Threshold

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March 4, 2016, Prescott- Today marks the eve of two anniversaries of import in my life. On March 5, 2004, a child was born, in a country far from here.  He became my sponsored child, in 2011.  On the same date, also in 2011, my long-suffering and beloved wife cast her burden, and became my spirit guide.  One is now 12 years of age, the other, a spirit gone beyond time.

As I write this, there is a stirring, outside.  A door opens and shuts- most likely my ephemeral neighbour, poking about, catching the night air.    On the morning  that Penny went to the realm of stars, son and I were detoured by a street renovation project.  We got to hospice about three minutes after she had passed over.  We did see, however, a stirring of leaves and debris, spiraling upward, on an otherwise still morning.  We went inside, and found her body, still warm to the touch, but sans pulse.  She had indeed left, three minutes earlier.

When one is at the threshold of something entirely new, there is an individualized level of trepidation.  There is also an individualized level of hope and joy.  I generally face the day with more of the latter.  March 5, 2011 was an exception, because my beloved’s spiritual energy, dense energy, filled the room, as I awoke.  Nothing before or since has made its presence known, in quite that extraordinary a manner.  I knew what was in store, and moved along through the day, in a very heavy flow.

She will be with me, always.  I fully intend to visit my sponsored child and his family, in the summer of 2017.  If all goes well, I will also pay a visit to one of our friends, in a nation that faces the challenges of climate change.  I know Penny would approve, as she sent me messages about my earlier journeys, well in advance of their having transpired.

Standing at a threshold, my soulmate wraps me in confidence and blessings.

The Road to 65, Mile 126: Fidelity

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April 3, 2015Prescott-  In this evening’s episode of “Hawai’i Five-O”, the great Chi McBride took up the questions of both marital and fraternal fidelity.  His character, a captain on a Hawai’i State Police task force, finds himself facing the possibility that a close friend is being duplicitous, while re-affirming his own love for his wife.  The heartbreak he faces, in the first instance, makes him hauntingly vulnerable and very much in need of the second.

All my thirty years of closeness to Penny, and the years of unity with her spirit that have ensued, I have kept a fidelity, a loyalty of purpose.   I have female friends, now, whom I adore as people, and as helpers in many aspects of my life.  The time could yet come when I am in a friendship that turns romantic, but that’ll happen if it is meant to be.  My soulmate remains watchful, I know.

Today, millions of people around the world observe, commemorate and mourn the result of duplicity.  1, 982 years ago, money trumped loyalty to the Light of the World. At the same time, fear clouded the judgment of the man who would be the first Pope, and led to abandonment, however temporary.

The Paragon of Fidelity forgave His tormentors, His killers and His duplicitous friends.  Jesus the Christ set the example, to remain steadfast in the face of its opposite behaviour.  How many were the false ones who called “Lord, Lord”, in His wake, yet walked the dark path!  How many the devoted ones who gave their all for Him, Whom they loved completely!

Fidelity and duplicity are choices we each make, in matters great and small, and in all relationships, both secular and divine, both committed and casual.  Which shall be the goal, as this Good Friday draws to a close?