best board opening ever

We had the best opening ritual that I've ever seen, at our Board meeting last night.

A shrine dedicated to St. Winefride (or Gwenfrewi, in her native Welsh) has a healing pool of water. It has been receiving pilgrims daily for over 1300 years. There are piles and stacks of crutches at the place, left there by people who came injured and left cured. One of our Board members visited the abbey two years ago, on a trip around Europe he took with his mother, who is an Episcopal priest. She stepped off a curb wrong, while they were over there, and broke her ankle in five places. They visited the pool, she soaked her ankle in the healing waters, they caught a plane home--when she landed in Los Angeles, none of her bones were broken anymore.

He brought some of the water home with him, and (because he's recently survived a cancer scare himself, and is thinking a lot about healing, and about his friends) he shared it with us last night. He passed around a small bowl, and offered it to us, to heal us in whatever ways we needed it.

I am sure that there were both believers and skeptics in the room--and it still felt incredibly special, that this man was sharing with us an important part of his life. Whether or not the water had special powers, his compassionate *act* of sharing brought healing to us.