A Holistic Approach to Sixty

As we age we face more and more challenges from the normal aging process. Keeping fit, whether it is in the form of your favorite athletic endeavor, or is simply a commitment to a daily brisk 30-minute walk, is a crucial aspect of maintaining good health and vitality. Since we're just a few months into those personal goals for the year, why not examine our resolutions and turn them into affirmations that we are open to changes that will benefit us in the long term. I try not to set fitness goals that I cannot possibly attain. Rather, I tell myself that I will seek ways to become more fit and take advantage of opportunities to explore new adventures I would not usually try. I've become a yoga 'fanatic' as a result of just such personal gentle prodding, and the search is on for more ways to incorporate exercise into my hectic schedule.

Equally as important in my plan is proper diet. Toxins from fast foods and prepared foods assail us. These poisons build up in our systems, affecting our liver, pancreas, intestines, heart, blood vessels and more. Being more mindful of what we eat and what motivates us to over-indulge is not only healthy but also can be critical to good health and well being as we turn that magic dial past 60. With careful attention to what our body is telling us (shortness of breath, insomnia, stress, indigestion) we can charge up our batteries and prove to ourselves that 60 really can be the new 40.

Not to be forgotten is our spiritual nature. Some of us may have gone on long journeys of self-discovery and introspection. Others may have let faith wane in the face of life's stress or disappointments. Every day is a new beginning and a time for us to begin a new journey forward. Be thankful that we have a loving God, no matter the religious wrapping in which we are presented with Him. Be mindful that we are given new chances every day to reflect the heart of God in our service to others.

Ah, then there is that emotional baggage. Some time around the age of 40, that old stuff gets quite burdensome. We can choose to continue to repack, restuff, and haul it around. Or, we can resolve to examine each piece, then throw it away to make room for the present moment, vowing to never visit the place of our refuse again. From time to time, circumstances will stir up the trash. A wise friend recently told me a little secret for dissipating such negative energy. He said, think the opposite thought when a negative idea begins to nag. Now, mind you, I am not saying this is an easy task. For to examine what is bothering you and to really define the opposite can take some mental gymnastics. Are you up for the challenge?

Stay well and healthy, cherish and live in the moment! As for me, I am off to dance.

Faith at Work

As a tiny child I remember going to church with mom, grandma, granddad, and on special occasions, dad. I was overwhelmed by the service, Roman Catholic, especially when Mass was spoken in Latin, a strange sounding yet strangely comforting monologue. It felt and sounded reverent. We knelt, we crossed ourselves, we sat, we stood with heads bowed, we wore a covering on our head, we dressed in our “Sunday” best, wore our best reserve shoes, and often socialized after Mass in the adjacent grammar school auditorium. All in our brood were taught to be quiet, reverent, respectful in church and in the presence of others in the church surrounds. There was a feel about church that somehow made it a special place.

I grew up in Catholic schools. Oh, those were the days of up staircases and down staircases, no patent leather shoes, sturdy oxfords and starched uniforms that scratched and left little welts around your neck. Grandma used to say that little discomforts of this nature were reminders to be respectful, to be on your best behavior, to be a 'good girl.' Don't misunderstand, I loved dressing up in my uniform and having my hair braided or swept back off my face. I wanted to look my best when I went to school. It was important. The nuns commanded respect and we displayed that respect, so they taught, by being well groomed and well behaved. We knew how to cue quietly and stream into the church adjacent to the school for early morning Mass and other services. Rules were rules and we understood our place. For the most part, we were good children, we knew how to behave and, perhaps because we feared the ruler or – worse yet – the yardstick, behave we did.

High school was the time for stretching the boundaries, for questioning the rules and finding our individuality. We had great times together, this small band of teens who had for the most part grown up together through grammar school and into high school. Several would go on to marry one another after graduation, some have children and grandchildren now attending those same schools. Others, myself included, would move far away and not return for many years. While in high school, I had the opportunity on more than one occasion to visit non-parochial schools and I remember being appalled at the seeming lack of respect for teachers and, more important, lack of self-respect and respect for peers. I can still recall how incredulous I was when a young man stood up and threw something across the room at another student during a history class I was visiting with cousins. I didn't like the feeling of insecurity that prevailed in those less than hallowed halls. I was glad my experience took place in a different setting. It never bothered me that we were viewed as being different by children and then young adults in our neighborhoods. We were a definite minority, with less than ½ of 1% in the state being Catholic.

