afterglow

I wonder if there's something wrong since I didn't feel the afterglow. It was a little like after growl but different. Where is the freedom, the expression within me that I always count on to lift me to the next thing? I'm beginning to sound like after-brat.

After sex there's a cigarette but after leaving a pulpit for the last time, there is nothing. I didn't count the things up or create a ritual of rememberance for my mind. I did realize in the context of the blessing that it was the same one who said the words for the first time there two years ago. But I have to remember that it is not my blessing but the One who gives me permission to disperse the blessing. I am only standing in the place and the words slide into my mind from beyond and come out of my mouth. Is my mouth blessed too as the words tumble forward onto the heads of the bowed and the open eyed receivers?

Her mother said after the service, "Why didn't you take Communion?" And she responded, "I wanted her to bless me one more time." At 13 or whatever age she is, she speaks words of mystic already. The blessing to me was hearing the words that the child said. We both hugged. She cried and I knew that she wasn't just saying goodbye to me, but also to her mother who will surely die soon and her mother's father who will die one day in the not too distant future.

Her mother told me out of her chipmunk prednizone cheeks, "Yeah, Dad and I are going this week to pick out coffins together. I don't want to leave that for the kids to do."

A last one lingered and said, "I have to ask you, did you ever tell anyone else?" A secret told to me because of the position and the other's need to tell it. Confessions come in many forms. "I told the bishop," I said. "Why?" "Oh nothing, I was just wondering because I may want to do some things and thought it could possibly pop up and I wanted to be prepared."

I think my exit interview will be in the form of a written response to the last two years and a forward thinking for the next visionary to walk through the double doors.