One of the last lessons given is to be yourself. After all, if you are not yourself, who are you? It is interesting and paradoxical that you will never know, never be able to give a mental definition of who you are. It is something that first you feel and then you honor.

At my age, it is becoming increasingly clear that I am not a puppet of society. I am not the target of cosmetic and shampoo commercials, etc. I am not the one waiting for the car with the Christmas bow on it. I am definitely not the one listening to the endless media barrages hurled at me through the TV screen.

I am the one that knows that. Yes, I am the one that listens to it all but always says “No thank you. It is finished. You can no longer lure me into your latest gimmick.”

After that, the great peace begins to descend. It begins to walk with you everywhere you go. “Thou goest before me to make the crooked places straight.”

Who I am is strangely sad at all times. Sad knowing that the world is a dark and dangerous place. Sad because the human self must die to live. This sorrow belongs to the heart and it must be honored. Only then can its true work of redemption begin.

I do not know anything. I stumble through my day in wonderment that anything works at all. And because of Leonard Cohen, I say hallelujah to it all. This one word honors our intelligence and our knowing that we don’t know. Never can know. Never will. For we belong to the ages and the moment, but never to the darkness. Only to the light.

Vicki Woodyard