Shining Spirit

Colors in this season of the year can be stunning.
What a gift to the eye and the soul!
And when there is a reflection, the beauty is doubled.
A shame, isn’t it, that sometimes beauty is treated
with passing curiosity, not experienced as an
encounter with the Sacred. Today I will see
beauty…will I reflect it? Yes, that’s the question?
That’s always the question.

Creative thinking saw the future.
Hard work got us there.
Imaginations painted possibilities.
Honest labor changed possibility
to probability to reality.
Strong hands and backs pushed
those cars. Their sweat watered
the dreams that grew into bridges
and buildings, the ones we enjoy today.

Creator and Companion, I am very
grateful for the hard work of thousands
of anonymous women and men whose
efforts touch my life right now. Help
me remember and advocate for ethics
and honor in all who assign the work
and in all who do it. May it be so. Amen.

These old, derelict mining carts are waiting to rust away in the Arizona desert. Another fifty years, or so, and they will be gone. They will have served their intended purpose, done their jobs, earned their keep. As for now, they’ve been put on display so everyone passing can observe their inevitable demise while remembering their essential usefulness. Nostalgia, they call it.

I took this picture while on the way to meet my 8-week-old great grandson. He’s fresh and new, sparkling, ready to take on the world. I pray for him. He’ll need my prayers and yours, too. It’s the way of life, isn’t it, that old things pass away and new things take their place. Manufacturers call it “Planned Obsolescence.” God calls it “Creation.” I call it necessary because for life to be innovative and exciting, it has to make room for the new while holding on to the essentials of yesterday. “Behold, I make all things new…” So says the Divine Voice in the Holy Scriptures of the Christian faith. Puppies and stars and galaxies. Old methods, outdated roadmaps, no longer useful mining carts.

Those who resist the inevitable are still part of it. It happens, not just to the best of us, but to all of us. Like it or not, you and I live in a transitional world, even a transformational world. I hope that doesn’t push your panic button. My alarm bells would be clanging all over the place, if it were not for my belief that change is Creation’s calling card and that when I live my life to the fullest — not for myself alone, but for the welfare of others — the process of transformation is my friend. “Behold, I make all things new…” Same voice that said: “None of us lives to himself alone, and none of us dies to himself alone.” So whether we live or die, we belong to Something greater than ourselves.

I can live with that.

Do you see what I see?
Do you see what sees me?
Graceful and beautiful, the deer paused
for a moment to say “Hello” then
bounded off into the woods.
It’s nice to have a friend stop
by for a moment, isn’t it?

Give thanks today for your friends
and acquaintances who bless your
life. What would it be like
without them! They are a gift!
Thanks be to God!

Rest in peace, beloved. Rest in the simplicity and in the beauty. Rest in the earth from which you came. Rest in the hand that made you and the heart that loves you. You are not forgotten. You lived and will live throughout time. But for now, rest in sweet Mother Earth. Amen.