'The journey to happiness involves finding the courage to go down into ourselves and to take responsibility for what’s there. * * * During the quest, God speaks and leads through family, failure, violence, visitors, betrayal, sexuality, nature, shadow, and vision. Every person and every event [we] encounter is a necessary and grace-filled occasion. * * * The aim is to experience the fact that everything belongs—the good, the bad, and the ugly.' -- Fr Richard Rohr, Daily Meditation, September 4 and 5, 2022
When first I read those Meditations, I felt touched and, eyebrows up, welcoming...a sense of expectant waiting.
Then I realized: When I turned 80, my entire insides turned upside-down and backward to a new forward. The shadows and shakes I walk through, the fear which hovers whenever it wants to, all are material-mind fears...ah, but God's pathway.
During the quest, God speaks and leads through failure, nature and vision...i.e., everything.
I have named my today's experiences "my life at 80." I accept no fault, I claim no credit, this is...apparently...what to expect by just not dying.
I take heart in this since my now-80 BFF from high school is having like experiences...same as my today's friends are who are 80 (not 79, not "same as," but actually 80 and over). That confidence, of course, comes from the God of our own understanding. Trust in that God...feeling pea-green-purple petrified or calm as a clam...is all it takes to walk through the EEK and holy-moley! feelings to peace.
I admit I'm comforted by the above quotes from Fr Richard, but for me daily and still, a quote lifted from an early '80s Henry Mitchell column in The Washington Post is my paraphrased golden rule:
I just try not to be as nasty as I want to be...for which I gotta go to God.
Thank you.
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