A Note of Thanks, with a Note Asking for Prayers/Supportive Thoughts/Holding a Friend in the Light

Before I forget: I want to issue a note of sincere thanks to Bob/tinywriting, for his assistance in reformatting the photo of me I've chosen to use as the header of this blog's homepage. This is a photo Steve took of me in May 2006 when we went on pilgrimage to the shrines of Walsingham in East Anglia and of St. David's in Wales, with stops at other holy places (including a monastery where friends of ours had arranged for us to stay with a gloriously kind group of Benedictine nuns) across southern England.

Chris Morley has cleverly identified the very pathway on which I'm walking — the pathway out to the shrine of St. David's mother St. Non on the coast beyond St. David's. In case anyone is interested, I wrote about that particular day (7 May 2006) here, on my travel blog Never in Paradise. Clicking "St. David's" below the posting will bring you to my other journal entries about that particular shrine.

As I told Chris when I replied to his notes about the location of this pathway, this was the pilgrimage on which I left prayer requests from Walsingham (we went to both the Anglican and Roman Catholic shrines there) across to St. David's, and on to St. Non's shrine, which stated, "That the churches may repent of their savage treatment of LGBT people." 

While I'm issuing a note of thanks: I want once again to acknowledge the kind, generous assistance of a number of you readers who have sent donations for the work I do here. In several cases, people have pledged monthly support for an entire year or for several years.*

There's also a person whom I don't know how to begin to thank, who has made sizable donations several times now — shockingly large donations that I have tried repeatedly to refuse, to no avail. This person is a longtime friend of Steve's and mine, who is now going through a health crisis, and he's on my mind for that reason. Those of you who are inclined to pray or to hold people in the light with supportive thoughts, if you could please do that for our friend, I would be deeply grateful to you.

*Since it occurs to me that someone may read this and think I'm seeking to elicit more donations: I've been grateful for all the support, but am not sharing this information in the hope of receiving more donations. I'd be far more grateful for prayers for our friend!

The graphic: a votive plaque giving thanks at the shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe in New Orleans, by infrogmation, who has kindly uploaded the photo to Wikimedia Commons for sharing.