Our home was in the midst of a Southern Baptist neighborhood and that had its challenges for us as Catholic children. We were often approached by well meaning adults who would insist that we attend Bible summer school or come to Bible Study on Sunday after our own church. My mom told us that our neighbors were just trying to save our souls because it was their belief that we were not part of the chosen few who would go to heaven. I do remember being made to feel somehow dirty and on occasion an outright sinner by some of our neighbors who, according to grandma, meant well. And this was as a young child. I remember these feelings when I talk about my faith with others. I always try to emulate what my grandma and my mother taught us, that we are called to live our faith by our example. They instilled in us at home the same respect and values our nuns had taught us.

Never mind the smooth sailing in high school. College was a whole new set of rules, most of which were just made to be broken or at least bent to an extreme. There were so many changes from any previous experiences that I for one was overwhelmed. I was lucky to have been assigned a roommate with whom I had attended high school so we could compare notes and decide what we thought was the right thing to do. We provided support to one another and that made our trek through 'the real world' of college a bit easier to navigate. I don't recall too many serious incursions.

Ah, then came the workplace. My first job was in the medical records department of a large local hospital. Anyone who knows hospital 'tradition' back 40ish years ago will recall that the medical records departments were typically in the basement, and just as typically the last stop before the morgue. We had three daily shifts in our medical records world. I often worked the 3PM to 11PM shift and would occasionally have to remain for a second shift if our night clerk did not show up for work. Therein was my first lesson in how people view personal responsibility differently, and how our culture, in this case the workplace, can accept such blatant disregard for others without repercussions. Because he was a student, the clerk was allowed to occasionally slip and I or another evening shift worker would have to cover for him through the remainder of the night until the 7AM shift arrived. It was actually 'creepy' wandering around in the darkened halls by the morgue in the middle of the night. Often nursing staff or doctors would literally startle us out of a sleep-deprived stupor to open up our huge electronic files and find a medical record that they needed stat. There were many nights when I didn't feel so forgiving towards my colleague, in fact I was sometimes furious. I did, however, try to keep my feelings to myself out of respect for the medical transcriptionists who also worked the three shifts along with me. We would share the burden of our colleagues negligence, picking up the slack his absence caused and sometimes we'd lapse into quick bursts of griping about this or that injustice or how it seemed he got away with so much while we didn't have that same privilege. Never once did we think to ask him where he'd been or why he'd been absent. And the boss never offered any excuses, only that we were to cover his shift. I know in looking back on those days that he was facing some difficult circumstances that were beyond his control and in fact, only a few years after I left that job I heard that his mom, who had been extremely ill for years, had died. He could have used our prayers rather than our disdain.

Years of working in many different disciplines with varying degrees of responsibility shaped my thinking on this young man. I often wondered just what made him behave as he did and why he was not called to task. I became more convinced that my intuition was correct and that he had somehow been burdened with taking care of his mom and he did it quietly, patiently, and without any obvious support or outside help.

As I began to take on supervisory responsibility I felt my grandma's nudging to lead by example. I would not think of asking someone to do something I myself was not willing to do. I tried to be fair to my team and respectful, while expecting respect in return. One young woman in a more recent job stands out in all my vast years of work experience. She was a rare and beautiful example of faith at work. I believe she was Mormon. She was quite young, in fact many years younger than my own children, when she came to work with us across the country from her home and family. She lived her faith in everything she did. She was always pleasant, cheerful, loving, caring and positive. And she stood firmly behind her belief. Never once did I hear her utter a profanity. In fact, she would gently encourage others not to speak obscenely in her presence. Asking that the offender instead substitute a less harsh or offensive word. One just knew how to behave around her, she commanded respect in a quiet, reverent way. You didn't feel that she was insincere and you didn't feel as though she was preaching. In the two years she worked with us, I never heard her slip and say an unkind thing about anyone. She and I used to talk of our faith often at lunch. She was unwavering, content, a beautiful young woman who was a credit to her beliefs. I wish my grandma and my mom had been here to meet her. They would have said, now there goes a young lady who lives her faith. When you strip away the trappings of tradition, dogma, doctrine, cultural differences, it is after all a matter of faith at work within. Thank you for blessing us, dear one!

