Arriving Home

Spending the past month traveling [on the road, pilgrimage, walkabout, however one names it], I've been fortunate enough to make a couple of pauses back home again. Several thoughts and insights arose from those pauses.

Foremost is gratitude for those who remain behind and continue to make that place from which I started a home. It's a place to which I'm happy to return. Not only the physical place, but also the comfort of family and friends. I recognize that everyone in it ~ from the baristas at Starbucks who know my name and my drink preferences to the musicians and other friends who follow me on social media to former co-workers asking for details ~ everyone reaches out with recognition and comfort when I return.

This particular T. S. Eliot quote has stirred my soul since I first read it in high school. Exploration includes travel, yet that is not all that it is. It encompasses much more than that. It's also the exploration of our surroundings in other ways. We step out into a new form of the world. We examine and try on new ideas, new thoughts, new identities. We watch ourselves grow and change into adults, partners, parents, friends. We move through our physical, mental, emotional, spiritual worlds ~ sometimes filled with care, sometimes crashing and burning, sometimes on quiet tiptoe. Even so, there is for each of us a resting place, a place from which we rose and a place to which we return. We may return to it as a different, changed person ~ but it remains deep within us nevertheless.

I used to think it was about returning to a particular place, home, neighborhood, city, whatever. As time continues to move forward in its ever plodding way, I believe it is more about that spot deep within us in which resides our personal and/or collective Still Small Voice. We can define It, name It however we choose: God, Goddess, Universal Mind, Creator, Higher Power, Allah, Great Spirit or even Lebowski. I doubt that It is particular about how we call It. Yet I firmly believe that It, that incredible Ineffable One, is the place from which we come and the place to which we eventually return.

What/How do you name your Still Small Voice? What are you currently exploring? What have you recently explored? Have any of the places you've explored changed in the recent past? Do you expect any to change in the future? Where did you start from? How do you feel about returning there?

The Call of Grief

Grief may be the most misunderstood of feelings. It strikes like a snake hidden in the grass. As the world begins to appear in color again, grief raises its all-suffering head. It screams, alone and out of control. It is a solitary and singular feeling.

The past two weeks, death traversed my path several times. A co-worker shared about two deaths that happened within a week of each other and another that is imminent. A friend had to put her beloved dog to sleep. Yet another school shooting tore apart a small community. After a multi-year battle, the younger brother of a friend chose to let his kidney disease take his life. I've watched for years the physical deterioration of a friend with AIDS.

I don't know how to comfort someone cocooned in grief. All I can do is reach out, touch him or her to signal "I am here for you" and allow the space or distance or closeness needed. When my own grief arises, I hope someone is around to do the same for me.

Grief is more than a feeling, stronger than any other emotion. There is an aspect of it that is intensely physical, aching and overwhelming. Its timing and rhythm are random, chaotic and entirely its own.

Despite all this, grief also draws people together. Communities care for those in grief with food, comfort and even physical assistance ~ such as cleaning house or mowing the lawn. I understand another's grief because I have tasted my own. Loss is an experience we all share. We understand its cyclical nature as well.

Have you had a recent encounter with grief? Your own? or someone else's? What effect did it have on you? What did you do about or with it? How do you care for yourself when you feel grief? Is it different if it's your own? or another's?