As we age, we perceive that time is running out. We foresee an end to our lives as such. But something will live on without the fuss and furor of our personal lives. There is no point in thinking about it because we can be it right here and now. You see, we can live our lives from the still point of our soul, not forgetting our eternal nature. Or if we do, swiftly returning to it.

There was a time when you had neither speech nor understanding or the ability to walk or feed yourself. Perhaps at the end of your life that will happen again. Your second childhood, as it is called. Or perhaps you will be like our dear friend, Jeff Belyea, who wrote a magnificent poem called “Bird of Paradise” and simply walked into another room where God was waiting to receive him back as an immortal.

It may sound like hokum, but some believers have such faith as to move mountains. When I read of Jeff’s stroke, I cried buckets. Now I know he is one of those, one of the people that had such an experience of grace that they never forgot it.

How do we come to grace except through suffering? I don’t know because that has been my journey. From loss to light. From experiencing the dark night of the soul to knowing the darkness was as necessary to me as breathing.

Leonard Cohen instructs us about the darkness in his words and music. He is a light-bringer and a way shower. But he never avoids talk of darkness. To do that would be hypocritical. He speaks of the broken and the holy hallelujah. To that I can readily attest.

Time never runs out for the eternal soul residing in all mankind. Only for the thorn that precedes the rose.

Vicki Woodyard