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Ode to Saren

Aging as Spiritual Practice, change death listening

I just got a call from Saren’s husband.

                She’s dead.

Which is why she hasn’t answered my phone calls these last number of months.

A nasty fall. A broken hip. A decline. Hospice. The plight of so many older women.

                My dear Saren.

I’ve been flashing on bits of our past ever since.

The nights out after one or another’s most recently failed relationship.

The Vision Quests in the wilderness of the Cascades.

The deep understanding.

The capacity for listening that is so rare.

And the night she sat on the side of my ed and asked bluntly: “Would you be OK if I was in this relationship you are in – going through what you are?”

Which proved to be the pivotal words that sank in and turned me around – and out – of an abusive, oppressive relationship that was dragging me into a perpetual mire that I really was stuck in.

                Saren.

Why am I sharing all this?  With my horror of exposing vulnerabilities?

Because. Believer me.  Really and truly – for each and every person you love – there will be a last thing you will have said to them.

Best to presume each thing might be that last one thing.

Divine Will

Divine Grace fulfillment Happiness Joy Kindness meditation Mind-Body Healing Serenity spirituality True Self truth

One of my greatest interests is embodying Spirit as a known reality. To simply discuss or learn about theological doctrines and history is to keep it intellectual. All head-stuff. To translate the laws of God as written and learned into action is the next level of absorption. We put into action and make relevant what we have learned.

But even deeper than this is the embodiment of Spirit, Itself, as a known, felt, motivating force that informs and guides our every action without even needing to “think” about it. The Spirit becomes an ever present, in-dwelling force that guides us completely in every circumstance and situation without thought.

Only then do we know the full import of the words: “Thy Will Be Done.” Not my will, but Thine, Dear Lord be made manifest through this vehicle which is me.

Amazingly, all things come and become much easier, then. We realize what folly it was that our small will with our limited understanding would have known what was best all this time. It is only thinking that we are separate from the Whole that makes us fear that “Divine Will” is separate from and oppressive to what is best for us.

Rather, we know ourselves to be truly safe and cared for in the context of that Infinite “Is” whence we came, and to whom we shall return. We live “in” and of the Creator always.