putting off a hard one makes it impossible. George H. Lorimer MESSAGE: I Wish I Had Not Waited This past week I learned that a friend died just before Christmas last year. Ise and I were not close, but unknowingly she had given me a priceless gift. She and her husband ran Indian Valley Retreat in Floyd, VA. It is a retreat center that offers a wonderful array of holistic programs. Ise’s wonderful vegetarian cooking was enough of a drawing card even if the center were not far out in the country in a beautiful location surrounded by creeks, trees, clean air, and mountains. In fact, I held a weekend workshop on Healing the Inner Child there a few years ago. I was ordained as a minister into Sanctuary of the Beloved, Order of Melchizedek there also. The weekend of my ordination, I spent the night after my Friday evening ordination at the center. I got no rest the night after my ordination because God had a lot to say to and do with me during the night. So, I was somewhat dazed the next morning as I sat eating breakfast at the large table around which folks congregate to eat and enjoy fellowship at Indian Valley Retreat. Ise, who had a special radiance about her, was sitting there in her summer pajamas, totally comfortable with herself in the midst of several people she barely knew. I had never seen anyone as free with her body as Ise was. What I mean by ‘free’ is that she seemed more comfortable in her skin than anyone I had ever met. I, a survivor of childhood sexual abuse, had never learned that type of freedom, and it fascinated me. Ise never knew it, because she died before I could tell her, but she was a role model for me in my healing of the deepest emotional scars of the sexual abuse. I knew how to heal, but, until I met Ise, I did not know what I wanted the end product to look like. Ise noticed that I was staring at her, and asked why. I’m not sure what I said, but I know what I said did not touch the reality of what I was feeling at the time. I’m not even sure I could have described my feelings at that moment, because it took me a long time after that week end to work through them. After my night of soul-baring to God, I was painfully aware of the areas in me that still needed extensive work. Acceptance of my own sensuality and my body was high on that list of character deficiencies that needed work. In the course of my doing the workshop at Indian Valley Retreat, Ise and I got to know each other a bit better. I still did not tell her what she meant in my life, that she had become a role model for me without even knowing it. I even reconnected with Tom and Ise late last year for another matter, but still did not share anything with Ise. The healing that I sought has long since taken place. I am very comfortable with my body and my sensuality, and I have wanted to share it all with Ise. But, it is too late. I shared the story this week with Tom instead, when he wrote me that Ise was killed in a car accident before Christmas last year. While I cannot imagine how he is coping with the center and his and Ise’s several children, Tom said the center is still open. Tom is also a priest in Sanctuary of the Beloved, Order of Melchizedek, so I know he has a higher source for all things to whom he can turn. How many times in our lives do we miss telling someone we appreciate them? Or, that we care about them? Or that they have touched our lives in a special way? I could have honored Ise’s gift to me by telling her about it, but I did not take the time to do so. From now on, though, I shall pay more attention to doing the things I feel moved to do like this. Right now, I feel moved to tell you how much I appreciate the persons who have read these messages and written to let me know when something I have said sparks something in them. I appreciate the person who originally asked me to do these services, Andi, the moderator of Illnet. When she originally asked me to do them, I was quite ill and was convinced that my own end was in sight. Doing the messages gave me a reason to keep on going, a way to be of service. And, I am grateful to God, who inspires each and every message I write. Ise, I know you are in spirit now, but please know how much you meant to me. Hear me now as I share your gift with others. May God add a blessing to these humble words. AMEN © 2000 Rev. S. Suzanne Fisher