I watched with curiosity as the last thing to slide off my Friday schedule was lunch with Jane Foster. Although it was nine pm, I picked up the phone and called Still Waters Retreat House. Delcy Kuhlman now graciously agrees when I say I will bring my own lunch. She has served as chief cook, bottle washer, gardener, and spiritual director for twenty nine years. I’ve been going there for almost 23 years. And most of the many hours there have been spent sitting in the grape-vine rocking chair looking out at that majestic oak tree faithfully holding the swing and my heart. Now, though, when I look out, everything I see I see as impermanent.
This does not make me sad. I treasure the moment. Breathing in deeply, this moment melts with all the previous times I have sat here. I witness the past, the present, and the not-quite-yet, with profound peace and reverence.
“If you want to take a break later, walk back to the house,” Delcy says as she bids me farewell after greeting me and introducing me to, Abi, who has been on retreat all week. I know I will make that walk, and I know I will savor our talk.
Standing in the hallway chatting, thunder rolls, moving us to Delcy’s den. She flips on the light and we watch the rain and I worry that the sliding door in the chapel was left open until we send a text to Abi asking her to close the door. Then we are present to one another, to ourselves, and to the unseen force that has called us together.
“I have been doing a lot of process about dying,” I say. Delcy nods her head in agreement, and is slightly distracted as she begins to scan her bookshelf. I mention having just read Vesper Time: The Spiritual Practice of Growing Older, by Frank J. Cunningham. And I tell her about having done the Corpse Prayer Exercise for my birthday ritual in January. About how author, Jarem Sawatsky has written about living with dying from Huntington’s Disease in Dancing with Elephants. She makes notes of both of those books, then pulls The Grace in Aging off the shelf and hands it to me. She is still slightly distracted, telling me she is also looking for The Grace in Living, by the same author—Dharma teacher, Kathleen Dowling Singh. Delcy said she got that one by mistake.
We search together, and I find it. The Grace of Living is laid beside me on the love seat. Here are notes I took from that precious book about our need to write our spiritual biography, telling the story of our lives from the continuous movement toward awakening:
The Grace in Living: Recognize It, Trust It, Abide In It by Kathleen Dowling Singh
When we mindlessly allow attention to be fueled by desire or aversion, no matter how subtle, we sense the self with a distinctive flavor in that moment. The engines of self rev up, gunning for the expression of that particular flavor of reactivity. In doing so, we psychologically remove ourselves from the truth. We separate ourselves from the sacred, the “one taste” of nonduality. p. 30
We begin to recognize that form, the universe of self, has never for a moment been separate from the sacred formless. Only our conceptions view them as separate. That they could be separate is impossible. p. 31
It is sweetly empowering to realize our inseparability from the sacred. With this encouragement, we can tenderly assuage our self-doubting and minister to it with less denial, less judgment, and infinitely more compassion. Recognizing that we are already in the divine flow—and always have been—confidence grows. p. 31
We begin to recognize ourselves as ordinary human beings—a profoundly liberative recognition. We except ourselves just as we are in each moment. We are awakening. We surrender any further need for judgment or pretense. p. 32
The heart leads us forward with less obstruction and more sanity. The heart is the only containers spacious enough to hold both the overwhelming suffering of the world and the almost unbearable joy of grace. p. 35
Ken Wilber reminds us that the fires of transformation are not a relaxing hot tub. The work of healing can entail great suffering as we allow ourselves to feel, finally, all that we have rejected, ignored, and stuffed deep inside. Many practitioners experience a dark night of the soul during this time. We break open. This state of brokenness is the leaping-off point for surrender. We’ve exhausted ego’s possibilities and have nowhere left to turn.
We stay in survival mode until we’ve had enough suffering and—surrendering—wish to see through the causes of suffering. Many people, especially those without a practice, stay in survival mode until the very end of life, when there is no choice other than to let go, surrender, and see Reality as it is. May each of us have the grace to die to who we think we are before who we think we are dies. p. 69
As I finish The Grace in Living and reach to start The Grace in Aging, I search for Kathleen on the internet. I hold my breath as I come across a blog titled: “Kathleen Dowling Singh, RIP”.
Gone? How can that be? Her writing is so alive, so real, so vital.
Suddenly I know anew why I write. And I understand at the cellular level why a spiritual biography is so important.
Please don’t be surprised by my passing. Everything passes.
Please don’t discount the dharma (truth) of my life. I won’t live forever.
Please don’t miss the moments of your life today. They are our Still Waters.
