writing – Seeking Wisdom

The Autumn of Life

Autumn arrives subtly in California. Yet, the season makes itself known in the lengthening shadows, in turning and falling leaves, in the vanishing perennials, and the spectacular sunsets in brilliant shades of orange, red, and gold. I feel my attention shift to the timelessness of the spiritual life, the rhythms imitating nature’s predictable cycles. Everything is in descent again, and so with me, something forever dying in my soul, with the promise of new life ahead.

According to poet Mary Oliver and to many of the great mystics, “Prayer is paying attention.” As Fall slowly makes an entrance, I have not rushed the season, but slowly embrace this liminal space with open eyes and an open heart. (Have you noticed how our consumer culture wants to march headlong into Halloween right after the 4^th of July? Drives me crazy!) I’ve experienced seven decades of autumn and do not wish to take anything for granted. The autumnal experience of 2025 will be gone in three months. Time to focus on the present before winter takes its place.

My overactive monkey mind is always the biggest obstacle to paying attention. Do you have the same problem? Silent contemplation is the goal, but can often not be achieved without some grounding. To overcome this hurdle, I created a playlist on my iPhone titled “Autumn.” As I take my walks, drive in the car, or do household chores, these songs are like cries of the heart (another definition of prayer) that connect me beyond the here and now. My content is varied and spans decades. I am not a big fan of popular Christian praise music, preferring to allow the Divine to speak to me in everyday language and situations. Though Classical music is my usual daily fare, somehow, jazz and moody music with great lyrics seem most appropriate now as the days grow shorter. Here are some of my selections: (I keep adding more each day).

“Try To Remember” (Jerry Orbach)

“Autumn Leaves” (Eva Cassidy)

“Harvest Moon” (Neil Young)

“September Song” (Nat King Cole)

“Who Knows Where the Time Goes” (Judy Collins)

“Time” (Billy Porter)

“10,000 Miles” (Mary Chapin Carpenter)

“Autumn Leaves” (Ed Sheeran)

“Time After Time” (Cyndi Lauper)

“The Moon and St. Christopher” (Mary Chapin Carpenter)

“Galileo” (Declan O’Rourke)

“I’ve Learned to Let Things Go” (Cris Williamson)

“Harvest” (Rufus Wainwright)

“Last Leaf” (Joan Baez)

These songs lead me into conversations with God about the autumn of life. “Has this season passed me by, now that I am well into my seventies?” I ask, sometimes feeling like “the last leaf on the tree,” as Joan Baez soulfully sings.

“What is time?” the Holy One sings to me through Billy Porter. “Is it eternity in heaven or just a hope for peace on earth?” Peace, something I have prayed about all my life, now seems even more elusive. I do not say a word, but feel, by some spiritual alchemy, I am heard.

“If you’re lost you can look and you will find me, time after time. If you fall, I will catch you, I will be waiting, time after time.” Oh God, that’s right! Why have I not learned this lesson yet, after so many years of a serious spiritual journey? Time is slipping through the hourglass at an alarming speed, but I am not alone.

“Who knows where the time goes?. . . But I will still be here, I have no thought of leaving. I do not count the time,” the Beloved reminds me in the voice of Judy Collins. Yes, yes, yes, sings my soul back through Mary Chapin Carpenter: “If I had a friend all on this earth, you’ve been a friend to me.”

“Try to remember the kind of September when life was an ember about to billow. Try to remember and if you remember, then follow.” Recognition of faith as an ongoing process, a choice, no matter what season of life I experience, is something worth remembering this beautiful September day.

May your entry into autumn be filled with beautiful music and ears to hear eternity calling us all to attention.

Soul and Sea Glass

Every Monday, I meet with some friends in the early morning and walk soulfully on the beach for world peace. This practice started during Lent. We felt the pressing need to do something in a world gone mad with violence, hurtful discourse, and an alarming disregard for compassion. For one hour of silence, slowly strolling the same coastline, peace reigns mightily in our souls, and we stream that tranquility over the divine internet of grace to those in need. We do not measure success or failure, preferring to allow the Holy One to do that calculation.

The walk is silent, contemplative, and slow. This is the opposite of a power walk! Senses open, we allow the Spirit to guide our feet, as we look for signals of transcendence. The secrets of the universe unfold as waves crash on the shore, rocks clap applause, and the sun slowly cracks open the curtains of the marine layer. When on foot, found items abound: brightly colored beach toys, lost jewelry, pulverized fins, seaweed, kelp strings, driftwood, shells, and pieces of multi-hued sea glass. Childlike wonder rises with the tide.

Before these walks, in all my beachcombing during the forty-plus years I have lived here, sea glass eluded me. I envied those who found handfuls and would spread out the blue, green, and white orbs that looked to me like precious gems on velvet. Were my eyes deficient? I asked the group. No, they said, finding sea glass would take some intentional effort. First, I had to know what I was looking for and where to find it. Ah! There’s a piece of wisdom if I ever heard one. Sometimes we need to learn how to see the tiny miracles hiding in plain sight. Sometimes we need guides to show us the way.

I listened to the instructions from my wise companions. Walk intentionally. Trust. Let the sea glass find you. Look with new eyes. Be patient. Finally, one morning, Ureka! Tiny white shards appeared! Different from the ubiquitous white stones, the sea glass was smooth, flat, and opaque, a product of the tides’ tumbler. As I carefully massaged the sought-after pieces with my fingers, I felt my soul begin to soar and the troubles of the world flew to the horizon in a fraction of a second. Peace be with you, I heard. And with your spirit, I replied.

Peace be with all of us who cherish this planet and every soul who walks on it.

