A Tale of Two Forwards, Part I

"She almost looked like the song: One-eyed and one-breasted...yet she couldn't fly and she didn't eat people."

Flying Purple People Eater.

When we lived in Tucson we attended the St. Francis in the Foothills church.  I'm not sure if "church" is the right word, more like a community center for open-minded individuals willing and tolerant to most forms of meditation and reflection.  My childhood memories include working on the Man of La Mancha play that was put on during Lent by the St. Francis Players.  My own baptism, officiated by David.  And my one adult memory of attending my mom's last memorial service back in 1999.

My mom attended St. Francis and found it to be a place of healing.  David Wilkinson introduces my mother and her state of mind in the early '80s best in his Forward:


It was the Spring of 1982.  The folks at University Medical Center had "sized her up" and sent her to Saint Francis in the Foothills.  I know what that means..when someone is "sized up" and sent to a Church.  It's like the proverbial: "If all else fails...pray!"  She almost looked like the song: She was one-eyed and one-breasted...yet she couldn't fly and she didn't eat people.  Yet in the fourteen years that I have known Janet Trever she has, in her own metaphorical way, taught me how to foly, and she most assuredly has consumed many of the false impressions I have held toward healing, wholeness and wellness.  Contained within this fragile, cancer-ridden, radiation that burned, chemo-therapized body is a Soul that has manifested all the best of the world's great Faiths.


And another paragraph I wanted to share:

She has often come into my office to pray.  No, it is not the prayer one might expect: not that the cancer might be taken away, that the headaches might stop, that a lasting partner might be found....The prayers weren't even for understanding.  They were just simple little prayers: "Beloved...help me to learn from this most recent challenge."  "Lord, thank you for the gift of one breast...one ye."  The tears would often flow.  Not hers!  Mine!  And those tears were some of the most previous of my ministry.  For in those tears my eyes were opened to what real healing is.

I personally feel that Janet Trever will die.  So will I.  So will all of you reading this Forward.  What I wish to affirm through my years with Janet is that she has lived her life so fully.

To listen to David's unique sermons, check out the St. Francis website with audio and video archives.