I am back. It was good to be with family. We had a reunion of sorts, which my aunt seemed to get a kick out of in a very quiet and reserved way. She had quite a good weekend physically, with lots of visitors, and I half expect to get a call in the next couple of days saying she is declining rapidly now that the excitement is over.

I have a book at the office called Prayers for a Planetary Pilgrim, by Edward Hays. It has a special place in my heart, despite (or rather because of) the fact that it is grounded in what we in the bidness would term a “woo-woo” spirituality. You’re not likely to find it on the reading list for a course at a Protestant seminary. This is not John Calvin’s prayerbook. Ya got me?

The book includes morning and evening prayers for the different seasons of nature and the solstices, prayers for pregnancy, a prayer to say before writing a difficult letter, and other items for the various occasions of life. I have gained much insight from these prayers over the years. I also just love the book because it still smells vaguely of incense from the store where I bought it years ago.

Then there is the section in the book I’ve left largely unexplored, called “Rituals for a Planetary Pilgrim.” This section includes a ritual for fingernail trimming. I kid you not, Gentle Reader. There is also a poem called “Urine Ritual.”

Now, I am all about Jesus as the incarnation of God, and I have no use for a disembodied spirituality. Good theology needs to be grounded in everyday life, the messy and mucky as well as the miraculous. But I’ve never had much use for a urine ritual.

Except that today, I can tell you that I visited the toilet about eight times, and each and every time my kidneys and bladder did exactly what they were supposed to do, not only for my benefit but for my unborn child’s; and each and every time I realized how often I have taken such a simple unseen process for granted; and each and every time I felt a stab of sadness that my aunt’s kidneys are no longer functioning, and that she is slowly being poisoned by the toxins that are building up in her body, a process that is mercifully painless, but no less real.

It is the nature of things that sometime in the future I will take kidney function for granted once again, but today I do not.

A portion of the Urine Ritual:
O God of all life, as my body
now flushes out its physical impurities,
grant that all negative,
harmful and angry feelings within me
may be flushed out as well.