I Want to Learn to Read so I can Read my Bible

I was called to social justice ministry in the form of literacy volunteering early in the 1980s just after having moved east. My first job was in a privately funded program in a rural community where the social strata sharply divided the poor from the wealthy. While some of the county's inhabitants were on the 'Wealthy American' list, others were at the bottom of the pay scale and poorly educated, thus without much hope of improving their economic status.
I initially worked as a volunteer in a program, mostly tutoring, tutor training, then gradually helping out in the office doing grant proposal writing, maintaining records, and generally anything to be of help. I will never forget most of the students that came through the program as I progressed up the 'ranks' from volunteer, to trainer, to assistant director, and finally became the executive director when my boss and friend retired to return to school for an advanced degree in special education.

Before becoming a trainer, working with volunteers to teach basic literacy students how to read and to teach non-English speaking individuals conversational English (ESL) and occasionally basic skills in their native tongue, I worked with several students. My students were mostly low literacy level rather than ESL as I had a particular fondness for men and women who were brave enough to disclose their lack of reading skills and work hard to overcome what in some cases were severe learning difficulties. We spoke of our students as having learning differences rather than learning disabilities, though their trouble often stemmed from not only detectible disability but also circumstances that impeded their ability to succeed as they went through school. Many were drop outs at an early age. Nearly all had bad memories of their time in school.

I used to ask my tutors not to think of their students as 'favorite' so I am breaking my own rule when I tell you about my favorite student. He was an elderly (late 70's at the time he entered the program) gentleman who was a pillar of the community. He had volunteered in just about every worthy cause in the county, he had worked hard at a menial job all his life, married a wonderful and supportive woman, raised three lovely children and became 'called' to minister at a local church. That is when he realized that, though he knew the Bible front to back and in reverse, his interpretation was based solely on his having learned by listening then repeating Bible stories all his life. He could not read a story out loud. He, in fact, tested at a non-reading literacy level. He fondly described his church as an old-fashioned Bible preaching Baptist church. His entry into the ministry required a degree of faith, not a degree in philosophy or study of any kind for that matter. He was simply called to preaching. God had spoken and he listened. I understood his dilemma and assured him that with God on his side, he would do just fine in the pulpit. And that he did.

He and I began working together to learn how to read by using his own words to form the basis of his lessons. He would tell me a story about a member of his church, a particular Bible story he liked, or a family member. I would write down his story by carefully printing it on tablet paper. We kept the stories to a few lines at first. I recorded his own words, occasionally discussing a change to make his intended meaning clear. When his story was recorded, I asked him to watch and listen while I read the story back to him, tracing my finger lightly under each word as I read. Next, I would ask if he had any suggested changes and then I asked him to read the story back to me. Those who have worked in adult education will recognize this is a whole language approach where you use the student's own words, on subjects of high interest to the student, to form the basis for not only providing a measure of success from the outset, but also detecting additional skill deficiencies that could be taught out of context of the story.

When we announced that we were going to print a book of student writings and offer it for sale as a fundraiser, my student became quite enthusiastic about submitting a story. Not wanting to discourage his writing, I suggested that we keep all his writings in a journal (another technique that helps assess skill progression) and when it was time to submit stories he could choose his favorite.

My brave friend and student chose, from among his many meticulously crafted beginning stories, the following: “I want to learn to read so I can read my Bible.” As we worked on this story I recall his tales of fear that he would be discovered as a non-reader, his realization that he might not have the story straight because he had depended all his life on others for interpretations of what was said in the Bible. I felt profoundly blessed that he chose to overcome his fear and not only help himself but help others in the community by example. He let us publish his story. Then he began helping me as a student representative by visiting other churches in the community to tell his story and encourage others who could not read to come forward and ask for help.

