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Tomorrow I fly.  From my point of view I might as well be preparing to leave for outer space.  Not that I don’t know where I will end up, and don’t know that being with my children and grandchildren will be wonderful beyond belief.  It’s just the days and minutes that lead up to this adventure that seem torturous.  When ‘all is said and done’ I have turned into a chicken.  A big grounded chicken!

It’s not like I have a gargantuan farm or ranch that needs to be cared for in my absence.  A large garden, 5 hens, 2 cats and a small dog.  Yet relying on someone to care for this end of my life while I am not here to do it has been a difficult journey.  And it’s not over yet.  I have lost telephone contact with the woman who is to stay here.  I don’t know where she lives.  My car is still in the shop being worked on where it has been for the better part of two weeks.

Of course the worst of the worst that might happen in these next hours is all in my imagination.  If I did not have the gift of imagination I would probably be unable to worry.  Yes, imagination is a gift of the soul — but, oh!  To only use that gift wisely!  Am I doing that?

I have written a small book of details and instructions for the caretaker – should she be the one to actually arrive at 9:00 a.m. tomorrow as arranged.

“Don’t push on the DVD player without holding onto it or it will slide down behind the TV.”

“The cats will come when they hear the sound of their food clinking against their dish.”

“Shut down the laptop and unplug all the cords in the back of it at the first sound of thunder.”

“Don’t put vegetables or fruit on the top right refrigerator shelf or they will freeze.”

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I find myself wondering briefly what it would be like to have gone through life, to go through it now with a detailed instruction book in hand that could be referred to and relied upon to contain the truth about how to manage one’s self in one’s life.  For all the billions of people on this earth, for all that have passed this way before, how is it actually possible that each and every single one of us still encounter so many continually new situations for which the only wisdom about how to get through them the best way possible only lies within each of us individually?

This is a creative — co-creative — universe we live in!

We are all continually creating and re-creating a slice of life that follows us around all of the time.

“Snip off the zinnia flowers below the second set of leaves so they can bloom again – the butterflies love them.”

Yet within the maze, the labyrinth of life, there is assistance and there is forgiveness and there is mercy.

I just received the news from my dear friend about the doctor’s report yesterday.  Everything of concern has miraculously improved!  Another appointment is set not for one month from now, but for three months from now!  How does one begin to thank the God Who made us, Who loves us, and Who hears our prayers?

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So in the middle of being a human being on this earth I try to pause and remember what matters most.  We are not given the power to foresee the future or to control it.  We are given the power to choose how we move through each present moment, about how we reach for the powers human beings have been given to communicate with our Creator – and with one another.

In the end we will each be able to report the one thing we all share in common:  “I have lived the best I can, and it was the greatest of adventures!”

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