Putting it All Together

Many in our culture

regard youth as good

and old age as bad.

But is this true?

In the sage, youth and age are married.

Wisdom and folly each been lived fully.

Innocence and experience now support one another.

Action and rest follow each other easily.

Life and death have become inseparable.

The sage has experienced all opposites

and lets them come and go

without clinging or fretting.

Therefore the sage can talk without lecturing,

act without worrying about results,

and live in contentment with all events.

The first part of our life

was spent separating things into categories:

good and bad,

like and dislike,

me and you,

us and them.

Now it is time to put all the pieces back together

into a seamless whole. 

The Sage's Tao Te Ching: Ancient Advice for the Second Half of Life 

by William Martin

Hurry

We stop at the dry cleaners and the grocery store

and the gas station and the green market and

Hurry up honey, I say, hurry, hurry,

as she runs along two or three steps behind me

her blue jacket unzipped and her socks rolled down.

Where do I want her to hurry to? To her grave?

To mine? Where one day she might stand all grown?

Today, when all the errands are finally done, I say to her,

"Honey I’m sorry I keep saying Hurry—

you walk ahead of me. You be the mother."

"Hurry up," she says, over her shoulder, looking

back at me, laughing. "Hurry up now darling," she says,

"hurry, hurry," taking the house keys from my hands.

**Marie Howe

Lessons in the Afterlife

Luke 13:24 / Luke 14:1-14 

Lord,

after we get through

the narrow door,

save us from

the temptation

of charging forward

in Your banquet hall.

Let us remember

that rushing 

doesn't work 

in a place

where the last

are served first.