Taking Stock

December 2, 2005

We all have moments of self doubt, times when we reflect and take stock of what our lives have become verses what we wanted them to be. We cling to our childhood dreams of what we wanted out of life before our own choices and those of others shaped us.

And what do we do with those moments? Do they draw us into bitterness? Do they lead us into acceptance? Or do they do the unexpected thing and carve a new career, lifestyle or spiritual renewal out of the flesh of the past?

Sometimes it takes great courage to simply get up the next day and care for the ones in your keep by doing the thing you don’t like in order to provide for the ones you love. Sometimes it takes courage to follow the serenity prayer and trust that all things have purpose and that what you are doing matters. And sometimes, yes, the bravest thing is to change and remake yourself. Scary, that one. It means that you are trusting without evidence that your vision of a future will be better than the one you are living now.

I have done each of these things in turn in my own lifetime. I have accepted what I cannot change, I have followed the ordinary in order to touch the extraordinary and I have stepped outside the pattern and chosen to remake myself. All of them carry risk, even the ones that seem safe and familiar, there is the risk of loosing yourself and being consumed by the pattern.

Sometimes the changes come weather we will them to or not. Death will do that to you, and so will love. Both are catalysts for change, both carry with them the seeds of change. God designed it so that once the grief lessens, life begins again. Once the powerful emotions of love cool, you are propelled by that love into a new pattern. And so the wheel turns.

Patterns. It becomes easier to see them as I grow older.

But what does that mean for me? For the here and now, that is. How does this reflection focus the lens of my attention? I don’t know. I used to think I knew what I wanted out of life. Then my choices and those of others narrowed my field of vision, made all but a few paths in front of me possible. So, I stepped onto them and followed one foot after another until one day I realized that I was on a path that lead me into darkness. It took a great deal of courage to step onto a new one. I have been on paths since then that seemed dark too, but the companion beside me, lit my way, shining a light at my feet.

Today I sit at a house of prayer. A silent retreat center, one with lovely gardens, winding paths and a special spot reserved for the memory of the woman who bore my husband, taught him how to love and welcomed me into her family. I was a divorced woman with a past, a woman who was not Catholic like she had raised her family to be, but nonetheless opened her heart to me and my son. Her name rests on the door of this retreat center, and a secluded garden with a statue of St. Joseph resides in the back.

Patterns and cycles, the wheel that comes back and moves time forward with it. As an individual human, I take stock and ask myself if I am pleased with the patterns my life has created. Are the pictures and stories of my life beautiful and strong? Am I complacent or active, growing or stagnating? Do I carry burdens I aught not, in favor of the ones I should be lifting? What is the state of my heart? Am I loving with open hands or am I a tight fist, curled in to protect its self? What am I pouring my life into? Is it the things that are most important or the things that shout the loudest?

I used to be far more flexible and teachable, I have found that this sort of examination is getting harder to do the older I get. However, it is necessary. I need to know that I am not wasting this one life that God has given me, because I see how fragile it is. Sherri died, my mother-in-law died, young Tim died… and I know that we are not promised tomorrow. The thing about death that compels me to think about it often is that it is so very final. I feel the clock ticking in my own body, and I hear it’s echo in those I love around me. I will only get one shot at this life, there is no do over. So I am keenly aware that I must make the most of every year, every moment. I am not pulled into the fear of death, I know where I will go when I die. But I fear not leaving a legacy, a taste of myself behind.

I am laughing at myself, what arrogance to want to set myself beyond my years, but I must be honest, this is what I want. I want to leave the printed word of my spirit behind for my kids to read and somehow know me. I want my husband to know that his love freed the caged bird that was my spirit and allowed me to dream higher, to let me soar as high as my wings could carry me. I want my friends to know that my life was made better and stronger for them being in it. Their stories … mattered to me more than my dishes and housework, that their companionship fed and nourished me. That I found purpose and joy in being part of their stories in return.

If you really want to know me, look through the pictures I took, see life through my eyes. Look through the conversations I have had and stories I have written. That’s where I am. Look in the eyes of my children; see their character and their nature, see my smile on their lips, my twinkle in their eyes and my form in theirs. Don’t look for me in the repose of death, but in the memory of the song. This is what I want; this is the immortality I seek.

So here I am, reflecting on the patterns my life has taken. And I know that this day will never come again. I know that the choices I make in these moments of pause have a fundamental impact on how I govern my time and resources when I return to the real world.

What choices have you made? Will you be able to look back on your life and say you did what you wanted to? Will you understand the role of the companion who guides stumbling feet? Will you let yourself forgive and unclench that tight fist of your spirit? In all these things there are choices, and each of them takes courage. To remain under pressure with grace is courage. To accept the thing you cannot change and heal the chaffing you’ve done under them requires courage, and to step outside the pattern completely and trust in that other vision takes the greatest courage of all.


I will close for now, I seem to have a great many questions and it’s time I focused these questions on my life and the specific issues that I deal with cannot share in this open forum.

Thank you for sharing the first leg of my journey with me. I will do the rest in private, It’s nice to know that out there somewhere are others, brothers and sisters who also take stock and ask themselves the tough questions, working to be flexible to change.