To Every Thing

Yesterday, I woke at 3:30 and was wide awake. I got up, made coffee, and sat in sacred silence. I wrote the following blog post, but didn't post it. It wasn't time. It was time for me to write it, but not to share it. I listened to Chris Brunelle's comforting voice, for hours.

I felt my mother-in-law's spirit in a way I'd never felt before. It was "right here," and I prayed in thanksgiving that her sister, best friend, parents, and husband of 60-years, surround her in her final days, and offer her peace and their outstretched hands, to help her cross over.

We knew she was failing.

We knew she didn't have months left, probably not even weeks, but we thought we had days, at least, still with her.

After leaving my prayer space, walking Flicka and getting just a few houses away, I got a call that she had just passed.

These last few years, and especially weeks, have enough material for a book, and maybe that's what they will become. For right now, I sit in gratitude for that which we cannot see or prove, but can See and Prove. We exist on different spheres and fields of energy, all at the same time.

There are no accidents.

Amen.




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The song comes to me, perhaps I've heard it at church and it just got stuck. Perhaps it has come as a message. Perhaps it's "just" a song. I don't think so.

"To every thing, there is season, a time to be born, and a time to die..."

Over and over again those words play in my head, a melodious backdrop to the crisis we are in, a constant reminder, a chant.

The words, the repetition, the truth, they comfort me as we do what you do in a crisis. You block out everything else. You attend to only that which is right before you. You gain focus, clarity, presence. The gifts of crisis.

Maybe crisis isn't the right word for it, not when you're talking about 89 years of a life well-lived. Transition. Transition is a better word. The reverse of transitional labor in the birth process, the pain and nearness of what is about to happen: death.

May the angels come to greet you.

May He wipe every tear from your eyes.

May you know sorrow no more.

May you find peace and joy in paradise.

Amen.

Ecclesiastes 3:1-8King James Version (KJV)

3 To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:

2 A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;

3 A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up;

4 A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance;

5 A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;

6 A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away;

7 A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;

8 A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.

Reusable Cup

I have a thing for long-burning candles with the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe on them. I generally get them at the grocery store, and they come in a tall glass container and will cost you about $1.99. They burn for days (seven straight, is how they were designed). I burn two during prayer time, and they last for months. Few things in my life give me a greater bang for my buck.

Found a new design at Fred Meyer, recently. Different shaped glass, and I impulsively bought four. I gave three to my fellow Mary-loving friends, and kept one. I quickly understood that I was going to need more than that for myself, and so promised myself the next time I was at Fred Meyer, I would get more.

Wil helps with an after-school program on Tuesdays and Thursdays for 90-minutes, and I have that time to kill. I often run errands. Sometimes I take my book and find a place to go sit and read until it's time to get him. I recently had a list of things to buy for my mother-in-law's birthday, and Fred Meyer seemed the place to go for one-stop shopping. With the exception of the three inexpensive candles I bought myself, everything else on the list was for another.

Took the receipt home, and was about to recycle it, but glanced at it before doing so. The receipt listed each candle as a "Reusable Cup."

Like any normal person, I've spent several days reflecting on that word, "reusable." Re-usable. Able to use again. Differently, perhaps.

It makes total sense to me, that Mary would lead me to understand ways I can be be of use again, differently, perhaps.

While it's very likely my lists: To Do, To Buy, To Go, To etc... are going to remain other-centered, when all is said and done, how do I remain reusable? How can I be of use differently?