lenten grace...tuesdays with anna

not to be confused with "tuesdays with morrie."  nobody's on their deathbed here, thank goodness!  who is this anna, you might be wondering?  i don't quite know how to describe her, other than that i very much believe that it is no coincidence that our worlds collided back in september when she started grad school here in boston and began supervising student teachers with me every tuesday.  we made a major connection the first time we met, when we realized that her uncle john was my parish priest growing up in north carolina!  what are the odds?  i mean, really?

anna has taught me a lot since september.  she has helped expand my vision of what makes a good teacher.  she has pushed my boundaries of understanding what it means to live a just life.  she has taught me a LOT about baking.  she has taught me about being vulnerable and sharing faith and life.  she has taught me about sacrifice and the challenges and joys that accompany the first year of marriage (she got married last july).  most of all, her friendship has been an ignition of grace in my life.  i can't tell you how blessed i feel to have had her walk in at the exact time when i was mourning the loss of the community i had lived in for the last three years.  she is like a kindred spirit, and i can't believe we've spent twenty-some years of our lives not knowing each other.

when this semester began, we learned that we would no longer be working together on tuesdays.  however, we both ended up having tuesdays free in our schedules (another gift of grace from God!) and decided to continue to spend time together every tuesday.  this new tradition has encompassed coffee dates, pancake making, bread baking, thai lunches...all of these things always threaded together with rich, life-giving conversation.  during lent, we decided that we would add daily mass to our agenda for tuesdays, which we began this past week.  what a joy to share a new kind of bread- life-giving bread- and a sign of peace- amidst God's grace and love present in the liturgy.  

thank you, God, for the gift of grace in friends and the time to share with them.  thank you for tuesdays.  thank you for anna.