Read-Walk-Write-Create

Summertime has arrived in all its sun-drenched, salty air beauty in Southern California. I wake at dawn and breathe deeply. Birds perform their daily arias, jasmine incense perfumes the air, and my heart lifts in gratitude. I have been gifted with another day, another chance to embrace life. How can I make the most of this time, surrounded by a million distractions? This is a question people frequently ask in spiritual direction. Choosing action words can help. Here are mine: read, walk, write, create. Prayer is the umbrella over all.

My day begins and ends with reading, nourishment and sustenance for my soul. Long ago, wise spiritual guides told me that with so many choices, I should make a list and only read “the best.” Such a great idea! I love lists and will post some on future blogs. My goal is to read about a hundred pages a day, and I usually have a novel and spiritual book going simultaneously. Reading every day provides a pleasurable escapism, but also provides opportunities for lifelong learning and spiritual growth.

Commitment to writing every day has long been a fulfilling practice. This may not be your thing, but I invite you to try journaling your thoughts about life sometime. Remember, no one will read what you wrote or give you a grade. I promise your concentration and memory will benefit greatly. Writing calms and grounds the restlessness that often accompanies mindless activity. Your writing does not have to be long, nor even your own. Handwritten thoughts and inspiring quotes decorate a paper calendar I keep on my desk. Blank verse poems fill a digital spiritual journal on my computer. Both connect me to the present and give me reflective material for the future.

Walking an hour a day has become an embodied prayer that I never skip, even when I am not feeling well! The Buddhist monk, Thict Naht Hahn, a friend of Thomas Merton, wrote about the importance of walking mindfully by opening the senses and noticing everything in nature. (His book, The Miracle of Mindfulness, is on my top ten list of most influential spiritual books.) I cherish my early morning and late afternoon strolls with my aging Golden Retriever, who slows me down so that I can take a long, loving look at the Real. Walks on the beach several times a week also fill me with wonder. On Monday mornings at 9:00 AM, I meet with friends on Beach Road for “Soul Walk,” an hour-long, silent prayer for world peace. Come join us!

On balance, the introspection of reading, writing, and mindful walking prompts me to create something tangible each day. Most passive spiritual practices need the concreteness of action, and great joy emanates from the process of creating something with my hands. Whether it’s planting flowers, baking a cake, knitting a blanket, painting with watercolors, or simply rearranging my many-layered collections of home treasures, I feel most enlivened by the process of doing something creative. Giving away or sharing the product also enhances the experience!

How would you describe your practice in four words or less? Everyone is different with different needs, time constraints, and circumstances. The most important part of cultivating a spiritual practice is to actually practice. Whatever you do, I honor and bless your way. This summer, no matter what you decide, stay faithful, keep seeking.

Epiphany Moments

Traditionally, January 6 marks the Feast of “Epiphany,” when three kings, or Magi, arrived in Bethlehem and paid homage to the Christ child with their mysterious gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. The word “epiphany” means a “sudden manifestation of the divine in the ordinary” and has grown in popularity these days to mean a sudden realization or enlightenment. It’s like a flash of mystical insight when there is no doubt, even for a few seconds, that a loving God exists. Obviously, these moments are fleeting. As soon as an epiphany happens, the flash is gone like a sunset and no amount of alchemy can conjure it up again.

I have had many epiphany moments in my life, some bigger than others. Most of the time, these flashes of insight are so subtle, they disappear into the mist of forgotten memories. This past year, in aid of my aging monkey mind, I kept track of epiphanies using quotes from books, friends, and other notable sources, in a special log called a “commonplace book.” Re-reading these entries has been most epiphanous! (I think I just made up a word!) Anyway, I highly recommend this process.

Here are some of the quotes that have resonated, inspired, and enlightened:

Every sadness brings its own recompense.
After relief comes grief.
Ask for what you want, then notice what happens.
If we can lean on each other, we can bear anything, anything at all.
You will feel love when the sun shines on your face.
Believe what you love.
Theopoetics is the language of religion.
Keep moving.
Without mythology, you have pathology.
Joy is resistance.
Christianity is not a rational religion. It is a logic of love and love has its own logic.
We’re all born with the greatest treasures we’ll ever have in life.
You will die with a broken heart. That’s what lovers do.
The aging process turns us all into monks and that, indeed, is its plan.
It’s a huge mistake to read the signs of aging as indications of dying rather than as initiations into another way of life.
When you are a writer, all that matters is the story within.
I’m not going back.
I’m not going to give up.

May you be open to the many splendid epiphanies all around you.

Twelve Days to Celebrate!

It’s Christmas Eve—the most “filled-with-anticipation” day of the year for excited children and harried parents busy making memories and dreams come true. I breathe in deeply and smile because after four weeks of Advent, the longing is over. It’s time for an almost two-week celebration of JOY! Well, at least for some of us!

Every year, beginning on December 25, it has been my tradition to fully celebrate all twelve days of Christmas. No gifts of partridges in pear trees (although I do like to ponder the symbolism of that song), rather, a grateful response for the many gifts of that light that blaze from even the most quotidian of places.

Simply put, I love this designated time to celebrate the Incarnation, the infusion of the Divine into every order corner of my life. At year’s end, this practice steadies and fortifies me for whatever the coming twelve months will bring. I think of this as an indulgent gift, not only to myself but to all who strive for wisdom and seek more meaning out of life than our consumer culture can ever provide. Rather than feeling let down the day after Christmas (as so many children often experience), or a sense of “good riddance” (as so many adults experience), the elation increases each day and encourages me to stay in the “Christmas frame of mind” through Epiphany on January 6^th.

For years, I have written and shared these reflections with family and friends, in person and online, and many of you have accompanied me on this little sojourn. So once again, I invite you to take this twelve-day journey with me. Resist the urge to take down the tree and put away the decorations early! Linger for a while in the glow, linger in the light, and feel rightfully energized when the first week of 2025 unfolds.