I'll never forget this or any of my other students for that matter. I was truly blessed to have crossed their paths and learned along with them. I know my favorite student has probably crossed over into his Promised Land at this point but his strength spirit, his courage, and most of all his words, will remain in my heart forever. Every time I see a Bible I think of him.

Gloria in Excelsis Deo!

My best friend of 17 years, Gloria, died when we were both only 55 years old. She'd decided a year prior to sell her lovely lakeside home and move to West Virginia. Family matters pulled at her with a brother recently suffering from Hodgkin's Lymphoma as a post-liver transplant recipient. Her dad had died the spring prior and her mother was elderly and not physically in good condition.

Gloria was a member of the local church I began attending when I moved to Virginia in 1982. We clicked immediately in the way that single professional women sometimes do. We became friends with two or three other single women in the church, all with similar interests. We joined the singles group together as we decided to begin helping out in the group, a large and loosely structured mixture of never-married, divorced and widowed men and women in a too-wide age range and without the benefit of much in the way of programming.

We giggled a lot, Gloria and I, mostly over the guys in our group we fondly tagged as dysfunctional. This was before we realized that their idiosyncrasies went far beyond dysfunction in the traditional sense. There were two and possibly three manic depressive men who were prone to become obsessive with various women in the group. We were not immune to their attention, albeit unsolicited on our parts. Gloria and I were determined to seek the companionship of men in what we considered a 'safe' environment and joined the group in part to participate as a small group with our female friends and also to help organize a Bible study and prayer and praise program. Three of our group of four female friends served in one or more positions on the 'board' of the group for several years.

Grace was bestowed on us in massive doses as we went about our service to the singles group. Gloria used to say that we needed occasionally to have a fish thrown at our feet to help us stay on track with our spiritual growth. The minister assigned to our group was in our judgment the worst possible selection for the job. He was the father of eight children, married to a wife with two Master's degrees and a PhD., and we threatened more than once to buy him a tie decorated with little piggies. As we expected, he relegated Gloria to the role of secretary and I was assigned the task of managing the Bible Study group and potlucks. The presidency was left to one of the men who, it turns out, was fishing in the group. He found his fifth wife within a few months of taking on his new role and thus our group ended up with a married man at its helm for a time. Oh, he was nice enough in a patriarchal, controlling way. We used to secretly hold little prayer sessions beseeching God's intervention in assigning us a new minister and a new group president.

Gloria was so kind to those around her, even when it would take enormous energy not to react angrily to inappropriate behavior. She was a role model to others in the group. I saw in her an ability to love the sinner while rejecting the sin. She taught me what that phrase really means.

We struggled, Gloria and I, over how to relate within the group. We found that our needs as seekers on the path of life were better met talking, listening, and praying with and for one another than in the greater group. We could finish each other's sentences. We could never fool one another when something was bothering us. We knew our secrets and fears were safe with one another, and that was important to us at that point in our journeys. We often attended services together as that seemed more comfortable than going alone. As do many churches, the children were taken out early in the service to attend Sunday school.

I was a mother of two young girls at the time we met. Gloria had never had children. She'd married then shortly thereafter divorced an alcoholic and had been on her own a long time when we met. In spite of her avowed lack of parenting skills, my girls loved her quirky sense of humor and her loving, caring nature. Gloria radiated a genuine loving kindness in every encounter. She was a natural comedienne as well so the girls never tired of her visits or of having her join us for an adventure. Everything we did inspired in Gloria a story from her West Virginia roots, often sprinkled heavily with colorful characters from her hometown church. We laughed sometimes until we hurt. She had an uncanny ability to smooth potentially emotionally charged dialog with her comedic timing. My girls still talk fondly of her.

