To my friend Aaronette

I am sitting here this morning trying to take in the news that you are no longer with us. It is not as if you were sick, you weren’t. Your not being with us in this realm anymore reminds me of how precious life is. How many times have I really thought about how blessed I am to wake up? I am grateful, however, somehow hearing the news that you have transitioned to the next realm of being, was a wake up call for me. This morning, I truly am grateful for another day to be of service to the world. After I got through the initial shock of it all, I could hear a few voices floating through my head. One was my Bubby asking me, “So Sara Bella what are you grateful for?” that is so easy. I am grateful I had the chance to meet you and get to know you. It brings me back in time to when I was pastoring at TPUFC and you would bring groups of students up to our church. I remember all the conversations we had about life, spirituality, social psychology, women and gender studies, and vegetarianism. I remember the opportunity we had to catch up in Los Angeles when you moved to UCSC
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Thanks Cousin Bruce

Dear Bruce, I just wanted to thank you for our conversation this past week. You said something that really touched me and got me thinking about how far I have come in my own journey. You talked about my aura and how it drew you to me and how you thought it drew others to me as well. I am not even sure if you will remember saying that or not. I can remember a time when I was probably more Eeyore and feeling like my whole world was woe is me. I had to work so hard on myself to look at how I was practicing a theology of sadness to get to a theology of joy. I had allowed myself to internalize other people’s lies and negativity. It had eaten away at my sense of self and the perception of my relationship with God. I had to remove all this from my spirit and replace them with those things I knew to be true.
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Week 2, Day 4 – Differences Between Us

Lol – ok, so this is why my BFF and I are BFF’s – actually she is more of my sister and spiritual partner then anything else. I still remember the day, and if she reads this she will know this is about us, but I remember the day we were sitting on this bench in the halls of the seminary and she told me I got on her nerves. Nine years later, I still get on her nerves, but in a good way. And the truth is sometimes she still gets on mine, but in a good wayJ. I remember that day as if it were yesterday. What got on her nerves -- hmm, let’s see it was part my being a feminist, my talking about women’s studies, my being out about being a lesbian and my being out about being biracial. Did I always have to be so out there and open about everything? Yeah, girl, yet here we are nine years later and who would have ever thought we would be as tight as we are today. We are so freakin different. Yet at the same time, we are so alike.
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