Work out your own salvation

“Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.”
Philippians 2:12

Salvation is forgetting about my incoming email as I run alongside my daughter, my hand barely holding the back of her bike seat, while, together, we learn to let go.

Salvation is the rain-filled clouds parting at the end of a long run, revealing a cobalt sky through the poplars, birches and silver maples.

Salvation is driving by the men’s prison where I teach and seeing it not as walls, barbed-wire fencing and sniper towers, but as the place where Sam, Jose, Jesse, Khabil and Curtis live.

Salvation is writing my way into new understanding; following the silvery, slippery thread of inspiration to words on a page.

Salvation is a glass of ice water on a ninety-degree day; the velvety fur of my German Shepherd’s ears; warm whiskey on a sore throat; clean sheets on the bed; laughing hard enough to cry; the last page of a good book.

Salvation is all that turns me toward the world, not away from it.  More than a ticket to paradise, salvation is resurrection for the here and now.

[Feature Image: TMimages PDX]