Gloria was a healer. She never admitted to her spiritual gift of healing but those of us who knew her, experienced her gift. My younger daughter developed a strange complication of mumps, causing her to lose partial eyesight. Her Ophthalmologist was worried that she would continue to lose sight and would not recover. After a prayer and praise session one evening we went to the alter together to pray for her recovery. She mentioned on the way home that the prayers seemed to help her eye feel better so we decided to hold an impromptu session of laying on hands and praying when we returned home. This time the healing took place almost immediately, so dramatically that, when she returned to the doctor, he was astonished at what he felt could only be a miraculous recovery and he was, as he claimed, Jewish and not prone to believe in miracles resulting from the prayers of Christians. My sweet child then went to the altar on our next visit to Church to share her testimony with others.

A few times Gloria was called upon to help me through several medical issues. She would literally move in to my home, help the children help me, cook, clean, spreading little gifts around the house...usually Angels that would help safeguard us. I have a collection of Gloria's Angel choir. She'd arrange for an Episcopal Priest to visit with communion, and on more than one occasion moved our Bible study to my house so I could attend while recovering from a broken leg and serious complications.

I was sad when I moved out into the country some 50 miles or so from Gloria and began attending a new church. After a few years we found a mutually satisfying church halfway between our respective homes and continued there until I moved even farther into the mountains of Virginia. Even though we lived a distance from one another we always kept in touch. She'd call me and not say anything on her end until I started to chuckle, then she'd burst forth with some crazy animal sound or some joke and brighten my day or night. And her sense of timing prevailed.

My siblings and I lost one of our own to a sudden death from heart failure and Gloria came immediately to sit with me while I made plans for our brother's service and the scattering of his ashes along the Shenandoah River. He had been lovingly called our 'wild man' brother as he liked to hunt and fish, living in the wilderness much of his adult life. She could relate to losing a sibling as she had nearly lost her brother on more than one occasion and had sat with him long hours while he recovered from his liver transplant. Gloria didn't know my brother but she somehow sensed the right things to say about him. She stayed with me even though the minister I'd arranged to help had given up on us as the family who carried his ashes up from the south had been delayed in beltway traffic.

I met Gloria's family, having traveled to West Virginia with her to visit one summer. We visited her daddy's grave site my last visit to see her, after she moved back to be with her mom. We decorated his grave, as she loved to do for all holidays, and she showed me where she would be buried. From the first mention that she was going to retire in her early 50's and move back home, there was a sense that she was wrapping up her affairs. She never told anyone that she had a premonition that she was going to die. She did, however, sell all her possessions and her newly remodeled home. I, along with her other friends from work and church, encouraged her to do what she felt she needed to do in order to be at peace over her family's situation. I knew that she would be making a big sacrifice, having seen her mom's medical condition and, as important, her mom's behavior towards Gloria. She was not a kind or gentle woman. She was harsh, judgmental, angry, depressed, demanding. Just about all the negative adjectives you could use to label an elderly relative fit Gloria's mom.

Once Gloria moved, she would e-mail me or call me and we'd chat for long periods. I listened to her sadness at dealing with her mom. Yet she remained patient with her, only occasionally escaping next door to relax at her brother's home. I remembered the many conversations we'd had sitting in front of her wood stove when I'd visit her at the lake. We'd talk of whether or not we were ready to die, had we done enough good, had we been kind enough, had we been forgiven by the people we'd hurt, had we forgiven ourselves. We'd talk about how much longer the world was going to last. Gloria had visited Jerusalem the year before and was entertaining the notion that the world might indeed have been coming close to the end. She read the Bible daily, prayed and meditated daily. Gloria was ready to die if God decided to take her. A few days before she died, I sent Gloria a joke that still circulates around the internet. It was called hold on to your fork and it talked about a church going woman who requested to be buried with her fork in her hand. When questioned, she told her pastor that she always loved it when someone came around at a church dinner while clearing plates and said to keep your fork. That signaled that the best is yet to come. Gloria answered my e-mail in her loving way, spreading joy and good wishes and hinting that she would be sure to hold on to her fork.

