Growing up, back in the Dark Ages before email, chain letters delivered the promise of good things arriving in one's mail box. Of course dire consequences awaited should you dare to break the chain. I admit I probably broke the chain on a few occasions. Fortunately I avoided the price paid by the teenagers in the horror flick "Chain Letter" who were murdered by a maniac when they refused to forward chain mail.

And so I was intrigued by the low-hurdle invitation I received last week to participate in a "one-time collective, constructive, and hopefully uplifting Interfaith devotional exchange". The instructions: send an encouraging text/ verse/ motivational poem/ prayer/ meditation to the name at the top of the list; add your name to the bottom; BCC it forward to 10 others who "would be faithful and make it fun".

I hesitated for just a second over the words "devotional" and "faithful". Childhood experiences with church alienated me from organized religion. Over the years, though, I've come to recognize its language as mirroring much that I know to be true. 

The first message to arrive in my in-box, once I pressed the button to advance the chain, offered a translation of its own, an update to the touchstone query "What would Jesus do?" Instead my chain mail benefactor offered the question she asks herself in moments  of difficulty: "What would love do?"

It reminded me of an exchange I'd had with my aunt, the Reverend Madeline Jervis, among the first women ordained by the Presbyterian Church. Why in the world, I wondered in my self-righteous twenties, did she want to serve an institution that I saw as oppressive? Her answer stunned me in its simplicity. "To spread the Good Word." And what is the Good Word? I asked in response. "God is love," she said. "God is love."

In fact, I picked my contribution to the chain from another unconventional messenger who took word of Jah Love to a hallucinogenic high, Bob Marley: "Emancipate yourself from mental slavery; non but yourself can free your mind."

I loved getting glimpses throughout the week of the words used by others, breadcrumbs connecting them to the sacred. And I witnessed the power of the Good Word - absent any mention of god, God, or religion - when I shared a video meditation with nearly 300 people at an organizational event on Friday. Before digging in to the kind of left brain analysis common to staff retreats, we opened the day with these words by Brother David Steindl-Rast, a Benedictine monk, and a young girl who suggests going deeper in to "see beautifuller things".

Tech note: Some devices may open the video to its start, an introduction by the filmmaker Louie Schwartzberg, also very worth watching. (I love his translation of OMG.) The piece I shared at the employee gathering starts at 3:45. With deep gratitude to JerriGrace Lyons of Final Passages for introducing me to this wonderful TED talk.

The new year found me sitting in a circle around a firepit in Tucson where the good souls gathered had cast into the flames what they sought to shed from 2013, and tucked into their pockets what they wished to beckon in 2014. A scrap of conversation with the person next to me captured exactly what I cherish most these days…

Four principles, a four-fold path (in the parlance of the improvisational movement practice we were discussing): Show up. Pay attention. Tell the truth. Be open to what happens next.

My work as a Life-Cycle Celebrant brings me into daily contact with people doing just that, whether creating ceremonies to mark major life passages, observing simple daily rituals, or gathering for intimate encounters at a Death Café. That’s why I concluded, reflecting on my time in Bhutan, that one need not travel to the other side of the globe to find stewards of the sacred in abundance.

In tribute to everyone who is showing up, paying attention, telling the truth, and being open to what happens next, here is my list of 20+13 occasions for gratitude from the year just past.

1.  Writing: I set out to write 50 stories in 50 weeks on my blog and it not only got me writing, it got me thinking like a writer and reconnected to other writers. Best part: paying more attention to the stories that surround me (see below).

2.  Readers: Every post brings the joy of responses, a cascade of stories flowing from other stories. And who doesn't appreciate praise like this? “Holly’s newsletter is like a clear voice coming through the fog reminding me to be present to life.” Wow!

3.  Published: The lovely journal Cactus Heart published my essay: My Friend Marcy Has Cancer. I Don't (Yet). which I was inspired to revive through my immersion in the Death Cafe movement.

4. Witness: Marcy Westerling, friend of 20+ years, lets me look over her shoulder at her Livingly Dying. I am continuously humbled.

