There’s a big difference between life and lifespan. That’s your dad.
Hell-bent for success, is to fail. That’s your mom. Except she wouldn’t have said “hell-bent”.
They shall bring forth fruit in old age. That’s your great-aunt quoting some Old Testament poet.
Do what you want but keep company with a wise mentor. Your mother again.
But your brain is still wet behind the ears, your stripling blood watery sap; and with nothing much in bloom in your heart’s sunroom, green nitrogen drives you to a world of data, speed and the preening certainty of your absolute youth.
Then come decades of casualties and partings, and cracks show up in your equations. You seek the science to shore up your knowing, the doctrines to seal your religion, but stumble into a meadow of reflection and learning. And learning just keeps casting questions at your knowing until in the transpiration of confusion and wonder you rise and lament: too late to ask forgiveness from those ancients whose irrelevance you once thought real — a burden you must carry.
In time you meet a mentor — she’d been waiting — and you ask her, what is an elder?
Many years pass. Then one day, sinking into uncertainty like a warm bath, honouring the time-bound limits of the body, ready to be gathered up, you step down and go out singing: dear beautiful friends, dear mysterious beautiful friends, love, love, love!
-and in the end the Word (love) is a verb. Gratitude for your transference of it.
Thank you Ray! You are a true elder and mentor.
So beautifully well said. Singing with joy and reverence. (And thank you for using my painting to illustrate!)
Thank you Ellen! And thank you for painting!
Last line is paraprosdokian. Wonderful. In all things, love.
Thank you Joyce, and thank you for the education! Always nice to have a name for such a thing.
Thank you, more wisdom from an elder.
Thanks so much Ana Lisa!
Thank you for the first words of the morning, wise and beautiful as usual. A keeper.
Thank you Linda! So lovely to hear from you again.
“Sinking into uncertainty….” is one that caught my attention. Thought of a leader who introduced a statement into a code of ethics “for clarity”. I’m learning that certainty and clarity are over-rated…..
Thanks for this Sam.