News of her death came with a phone call from her sister-in-law on the eve of my younger daughter's wedding. Thankfully, she was already away on her honeymoon so we didn't have to break the news to her until her return. Not only did Gloria have a service in her home town, but also a group of her former colleagues gathered for a memorial service in her honor in Northern Virginia. As Gloria would have done, her 'party' was planned with little details that included a memory album of her to send to her family. Lots of individuals stepped to the mike to tell of a humorous encounter they had with Gloria and the many wonderful things she had done for them. There were poems, there was a song, there was lots of laughter and there were tears for those of us whom Gloria had left behind.

I made one more trip to West Virginia to see Gloria's family the following fall. I arrived in time to stop by and visit her grave, as her sister-in-law said she would have liked me to do, and we decorated it for her though she was laughing at me all the while, telling me in my heart that she didn't really believe that was necessary, it was just the thing to do in the south, you know, and West Virginia after all was really not southern. I'm sure to this day her sister-in-law wonders why I burst out laughing as we attached fall foliage, complete with a little scarecrow, on her gravestone.

I still laugh with Gloria as I pass old Burma Shave signs (yes, they do still have those in West Virginia) or quirky roadside attractions. We used to say one day we'd make a million dollars writing a book of our travels, pointing out some of America's more scenic rural flavor. I believe we were going to call it “Rusty Nails and Broken Fence Rails Along Forgotten Byways”...Gloria, I'll get that book written for you someday, my friend. Until then, I love you.

A Matter of Heart

Since roughly February 9, 2002 (well, all right, it was that exact date and the exact time was 11:47:07) I've been on an emotional journey that bears writing about, if for no other reason than it might help someone else who has come to a dead end in the road. This journey has to do with rekindling a childhood love. I'm sure now after reflecting on the poor subject of my yearnings that he had no idea the panoply of emotional turmoil he unleashed with his simple declarations that I was his childhood princess. I had no idea where he was, what he had been doing the past 30 something years, or why he had so impulsively written me of our long ago short run as childhood sweethearts. Oh I remembered him, all right. I remembered even the tiniest details of our forays into the realm of boyfriend and girlfriend, and the conflict that his liking me caused among my best friends. Oh the angst of young love, especially when all the players attend Catholic school. I opened that innocent e-mail and it opened a plethora of memories that stayed with me awhile. I had once hoped that our journey together would last longer than it did but he had apparently chosen another path.

How did this little story begin, you ask. His sweet e-mail message tugged at my heart strings and I tucked it away among my happy memories, wondering from time to time until we met again what would become of this newly rekindled friendship. I was well over girlish crushes, having had a long-ago break up of my marriage and having tried dating a few times with the result being some wonderful friendships but no wedding bells or even hints at commitment. The memories that flooded back when I opened his e-mail made me blush. I could not shake that feeling of uncertainty when we finally did meet again face to face some two years after his initial contact. Oddly, he claims to have contacted me at least a year before the first e-mail I received but, perhaps serendipitously, this was the first message I had from him since we last saw one another as seniors in high school.

As women often do, I turned over in my mind the memories of this my childhood friend. The first and oldest image was one of my first encounters with him as a 'boy' approaching manhood. When we were 12, we would attend wonderful dance parties, heavily chaperoned of course. Most of the time, boys stood on one side of the room while girls stood across from them and only the bravest boys, after much team discussion it appeared, began to slowly saunter over to ask girls to join them in a slow dance. He was one of the more athletic and among the cutest of the lot, at least in my book. He was in fact a bit frightening to me in my inexperience. He'd never like me, I was too short, too freckled, not pretty enough, not experienced enough. I was wrong. He asked me to dance, catching me unaware. I held my breath as he bravely encircled my waist with one arm and held my hand close to his chest with his other hand so that I could feel his heart beating rapidly. He giggled and pulled me closer to him. I knew I was as red as a strawberry in full July sunshine and hid my face in his shoulder to hide my embarrassment. Those few moments were at once so comfortable and so comforting. This must be what the older girls were always talking about, this feeling of both contentment and confusion all wrapped into one. Too soon, the slow dance ended and he sauntered off to join his friends. Soon the butterflies faded. So did my hopes that he might like me a little more than some of the prettier, more experienced girls at the party. I would just have to continue to be everyone's little sister and no one's girlfriend. He and I did have one date. He never asked me out again for reasons he's not shared with me and that he probably doesn't recall.

