Late this afternoon, as the sun is setting and the
nearly-full moon is rising, about 50 friends and family will gather by the lake
to celebrate the life of my brother.
Like so many humans before us, we will try to make sense of an untimely
death by not really making sense of it at all.
We’ll eat and drink, and listen to the music of sailboat lines clinking
against masts and the wind blowing waves into the rocks. The timelessness of this place will be a reminder
that there really is no death.
Individual lives and “life itself” are eternal, incomprehensibly
so. Yet it’s still hard to grasp this
when a familiar face (and unique personality) is simply no longer in front of
you.
Tomorrow, too, will be alive with the rhythms of our
childhood summers. There will be a
sailboat race, a hastily-gobbled sandwich lunch, then sunbathing and
swimming. It will be fun, but probably
quite surreal. A lot has felt surreal in
recent months. I have the distinct
impression of having outgrown every place, but one, that has ever been part of
my life. Walking through landscapes that
feel “ghostly” is unnerving until you realize that what has “passed on” or
“moved on” is what is inside of you.
There’s no judgment in this. It’s
just that your energy is no longer a match to old surroundings. Making spiritual growth your highest priority
seems to have required periods of almost unbearable flexibility and change in terms
of place, and yet paradoxically, right now I feel more powerfully than ever the
“feeling” of home, a home where I can settle in one physical place but still continue to grow as a person.
It feels alive, current and easy. What a delight to begin to get a whiff of it, and to believe that it is possible!
So this long weekend will be charged with memories,
adjustments, and yet more transition. Readers,
I’ll be back September 1. I’ve learned
one important thing since starting this blog.
It is a crucial, regular step on my way home to me. I don’t want to leave it, or you, for long!
