Hope in the Ruins

I am grateful to the people who had the foresight to preserve The Mission in San Juan Capistrano, because it is truly one of my favorite places in the world. The ruins of an old Spanish cathedral built in 1776 -- the year our country was born! -- it is a site to behold with its massive bells and columns and the soaring domed knave still standing at the head of the beautiful broken old building. I find it even more beautiful that the old mission provides shelter and a safe haven to the thousands of swallows who make a pilgrimage from Argentina every year to build their homes for the summer (instead of nests, the build mud enclaves called, no kidding, condos.) But what made me most grateful today as I toured the gardens and made my way to the tiny prayer chapel that still stands in the back, is that this year, I got to bring my husband to share it with me.

You see, the first time I found myself in San Juan Capistrano was in October of 2007 -- I was attending a retreat that was a few miles north, but they ran out of room on the grounds of the retreat center, so I stayed in a motel off the highway. And while it was noisy and the room smelled like diesel -- it turned out to be a wonderful twist of fate.
I went to this particular retreat because I was feeling lost in my life...I felt like I should be happy, but things just felt off, I felt lonely and anxious and afraid a lot of the time -- too much of the time. So I went in the hopes that some peace and quiet away from LA would help me to get some perspective, to gain some guidance and wisdom. Anyway, one morning, I skipped going to the retreat and instead went for a walk. I walked out of the hotel and just wandered until I saw a very curious and old looking domed structure that seemed to be pretty close...So keeping my eyes on it, I walked and took turns that brought me closer until I was there -- at The Mission. I couldn't believe such a place existed in California -- to me history here only went as far back as the Hollywoodland sign. But this place was more like something you'd see in Europe -- it was breathtaking, so I went inside and found that there were not only ruins there, but an ancient old chapel and to the side, a prayer room filled with kneeling people. At the front of the room there was a large book where people could go and write down their prayers.

I sat in that room for a long time, watching the people as they approached the book, feeling such an intimacy that the strangers turned into people I couldn't help but love -- love them for their courageous act of going forward and putting themselves out there, exposing their deepest hopes and pains, even their tears, on paper. It was truly inspiring -- so after shaking off an irrational embarrassment (what if someone I knew came inside and saw me? what if people knew I was weak and frightened and sad?) I went up and poured out my deepest prayers. I won't go into the specifics, but I laid them all out there...

I returned this year, like the sparrows, to the place where I had once found shelter from a storm. And this time, just three years later, I walked into that little chapel, and went up to the book to write a new prayer -- Thank you. Because in putting myself out there, I let go of fear and grasped onto hope. In looking down at my own writing and seeing the true desires of my heart, I somehow opened myself up to the possibility of them, and that day I truly began to believe the scripture that says "with God all things are possible..."