Then a few years ago, when I'd been copied on e-mails among old friends, I noticed his e-mail address and thought, Can't wait to see him again and catch up on what has happened in our lives since we were childhood friends. The chance to see him again came around far too soon. I hadn't lost all those unwanted pounds, I wasn't pretty enough, young and vibrant enough, I would never stand out and most assuredly would never attract him for more than a cursory hello. I remember thinking how ludicrous all this seemed at my age. Yet I remained caught up in the drama and the internal dialog continued unabated until the time for our meeting approached. Nervously I selected just the right outfits, and went on my stroll down memory lane with several other childhood friends. I was surprised at the feelings that swept over me when I first spotted him across the room.

Toward the end of the evening I was tired, confused and, yes, I'll admit a bit frightened. I hadn't realized what an impact seeing an old friend could have on my usually resolute demeanor. Men were, after all, just someone to be sociable with, not to be taken too seriously and certainly not a necessary addition to my peaceful single existence. I had after all gotten along on my own for more years than I'd been married or dating for that matter. What was wrong with me? He had recently left his marriage of 18 years so I should know better than to become involved with someone not ready to even consider a lasting commitment. For that matter, I was not sure I was interested in a commitment of any kind. Why did this happen? Where would it lead?

Several times since that spring reunion, we got together in our home town and on several occasions he traveled to see me. I continued to wrestle with my feelings for this person who had repositioned himself into my life and was seemingly quite persistent in remaining.

We kept in touch by e-mail, I much more regularly than he, and what seemed to be a blossoming relationship fizzled with the distance and the difference of heart. He now lives out of the country and has gone on to other priorities and a new love in his life. Oh, I will continue to pray for him, to think of him and reminisce over the fun times we spent together in our short rekindled friendship.

And, now when I think of those few months, I think how often we mistake being 'in love' with the loving intimacy that comes with really knowing someone you can grow along side day by day. We can sometimes be foolish for a little while, thinking we can reclaim the past, rekindle old flames, relive what was never meant to be in the first place. Perhaps it is a yearning to stay young and perhaps it is wanting to do something a bit differently than the first time around. Whatever the motive, wise men have said that there is always a reason that our paths cross and re-cross in life and our choices can often change our destiny.

I've begun a new path since then. A much more purposeful path with time for lots of reflection and discovery. I don't worry about what is around the next bend, I feel at peace with myself and that is reflected in a new understanding of what love really is and how great a gift it is to receive from someone.

We may never know why things happen as they do but we can always pray for one another that our journey is fruitful and safe. Be careful on your journey to deceive no one, to hurt no one, to cause no one pain. For, in so doing, you reshape your own destiny. This is your only lifetime, give it your best.

Faith I

Reflecting on the Snow...it amazes me to sit and watch the white, swirling, twirling flakes fall outside my window as I sit snugly on the couch. Where does the snow come from? Why do children love it and adults often dislike it so?

My grandma told me as a little girl that the snow came from Angels crying. I recall her saying that their tears laid down a blanket of pure white to cover up all the sins we committed and to make the world a cleaner place again. She also taught me to make a snow Angel. I, in turn, taught all my little brothers and sisters, much to my mother's dismay I am sure for that was a great way to create instant frostbite, necessitating a quick change from skin out. We used to wonder what our snow Angels looked like from Heaven.

Where does the snow come from? Semi-technically speaking, it is formed up in the clouds when snow crystals exposed to just the right temperature and atmospheric conditions form into hexagonal shapes and start their slow descent towards earth. I prefer to think of it as grandma taught me, the Angels are crying and these are their tears. Makes me ponder why the Angels are crying and what I can do to dry their tears. I know I need to think more about what I can do to make our world a better place. Snow helps me get in that quiet place where I can contemplate my role.

