living and dying...

i had snuggled in to read.
i only had a few minutes before josh came thru to say hi.
and i wanted to just get a few pages in...

i only read a page...but i still found a nugget:

'but it is not an easy transition, this metamorphosis
from the public self to the real self.we struggle
against it all the way. we fear to expose our nakededness
of the soul, our lack of inner resources, our paucity
of imagination. if, left on the dung heap of life, bereft
of our trappings - our uniforms and titles and bank accounts
and offices and resumes - we have no reason to go on living,
then the question is whether we have ever lived at all.
and that is the question that none of us ever want to ask.'

i stopped and thought about that one.
and as i thought, the phone rang.
i reached over and grabbed it.

it was a friend. she was calling to tell me her best friend
had died that day. she was 51.

wow.

talk about knocking the point of the book home.

i haven't stopped thinking of all of that....
i'm a little bit late for my walk, but that's what i'll be
carryin' with me on it and around my day today.....

life is short.
are we gonna live it?

and then that makes me think of a bone sigh i wrote once...
for someone who died.

for my friend who lost her friend....

i offer this to you today...

weeping and aching,
i longed to honor your passing.
i longed to honor your life.
searching everywhere,
i found only one answer.
to honor myself.
become all that I am.
and carry you inside that beauty


i am so sorry for your great loss...