5.  Nature: Six backpacking trips, all but one with actual backpacks and two weeks living outdoors in the Michigan woods reinforced that sense of wonder that’s harder to feel within four walls.

6. Mother: Our adult relationship transcends the involuntary bonds of biology. She did not choose to get pregnant with me any more than I chose her as my mother. But we choose each other now. Two glimpses: It Takes a Neighborhood, A Tree for the Ages.

7. Father: If he’d had a funeral, I might not be on my current path. I commemorated the 12th anniversary of Ken Pruett’s death by commissioning Holly Swan of Ash & Earth to make a memorial stone I can hold in my palm or wear around my neck. And I wrote a trilogy of posts about my path to forgiveness: Letting Go of My Dad Part 1 & Part 2.   

8. Kids: A week without my playdate with these darling darlings is a less joyous week, indeed. 

9. Amber: It’s been 12 years since Amber and I declared our commitment in front of our nearest and dearest and we’re still thankful for each other every day. 

10. Weddings: I had the opportunity to co-create and officiate some lovely weddings this year, and to muse about the meaning of it all.  

11. Funerals: I had the unparalleled honor of assisting with 8 brave and beautiful tributes this year, including one that was 19 years overdue.  

12. Death Cafés: I cofounded the PDX Death Café and witnessed the courage of hundreds of participants. Kate Brassington, one of my fabulous collaborators, explains “Why I talk about death”. 

13. Teachers, formal: I trained with the magnificent JerriGrace Lyons of Final Passages, one of the mothers of the death midwife movement, and was certified as a Home Funeral Guide. I dipped my toe into the deep waters of Stephen Jenkinson’s Orphan Wisdom and will travel to his school in eastern Canada for more in 2014.

14. Teachers, informal: Before she died, the utterly irreplaceable Val Garrison said this, “There is no magical group of perfect friends who will never disappoint you. Embrace the imperfect family.”

16. Students: The Unitarian Church invited me to teach a three-week course in Creative Rituals for a Changing World. Such a wonderful group to explore together the cairns that mark the path behind us and the way ahead. 

17. The unknown: Three cheers to my clients who embraced liminality – that in-between state of becoming. And to those who stepped forward from divorce, finding ways to release, in John O’Donohue’s words, all that is unforgiven.

18. Remembering: So many ways, from simple to elaborate, to caress the echo… as long as I live, you too shall live. 

19. Colleagues: I’m finding my new tribe. As much as I’ve thrived for years in a community of political activists, these days I’m finding my place among the healers and meaning-makers, the revivers of lost arts and architects of new ways to walk through old portals, as Andrea Carlisle artfully observed. 

20. Serendipity: And through it all – the showing up, paying attention, and truth telling – the biggest gift of all has been the mystery of what happens next, something unearned, without guarantee… experiences and outcomes that cannot be willed but arrive on the wings of grace and gratitude. 

+ 13 of my favorite stories from the year:

1. The dutch oven that brings Peggy Acott’s mother back to her. 
2. Monica Wesolowska’s important and achingly honest memoir of surviving her infant son’s death. 
3. Best use of blow torch: healing from divorce. 
4. The circle of love created by Kristel and Trevor’s family.
5. The memorial quilt crafted by Becky Bent that finally found its home. 
6. Dannielle Yates’ use of sound to clear the air, literally. 
7. The community-building celebrations of Liz & Pat’s 25 years together and Holly Blue’s wedding. 
8. The gratitude ceremony Emily created to celebrate the community around her gender-affirming surgery. 
9. Lara Vesta’s story of a woman who found her own name.  
10. Charlotte Eulette’s story of a celebration of life that was 8 years in the making, which led to Kathy’s 18-years-delayed ceremony for her mom. 
11. Alethea Devi’s further proof that there are many ways to sanctify a relationship. 
12. The cosmic baton pass from Stephanie’s deceased dad to Jay during their wedding.
13. Andrea Carlisle’s eulogies for her brilliant dog Brio and heroic cat Hadley Mae. 
    

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With thanks to tc colbert for the four-pillar inspiration.