• Death Comes

    • August 20, 2015 10:13 am

    These days I am working as a spiritual companion to the residents of a nursing home in England. I accompany these elders in their day-to-day lives simply by being with them. Some of them are sick, many of them are dying. If they are able to speak we have a conversation. If they are not, we don’t. I hold their hands and feet. I read them books and newspapers. I tell stories and listen to theirs. I pray with them if they ask me or I pray in silence if there is nothing else to be done. It is an enormous privilege to share in and bear witness to a life in these quiet ways.

    One of the residents died yesterday. I’ll call her Trinity. I had grown close to Trinity in the last three months since I began working in the home. She was an artist and we shared our love of visual art through conversations about painting and drawing. “My aim in life is to paint,” she told me when I asked her if she missed it. She was seriously ill and had lost the ability to use her hands in any real way and her mind was clouded by the drugs and by her poor condition.

    Trinity told me that from her illness she had “learned about laughter, suffering and endurance.” I was speechless. It is not often that we hear people expressing this kind of unspoken gratitude for being sick and dying.

    Yesterday, after one of the nurses told me Trinity had died, I went to her room to just sit for a while in the empty space and remember her and say good-bye. When I opened the door I saw that Trinity was still in the bed. I was shocked. I’d assumed the body had already been removed by the undertakers.

    I have seen dead bodies before. It is the strangest sensation. The body is intact and yet the person is gone. At first Trinity seemed to be there still. It almost looked as though she was breathing. But then it was obvious: Trinity was no longer there. Where did she go? We do not know. The Great Mystery.

    Now Trinity’s suffering has ended. And yet so has her life. A whole life that I know very little about. I only know that at the end of her life she had learned about laughter, suffering and endurance.

    We did laugh together, Trinity and I. I did watch her suffer. And I did witness her enduring, day after day after day. There is meaning in this.

    I am reminded of a piece of scripture that I have always liked. It helps me to remember that I am not the be-all and end-all of everything: “For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away.” (James 4:14)

    Make the most of it.

    Inspiring Message of the Day: Am I aware of the sensation of being alive today? I will do my best to bring myself into full awareness of my Being.

     

     

    Back in the Saddle

    • August 7, 2015 9:40 am

    When I teach writing workshops and we engage in “automatic” exercises or free-flow writing I tell participants to write without thinking. Just put the pen on the paper and go. If nothing comes then write, “Nothing is coming.” And just keep going. Even if you end up writing, “I don’t like this it’s stupid I can’t write I can’t think of anything to write I don’t want to be here,” you will have written something.

    The idea behind this exercise is that if you persevere then something deeper will eventually come. Your I-don’t-like-this writing will eventually produce decent fruit.

    I am reminding myself of this now as I write this blog post, the first in a very long time. I have challenged myself to write something because I am a writer and I have essentially given up writing. I still keep a journal and that is something. I write the occasional poem and that, too, is something. I write emails to people and that is something else. But I am not writing plays, articles, blogs or chapters of the unfinished book.

    This lack of writing has not really been an issue for me. I haven’t been beating myself up or wondering why I’m not doing it. I let the blog go, I retired from showbiz and the book simply has not been pulling me. My life has taken a different turn.

    And yet the fact remains: I am writer who is not writing.

    A friend recently wrote me an email saying, “I want to encourage you to continue writing. I love your writing, always have. You may not want to continue in the film biz and I completely respect any decision you make, but I really think you have a gift. I hope that you will let it take whatever form it may. Be that short stories, scripts or a novel! Let it out girl!”

    Being able to write well is a gift. I didn’t give it to myself! And because this ability was given to me I wonder… is it wrong not to use such a gift?

    Some might say so. When I think about what has really brought me pleasure in life “Writing” is near the top of the list. So am I not writing because I just don’t feel like it or am I squandering my talents?

    I don’t know the answer. But here I am. Feeling rusty and wondering what to say. Writing until something comes.

    Inspiring Message of the Day: What are my gifts? If I have been given a particular gift I will do my best to offer it to others however small the offering might be.