::TOO SOON TO TELL::

A recent checklist:

Have you locked in on who you were put here to be?

Are you accomplishing all that you were put here to accomplish?

How much longer is your life’s to-do list?

How’s that memoir coming?

Will your work projects pay off?

What will be written on your grave marker?

Will you have a grave marker?

Will your grands know how much you loved them?

Will you have made a difference in any positive way?

What is the one thing, if you had to choose, that you’d want to be remembered for?

How will your children carry on once you’re gone?

What will happen to your writing?

What will happen to your artwork?

What will happen to your design work?

Once you’re gone, will you even care about any of this?

Questions that, once posed, tend to send me into one of two places: a deep and thoughtful period, or a moment of ironic flippancy where I say, “Who cares about that? I can only handle ‘now’.”

And really, those questions generally pop up only when I’m down. And I’m down so seldom that I had to conjure to bring them up at all.

I keep my eyes on the horizon, and my heart in Gilead. My path is my testimony, marked by my feet, which I put one in front of the other each day.

It is a varied, and a beautiful life. Trouble? Yes, we see trouble all around us. But we are not the trouble itself. No one is. We are the very love we seek; we are the center and the stillpoint of this amazing planet. And what we focus on increases. Think about that.

So, as I look back on this list of questions I raise, I can quietly and with blessed assurance say,

“It is too soon to tell. But I’ve read the Book. I know how this ends.

“And it is beautiful.”

July 10, 2018 1

::Blue::

Blue Velvet, Blue on Blue, Blue Horizon. Blue is the color of my true love’s eyes. Am I Blue; blue bloods, blue stones, blue sky, blue sea.

I dream of the seashore, with its blue lapping waves. The Caribbean shore is my birthstone, aquamarine blue. Tanzanite is lavender blue, dilly dilly, deep and true. Blue satin ribbons, tying up my hair. Take them loose and let it fall.

The blues rock me and roll me, clear to my soul. Muddy Waters, Bessie Smith, Blind Lemon Jefferson, Skip James, they run blue in my veins, sing my truth from sea to shining sea.

Blue eyes cryin’ in the Rain. Blue Monday; call it Stormy Monday, but Tuesday’s just as bad.

Baby’s blue lips in the wintertime, get her inside, swaddled in the blue blanket.
Blue is the feeling when the loss is real.

Blue is the laminin cross, in every cell. Blue is the glue, holding us all together.

Holding us together.

Holding each.

Holding all.

We are held and connected by the blue.

We are blue.

May 20, 2018 0

::WHITE HORSE::

I shall ride a white horse
when I come to free you
although you may be sleeping
you’ll know when I arrive.

Members at your table
in profound agreement
the time is now at hand
for the best of you to rise.

Don’t reinforce your fortress
don’t gird yourself for war
the light, the love I bring you
are what you’ve hungered for.

When you turn to greet me
take a quiet moment
although it may be blinding
look into my eyes.

I am your reflection
I live there inside you
you will recognize me
the elder and the child.

July 26, 2015 0

::REMEMBERING HOLINESS::

There are countless books available that promote ways in which we can heal our Selves. Some books are dedicated to traditional medicine, some prescribe alternative or holistic treatment, some are based on a myriad of psychological approaches, and some reveal processes and rituals of ethnic or religious origin. Each of these practices holds at least an element of validity, and all share in a common goal: to bring us to holiness.

The word holiness takes many by surprise. It causes some to pull back in reaction to a word that has traditionally been tied to religion. But holiness actually means wholeness; being truly whole. Knowing the truth about who we are, feeling loving and gentle toward our authentic Selves. We can call it many things, but when we reach this place of wholeness we are, indeed, holy.

There is nothing sweeter than a new baby; in its presence our entire demeanor changes. We speak in hushed tones; we walk softly, we move slowly, touch gently. We feel a reverence for the newness, the sweetness, the innocence of this tiny being. We are in awe of its perfection. We are beholding a holy one. And we are remembering our own holiness.

We learn, very quickly, to “become” whatever the rules say we must. We are good little soldiers, good children …we follow directions, or not; but the world continues to shape us, and teaches us to lead with our acceptable “‘personas” − caricatures of who God created − that carry us far from the holy selves who arrived here in the beginning.

And now, during this season of holiday, “giving” is in full swing. We watch the children in our lives, and the child in each of us awakens. We are, once again, those newborns; we are those “holy ones.” We embrace the chance to participate in a tidal wave of open hearts, of tender thoughts, and of uplifted ideals. We are individuals, certainly; in addition, however, we are a collective of all the things we ever imagined, of our deepest held dreams. Our wildest sacred hopes take wing in the December air. Is it possible? Could it be? If only … just maybe .… this is the stuff we’re made of; it’s the stuff of miracles.

The world has taught us to forget this, but it is true. This season of remembering takes us home to that truth. How sweet, how holy a world it will be when we choose to stay awake; to stay connected with our “original truth.” For that is, after all, where our holiness resides.

June 23, 2015 0

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