To the "A" Team

Dear Team,

Recently your presence, your participation, and your efforts have been called to my attention as a "team" project--the "A" team.

When I think of "A" teams, I immediately think of the Olympics--where every team and every individual on every team has succeeded as champions many times over in order to meet the minimum qualifications to proceed to the Olympic trials. It requires such unimaginable dedication, such perseverence, such devotion and sacrifice for the sake of the team--and such discipline to achieve the team's goals and success.

Although I've heard the word "team" often over the last few years, even as a participant, I realize that I just haven't gotten it--this being a member of the team--or, even, being tested before being accepted--or even understood what acceptance means--when it is applied to being a member of a or "A" team.

Last May when I was just beginning to write this last chapter, I was sitting in a chapel--hoping, I think, for some divine intervention. This particular chapel is very beautiful. When I first visited it many years ago, the picture window behind the altar framed a massive and ancient oak tree. The tree is long gone, yet the chapel remains such a lovely sanctuary. Around the upper walls are stained glass windows. As I sat there, I was looking up at the far wall at the pictures. I was just resting my eyes. Then, slowly, I realized that I was looking at the Chalice and began to imagine that it was The Holy Grail--the center panel in the procession of images.

I began to muse on what I knew of the ancient Arthurian legend--and, in particular, what I remembered about the many worthy knights who rode out in search of the Grail--where only one succeeded. I thought about all the other knights, valiant all of them. All of them great heroes in other legends. Each one meeting his downfall--and, in some way, that downfall was brought about by his own unconscious flawed nature. I grew uneasy thinking these thoughts. After all, why do they have to turn every story into a moral lesson?

Then, what I thought was--oh, each knight was in that particular part of the story for a specific reason. Each of those fallen knights had had his own part to play in the success of the quest--pointing the way for the one chosen to succeed.

I was, of course, thinking about my own failures on the way to fulfilling my vision quest. For, over the last few years, I have lived in such isolation that I really don't think of myself as 'a part of' or in this case "A" part of anything--much less a member of a or "A" team.

Rather, since my visit to the chapel, I have tried to remember that even the fallen knights were necessary to finding the Grail. Perhaps I'm not too far off--after all, how many mighty members of football teams are sidelined by injuries every year?

Here on this blog I am communicating with you. I am talking to you, telling you, assuring you, that I continue to work at, to gnaw at, this puzzling and difficult new perspective. You've been talking to me and I feel I owe it to you to take the hint and talk back.

Thanks for the "A" team effort to "show me the way."