Changing Species: It is Our Nature

A retreat coming to an end is always bitter sweet. Some aspect of it is relief to return to a “normal” schedule, but there is also a lingering longing for the better balance that seems to be the likely result of a time of intentional insight and successive sitting.

Catching up on email I felt the collective as I read a Washington Post article by Anne Lamont (a pre-promotion for her next book coming out in April) titled: “It’s good to remember: We are all on borrowed time.”

I found her article helpful and humorous. The opening line really gives you a good sense of her message: “Getting older is almost like changing species, from cute middle-aged, white-tailed deer, to yak. We are both grass eaters, but that’s about the only similarity.”

Nothing quite as humorous as honesty, is there….

Some of you might already be familiar with Dancing with the Elephants, by Jarem Sawatsky. Previous posts have referenced this, especially the Corpse Prayer on page 28:

Be not afraid.

I give thanks to god who created all things good.

In christ, all things hold together.

I am not entitled to life without death.

I embrace sacred life. I embrace

sacred death. I embrace the

growing and crumbling in between.

Smile at yourself in the silence…

Writing to a friend about the retreat this morning, I acknowledged that while it was not part of the formal retreat theme, because so many people attending expressed currently navigating health issues often the teachings leaned into how to mindfully accept gracefully our old age, illness, and death.

Robert shared that as his friend, a long-time mediator, was actively dying his friend had a prayer he repeated three times. Someone recorded his final recitation of that prayer and his own voice was heard at his celebration of life.

Whoa…. What words might hold my heart in that sublime stability? This morning I am still processing and wrote in my journal: Why do the birds go on singing? Because it is their nature.

All things with a beginning have an ending. It is our nature. All endings are really new beginnings. It is our nature. Changing species…. it is our nature.

So yesterday was the end of the retreat, and today is the beginning of living life with the benefits of practice. It is our nature.