Keeping Faith

When I retired, when I left the beloved place of my long employment, drove home, pulled into the driveway, I sat in the car for a more than a few minutes.  The calendula was gold and orange, the echinacea vibrant, my small gray house in the woods secure.  I knew the deer would come in a few hours and I would feed them, that I could finish the book so long under construction.  But the words that came to me were, “I did it.  I kept the faith.”  I wasn’t sure what I meant, though I felt ecstatic.  I sat longer. 

I had taken care of my parents, was a loyal sister, helped my children.  I’d been a determined mentor, passing on what was given to me, was advocate for my clients.  But I meant something more than this.  Finally, it came – in my work I had been as faithful as I could be to my soul.  I recalled what papa said, “We are here to make soul.” 

So to carry this theme further, post-retirement is somewhat like early life.  We try things on, do a bit of this and that, then something settles in.  We know where we are going, what to do, what soul requires.  Old templates fall away, new innocence arrives, a sweetness of the spirit. 

I am glad I had papa as guide.  Sometimes he prayed almost all night.  He sang old hymns.  I don’t do that, but compared to his ninety-four years I am still young, so I might yet.  What I do is sit in the dark and listen.  I walk the floor talking to figures that arrive in dreams.  If you come up the driveway and I don’t know you are coming, you might hear me arguing with the flowers.

I’ve always been a bit odd, but I come by this honestly.  If you don’t think so, you haven’t met my family.  Nevertheless, I love this opportunity to know more about how spirit moves, to discover what washes up on the shores of my psyche, and who walks up the driveway. 

Sometimes I’ve wanted to nail down what is true, and what is possible, to make a template into which all things fit.  But a dollop of uncertainty, of letting reality roam beyond the edges of belief – that is where spirit waits.  That is where she sets her table.