Dearest Friends,
It has been a while since I last reached out to you. The past few months brought unexpected challenges and a tiredness that required me to step back. I’ve missed our connection, and I hope to be back in your inbox more regularly again - not every day but more often.
Two events prompted me to write to you now.
First, I came across something I wrote in 2018 about The Soul of America, about how we need to nurture her and be nurtured by her.
"The Soul of
America can be revitalized. We do this by re-evaluating who we are and what is important to us. We do this by fortifying the highest and best within us. The Soul of America will be revitalized when we strive to live according to her noble ideals."
The second offers a way to deepen and enrich how we live each day. It's much longer than my typical touchstones have been and will be. But for reconnecting now, I hope this brings inspiration
to re-evaluate how we are living and relating to one another.
There is a silence we can hear and feel.
The sound is soft, like a hush from the sea.
The feeling?
For me, it’s vast, like a desert or the sky. Stunning, then numbing.
I first heard it when my mother died.
Then again, when my father passed.
It’s nothing like the quiet when they were out for the day or away for a while. It’s completely different when a leave is final.
A friend is hearing and feeling this now.
Her mother just passed. When she spoke of the silence she and her husband heard, it brought me back to my mother’s bedside and her last exhale. With her, we knew. My dad’s death was a shock.
Their passings were different, but the sound was the
same—profound and life-shifting.
For a while, losing a loved one makes us more aware, more present, more alive. It reminds us how valuable life is.
I knew my friend’s mother for a short time. Even though we weren't especially close, I'm feeling the loss and hearing the sound created by her departure from Earth. And I'm wondering if somewhere within us there's a place that perceives us as a tapestry, with fine threads of living, loving energy connecting us. When a thread dims and
dissolves, we feel it. Earth does too. I am not claiming this is true. But I believe there is much more to living and dying than we know.
Let’s not live superficially, taking life and loved ones for granted. Let’s not wait to hear that sound. Let’s
listen now to understand. Say kind words. See beauty. Give thanks. Notice needs. Offer support. Show we care. Forgive. Let's be gracious, honest, and real.
For all who are grieving now, I send you love and offer this prayerful wish: May you be
comforted, strengthened, and blessed by the sacredness of this time. And may peace be with you, your departed loved one, and all your family and circle of friends.
THE ELEVENTH GIFT IS LOVE.
It will grow each time you give it away.
from The Twelve Gifts of Birth
