Getting Ready to Fly

flying free
i am unsure of where i am
one foot here, the other reaching,
   stretching for places far away
my heart yearning, yet fearful of
   the unknown...
but a baby robin hopped across the
   road last evening
following its mother with unerring
   faith
certain it would find safety and
   nurture wherever she was
and so i follow Mother God wherever
   she is leading me
into the daring unknown with no more
   sense of why than the baby robin
yet believing deeply that safety and
   nurture and purpose will unfold      
as i stretch my fledgling wings and,
   with tentative flapping and hesitant starts,
begin to fly

Retired from Work, not Life...

Had lunch with a recently-retired friend today and she asked for any advice I might have about retirement, about being retired. "Make your life your own," I told her. "Do those things that have meaning to you. Set your own agenda."

I've been thinking about those words ever since and am realizing that I am following my own advice by taking this trip to Africa. Since my retirement in 2002, life has been shaped by many things not really within my own control, but now, I am making deliberate choices, setting my own agenda, responding to the longings of my own heart; in the words of Joseph Campbell, I am "following my own bliss".

Now don't get me wrong: my life has not been on hold...I have been living fully, appreciating the wonders and blessings of the everyday and ordinary, of the gifts of my quirky home, of the healing and welcome presence of family and friends in my life. I have been writing and occasionally preaching and leading worship in various chuches around the Piedmont...and though my commitments and responsibilities here at home precluded travel since 2005, I have continued my personal spritual journey, continued to grow and become, to think and question, as my faith deepened and widened.

And now I'm ready to set out on an actual journey, to venture into parts of the world that are presently unknown to me, to gain the wisdom and knowlege which come only through experience. Being retired, you see, does not mean that life is over; in many ways, it means that life is really, truly beginning in a new and beautiful and challenging way. Here's to retirement! Here's to Life!

New Beginnings...

It was only several months ago that this odyssey began, a day much like any other when I crossed paths with Mary Martin Niepold of the Nyanya Project, and a cosmic life-shift began to happen.

My aging mother had lived with me for nearly 8 years and during the past two, had gradually showed signs of physical deterioration, as her skeletal system- mostly her back- developed stress fractures which caused a great deal of pain and limited her ability to be mobile. In the last six month of 2009, much of her time had to be spent in bed to alleviate that unrelenting pain and the tasks and responsibilities of the household- mostly mine anyway- fell totally to me. My life was focused here at home...with caring for Mom's comfort and needs primary.

After a wonderful family Christmas here, a short, month-long period of total decline marked her January, and Mother died on the last day of that month. During the month, I had the help of two lovely and dependable women- Ruth & Rosa, the two Rs- as well as Hospice, which aided so much in controlling Mom's pain. And as all of the many things which follow a death in the family were gradually accomplished, my life began to take on a very different shape...yet I wasn't sure just what that shape would be or how it would look. I just know that it would be very different from that of the past several years.

Enter Mary Martin...enter the Nyanya Project...enter the invitation to travel to East Africa this summer...and the doors of my heart and life were flung open wide! (see http://www.nyanyaproject.com/) And so, for the past couple of months, I have been preparing: updating my passport, getting immunizations, planning what to take and getting what I needed, making list after list, trying to cover all the bases needing to be covered when leaving home for nearly a month... Doing a 5-week body de-tox, losing nearly 15 pounds, and boosting my immune system by good rest and exercise also have occupied my days...and now, only 18 days remain until I board a plane in Charlotte for the first leg of the long, long journey to Boston, where MM and I will meet and board a KLM flight to Amsterdam, another to Nairobi, Kenya.

"Excited" doesn't begin to describe my emotional state these days. "Eager anticipation" comes to mind, as does "wide open"...all of which just means that this journey, this adventure, is the beginning of a new page in a new chapter of my life. And I am ready to spread my wings and FLY!

Everyone is the age of their heart. -Guatemalan Proverb

Why not go out on a limb? Isn't that where the fruit is? -Frank Scully

To find your real capabilities you must push yourself through your comfort zone. -Patrick Lindsay

preparing for the journey...

Empowerment must come from within myself...
as i wrestle with anxiety & fear...
as i deal with my physical body...
as i open myself to all of the possibilities
which lie within me.

The only limitations are the ones i imagine,
the ones i choose to give power...
so...
Joy & Wonder are the companions i choose,
accompanied by Compassion & Curiosity.

Half a world away lie a different horizon,
unknown vistas, mysteries at present foreign
to my eyes & ears...
half a world away live people whose visage
and language will open my eager, searching
mind and heart in ways now only dreamed.

O Creative & Creating God,
grant me the courage to leave expectations
and agendas behind...the wisdom to
understand that only by walking willingly
into the unknown will i continue to become
fully myself...the strength to be flexible,
to bend without breaking, to welcome the
awaiting gifts of the unknown.
                 Africa awaits...!

Into the Wild

What is it that you want to do with the one, wild, precious thing called your life?
–Mary Oliver

into the wild

The ancient ones called the soul

“anima”, recognizing that deep within us

lies that animal-self which longs for

purposeful freedom…

For “wild” animals have about them

a quiet, purposeful awareness…
they live out their destiny without
a question or a doubt, unlike we
humans who weigh every happening,
pronouncing it either good or bad,
failing to trust the deep reality that
every act, every thought, every
decision flows from what is
highest and truest within us.

The wild ones seem to value life
for life’s own sake, making no
distinction between what is
extra-ordinary and what is ordinary,
everyday- human concepts, after all.

Perhaps we “tame” ones think
too much! using those thoughts
and doubts and judgments as
a way of avoiding life rather than
living it.

Perhaps what we need is to
truly “go wild”…surrendering to
ecstasy…loosening the binding
restraints of convention…and
joining in creation’s wild, on-going
dance of life.