{"id":27,"date":"2010-10-21T19:55:50","date_gmt":"2010-10-21T23:55:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sanctuaryofwomen.com\/blog\/?p=27"},"modified":"2010-10-22T11:37:51","modified_gmt":"2010-10-22T15:37:51","slug":"blessing-the-beginning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sanctuaryofwomen.com\/blog\/blessing-the-beginning\/","title":{"rendered":"Blessing the Beginning"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

When the official publication date of In the Sanctuary of Women<\/em> rolled around on October 1, I was in one of my all-time favorite places: Asheville, North Carolina. I was traveling with my husband as he did some concerts around the Southeast. Although I don’t often get to travel with Gary<\/a> when he’s performing, the combination of fortuitous timing and the fact that several of the concerts were being hosted by friends of mine, in places that I love, made the trip too compelling to miss.<\/p>\n

To mark the book’s publication, Gary and my longtime friend Brenda gathered up a splendid group of folks for a post-concert celebration at one of Asheville’s congenial establishments. It was a perfect evening: the good company of friends both old and new; a chance to relax and take a breath in the wake of a year that, with events including getting married and finishing the book, has been tremendously and wondrously intense; and the easy conversation that being around a table so often evokes.<\/p>\n

As we visited, I shared about how, when friends had a party to celebrate the publication of my first book, Sacred Journeys<\/em>, I asked everyone at the party to sign the book as a way of blessing its beginning and providing a tangible reminder of that remarkable night. Fifteen years later, the signatures and words of blessing and good cheer with which those friends graced the book’s pages remain a tremendous gift. Sanctuary<\/em> is something of a sequel to Sacred Journeys<\/em>, and so it seemed fitting on that recent October night in Asheville to invite the folks around that table to do the same thing. Passing around a pen and a copy of my book, which had arrived—hot off the press—just before Gary and I hit the road, I asked them to do a book signing in reverse—to leave their mark as a remembrance of that night and a blessing for the book as it begins to make its way into the world.<\/p>\n

During the following days, as we continued to travel, I invited other friends to share in the book signing. Already the book has become a treasure, with the names and powerful words that friends have left on its pages. Some of my favorite words are from children, including one who wrote “Good gob!” inside the front cover.<\/p>\n

These pages will go with me as a reminder of the many people who have blessed the book in very tangible ways throughout its journey. From the book’s earliest days as scraps of ideas written on index cards, to its recent launch, and in the long stretch of writing in between—with both its wonders and its occasions of feeling quite daunted—friends have sustained both the writing and the writer with remarkable reminders of their care. Their encouragement and support have been a sanctuary indeed.<\/p>\n

As we launch not only the book but also this companion website, I am grateful for all the blessings that have helped make this beginning possible, and for those who have offered these blessings. On this day, what blessings are you mindful of? Who has offered them to you, and how might you pass them along to others? Are you contemplating a beginning that could use a blessing? Where might you find this?<\/p>\n

As you ponder this, here’s one of the blessings that I wrote for the book. May it grace you on your way.<\/p>\n

Where there is no way,
\nno path, no road made plain,
\nmay there be wise ones
\nwho inspire you to see
\nwhere the way could begin.<\/p>\n

Thank you for stopping by; your presence is a blessing upon this beginning. I pray that this site will offer a space of sanctuary and sustenance on your path. Peace to you.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When the official publication date of In the Sanctuary of Women rolled around on October 1, I was in one of my all-time favorite places: Asheville, North Carolina. I was traveling with my husband as he did some concerts around the Southeast. Although I don’t often get to travel with Gary when he’s performing, the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p190Xv-r","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sanctuaryofwomen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sanctuaryofwomen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sanctuaryofwomen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sanctuaryofwomen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sanctuaryofwomen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27"}],"version-history":[{"count":28,"href":"https:\/\/sanctuaryofwomen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":48,"href":"https:\/\/sanctuaryofwomen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27\/revisions\/48"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sanctuaryofwomen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sanctuaryofwomen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sanctuaryofwomen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}