I’m in a kind of spiritual desert right now, so I went to visit the Rev. James Johnson-Hill of the SLO Agape Church in SLO, a church far afield from the structured tradition of the Episcopal Church in which I was raised.

As neglectful as I’ve been toward my faith, and how much I’ve tried to hide it, are hallmarks of my life. But in every minute of my teaching, I was also artfully and subversively, preaching, the message that we are all brothers and sisters, even with the dead, and that the membrane–Walt Whitman’s word choice–that connects us is love. This is the message my mother, a devout almost-but-not-quite Roman Catholic, taught me. Mom and Jesus were always there with me in the classroom.

Maybe missing my kids also means that I am missing the passion I felt in teaching.

So I drove up to San Luis to visit James, the husband of a former Mission student, Anicia Bonds, who is very dear to me.

I just needed another perspective.

Once we’d finished talking, I understood that what I take for a crisis is really an opportunity to come closer to God. Talking to, and learning from this wise and wise man, was an immense gift.

Guess whose gift he really was.

And when we were done talking and praying, Anicia was there and we shared a hug. I needed that, too.

Thank you, Pastor James. Thank you, Mom. I think you were right next to me today.