An Altar I Didn't Know I Needed

February 5, 2025 Molly Davis

The entryway to our home has never been an important space. A space in which I’ve wanted to linger. A space into which I’ve wanted to welcome guests. It’s simply been a space through which to pass, multiple times, as we go about our daily rounds.

I am a person to whom space matters, and yet somehow transforming this small but central space escaped my attention. Until it didn’t.

As with most things, its transformation began with one thing. A photo of the logging road that we have been hiking faithfully ever since the pandemic. It began simply as a way to build our endurance, but over the course of walking that same path, witnessed by those same trees, it has become a kind of pilgrimage. A holy trek upon ground that will faithfully bear whatever we carry, and somehow lighten, and enlighten us in the process. Next came a drawing of Mt. Adams, the mountain in whose shadow we sit, and upon whose slopes we’ve climbed with people we love. Finally, a picture capturing the partnership Tom and I have somehow managed to build, despite our many flaws and foibles, over our thirty years of loving each other. A trip to Pottery Barn for inspiration yielded just the narrow table needed, at a floor model price. Shopping our home resulted in a small lamp to shed soft light, a glass candle holder first purchased for the weddings of a couple of daughters, acorns gathered as symbols of new life to come, a tiny vial of holy oil as we are all in need of healing, and art pieces made by loving hands.

The space was completed on January 19th.

On January 20th, as we headed out to the porch for our morning coffee in the dark, I lit the candle to remind us of the light that will shine in any darkness, no matter how black. In that moment, that transformed space became an altar.

An altar I didn’t know I needed. Until I did.

The altar is now the place upon which to set my prayers. All of them. A space upon which to lay down the burdens of my sadness and grief and pain and fear, leaving them in hands much greater than mine. It is also the space upon which I place my thanks, my faith in the Love that is greater than any evil, and my gratitude for the privilege of being alive. Right now. At this exact moment in our shared history.

All left at the altar, my heart has the space to take in all the beauty, wonder, joy, and love found in the world around and within me.

All left at the altar, I can better encounter the world with a willing heart, an open mind, a ready laugh, the tears that need to be shed, and hands ready to do what is mine to do. To actively work to create a world, and a country, that I want to inhabit.

All left at the altar, I can be present to who and what are before me. To, in the words of Diana Butler Bass, go out and Love relentlessly.

I didn’t know I needed an altar.

Until I did.

Maybe you might need one too.

(Written with gratitude to Katie M for helping me bring the altar into being.)

Love Ya, See Ya, Bye.

April 12, 2024 Molly Davis

Bob Henderson was born on April 13, 1944.

He was born to parents who had come through the depression and knew how to work hard and live frugally. Like many in their generation, parenting was probably mostly about keeping young Bob safe, fed, and well behaved, leaving little time or inclination to understand the inner workings of a young boy. An early report card suggested that perhaps he didn’t play well with others, which made total sense. An only child, he didn’t have siblings to play with, fight with, or get into mischief with, and his parents were busy putting food on the table. All of which meant that, from an early age, he learned to depend on and be responsible for himself.

And despite that beginning, my brother-in-law, Bob, has cultivated a life lived in service to others, a heart overflowing with generosity, and a spirit that is as tender as it is strong. His is the first hand to be raised with an offer to help, no matter the task. Often called Big Bucks Bob, although his stash of bucks isn’t limitless, you’d never know it by the way he shares the financial fruits of his labor with those he loves. While he may have a deep conviction to a particular view of an issue, when it comes to the human being in front of him, love wins out every time. Period.

A One on the Enneagram—known as the Improver or the Perfectionist—he looks for ways to better the world around him, starting with himself. As such, he is his own harshest critic, which is why he is daily amazed by the grace he receives from the God that he loves. It is that overwhelming grace that moves him to be the first to apologize, ask for forgiveness, and allow whatever just transpired to help him move forward with more compassion and greater self-awareness. He is an old dog forever committed to learning new tricks.

His love for his family is second only to his love for God. His faith is the bedrock of his life, the light on his path, and the compass by which he steers his trusty ship. At 80 years old, death doesn’t scare him because he knows to whom he belongs. All of that can be summed up in his signature sign off from every phone call: Love ya, see ya, bye.

With those words, when it comes to Bob Henderson, you can rest assured that you are loved, you are seen, and it’s only goodbye for now.

Happy Birthday Bob. Our world and my heart are better because of you.

Love ya, see ya, bye.

God's Idea

October 21, 2018 Molly Davis

“You are exactly what God had in mind when He made you.”

Gregory Boyle S.J.

It’s Sunday, and God and I decided to stay home from church. It is a glorious day outside, and although I love our church, there are days, like today, that I need to engage with the Holy right where I am.

Every morning I start the day with my morning practice of morning coffee, morning reading, and morning meditation. Except on the days I don’t. On those days, I try to remember all of the other days that I do practice.

However.

It can be so easy to forget what we do, and get lost in judgement about what we don’t. (Just FYI, I never go without my morning coffee.)

My current morning book is Barking To the Choir by Gregory Boyle, founder and Director of Homeboy Industries, the largest gang intervention, rehab and reentry program in the world. My last morning book was his too (Tattoos On The Heart), so I guess I’m kind of crazy about him these days. His work, his wisdom, his wit, and his words. In his work with gang members, he reminds them over and over again that they are exactly who God had in mind. They’ve just forgotten, or never knew it in the first place.

“You are exactly what God had in mind…”

Reminding them of this truth opens the door for them to live into it.

When I first came across those words they nearly jumped off the page. Landing squarely in my heart with the ring of Truth, they’ve continued to echo inside, the words bouncing off the walls of my inner canyons, and returning to my ears again, and again, and again.