Why do children love the snow? Though I am still a child at heart, I'm way beyond 'loving' snow most days. After all, it impedes my busy schedule, it makes me afraid I might fall and hurt myself. It slows me down. Thinking back to my childhood, the very reason I loved the snow was that it made everything seem to slow down, it created a wonderful blanket of pure whiteness over everything, it seemed magical in its beauty, it caused everything to seem so quiet and so still. Oh, and mom always made hot chocolate for when we returned home all wet and cold and tired.

As an adult, sitting and watching the snow and writing in my journal, I realize that we were right as children to love the snow, to embrace the purity of its white blanket, to rejoice in the quiet majesty of a snowy day. From now on I will no longer dislike the snow. I will love it as just another incredible manifestation of the miracle that is contained in every flake. I will rejoice that the snow has granted me a stay from my busy schedule, has shown me how to stop and make a snow Angel. Has given me the time to pray and reflect on God's wondrous miracle of snow.

Faith II

At the outset, let me say that I am no expert on the distinction between religion and spirituality. I have written before on this conundrum as being the central theme of my spiritual quest. I have read, meditated, prayed on the issue of my own faith and, not unimportant, the evidence of faith in my significant others.

As Catholics, we were taught that only those who practiced our faith would get to heaven. As Sandra, I have met so many truly spiritual people throughout my life, all people I am certain I will see in my heaven. Thus, my quest to find the true meaning of religion has led me to dig deeper into my own spirituality and to observe that divine grace in others.

I believe my favorite Oblate priest, of whom I've written you before, said that Religion is based on cultural differences, on language differences, seeking as it were to set apart one sect from the other. Spirituality, on the other hand, is the acceptance of everyone and everything around us as divine...the knowledge that everything is sacred and deserves our respect and our mindful behavior. We were taught to pray always to God, to ask for this or that, to beg forgiveness to God. Would that we had been taught to say 'I'm sorry' to the trees we strip off the land, to the defenseless animals we brutally murder thinking that we somehow are superior, to the life-giving water we so capriciously waste...spending our lives in awe and praise rather than in supplication as if we had the capacity to know what is indeed good or right for ourselves.

You, my dear friend, I believe are on an incredible spiritual journey given the chances you have for quiet reflection, for rejoicing in the joy and magnitude of our very existence and the existence of all around us. Stripped of all the unnecessary trappings of 'the good life' in the 'unreal' world you are able to hear what the Spirit has to say to you. That is the key. Quietude and listening. I am so thankful you have this space and time in your life journey. What an incredible opportunity to grow your faith. Continue to take time to yourself in spite of what you perceive as your obligations. Seek quiet, solitude, rest and relaxation. It is the doorway to your spiritual path.

Rene, that priest again, always taught by telling stories. Allow me the time to share the one that provoked this morning's musings. It is of a talk with one of his indigenous friends about her belief...

[Rose Mary and I were in a talkative mood, and we had covered many topics already when she declared, “I don't believe in God.”

I was curious. “What do you believe in?”

She stretched and waved her arms.

“I believe in the mystery of the stars and in the depth of the oceans. I believe in respecting nature and using its resources wisely, and in caring for everything I touch.”

She smiled.

“I believe in silence, rhythm, music and colors, the small pebbles, the majestic mountain, the graceful butterfly, the majestic tree, and the life I gave my two children.”

Her eyes sparkled: "I believe in the dignity of each person, in their intelligence and creative spirit. I believe in respect for anyone's choices, solidarity and freedom for all people."'

She was nearly singing.

"I believe that each person must fight alienation, strive towards fullness in life and destruction of all injustices, and the creation of a more humane world."

She stood up and was ready to dance.

“I believe in love, the lively children, the committed couples, the wise elders. I believe in the soft skin of my baby and the wrinkles of my grandparents. I see myself in all and all in me.”

And then she whispered,

“But I don't believe in God.”

Had I been there, I would hope she would then have asked me, "Now tell me what you believe? I would have replied, "I believe in God, my God, our Father. He's your Father too. And he sent his only Son to earth to suffer and die for us so that we may have life eternal. I believe that all those things you believe in are only possible through him. I believe your life on earth will be complete once you come to know and believe in Him."