Happy First Birthday, Mary Muncil’s blog. I met the Rev. Mary Muncil a couple of years ago, just a few months before Maria and I were to get married. I had heard a lot about Mary. That she was strange, Lots of people knew of her, but few really knew her. They said she was a bit out there, brilliant and interesting. That she was a mystic. That she made wonderful skin balm and had studied at Harvard and kept to herself. At the time, Maria and I were flailing about trying to figure out how to get married. First, I wanted my friend Steve McLean to marry us, but he was a Jesus guy and I love Jesus but am not a Jesus guy.  I was born Jewish but have never really related to Jewish ritual and practice. I became a Quaker when I was a teenager, and wanted a Quaker marriage, but Maria and I made the Friends Meeting here a bit nervous, and so at Maria’s suggestion – she said Mary sounded just right – we went to her, and our lives changed quite dramatically, powerfully and permanently.

Mary took over things. She was clear, perceptive, loving. She understood better than I did what kind of ceremony we needed. We both loved her from the first.  All of the things I had heard about her were true, it turned out. I learned later that she is also a good witch. Coming off of a world-class crack-up I watched her put the ceremony together for us and I knew this was a person who could help me not only with fear but also with my deep yearning for a spiritual life. So she became my friend, spiritual counselor. We began an extraordinary dialogue that  changed my life. I saw right away that Mary’s genius was to help people like me find our way in a fearful and angry world, spiritually and in other ways. I suggested a blog for her. She was horrified.

I got all the blah-blah friggin-blah you often hear from smart people when it comes to technology. Oh, I can’t do that. Oh, I don’t need that. I’d rather read paper books, be civilized. Who needs friends on Facebook? I don’t have time for that. I love my privacy, etc. Who would read it?

For much of my life, I have worked to connect creative people with technology, and after battling with me for awhile – Mary and I often battle and butt heads about things, as she is always telling me stuff I don’t want to hear – Mary just went and did it, put up this home-made blog that drew thousands of people instantly and provided her with the ministry she had always wanted but couldn’t quite figure out how to find. From the first, people found it and loved it, and it has grown and deepened by the day.  This really works, she said to me one day. Duh, I said.

I love Mary and I love her blog.  Clearly, we were meant to find one another, in this small town in this remote place.  More than anything in my life, Mary has helped me overcome the chronic terror that rotted the underside of my life, more than therapy, medication, doctors of all kinds. I am approaching the spiritual life I always wanted.  Her blog, one year old today is a light unto the world and a powerful example of the ways in which technology can be used to empower and uplift us and to connect us with community.  Mary works hard at it, as you have to do to make it work. It reminds us to find the light and beauty in the world.

Happy Birthday, Mary’s blog. We love you and the good witch who created you.