There comes the point where money and the corporate-sponsored notion of security can do nothing for me but get me to buy more expensive and useless toys to try to fill the spiritual emptiness I’ve felt for so long and pretend to be safe.

I’ve gobbled up much of my life with ambition, envy, regret, and terror. Suddenly and blessedly, nothing is left for me but to seek refuge and wisdom in the warm coals of my soul, the ones I’ve managed to maintain, even if I failed to see or fan them.

I’m free, at least, to be me and be free.

As one writer called them, the coals of wonder are coming alive in me. I tell my friends I have everything I need and want right here on my farm with Maria for the first time in my life.

I am enough, and what I have is enough. I am slower than ever to anger, and very few things gnaw on my insides. Nothing is left to me and my soul but myself. The politics of rage has nothing in it for me.

I am no longer at the mercy of myself or fate.

I accept both as what they are, gifts given to me but not gifts that I can control or dominate.

I’m no longer preoccupied with the expensive accessories of life. I want the real thing, which is free and right inside of me.

It’s taken me a lifetime to see the world around me, love a flower, listen to agree, look for my blue skies, understand the meaning of friendship, to honor the dignity and wisdom of getting older.

And more than anything, to learn to celebrate and bask in what is enough. I think it was worth the wait.

___

Joan Chittister:

“A burden of these years is the awareness of all that we missed for so long wile we sold our souls to the idols of the time.

A blessing of these years is the equanimity that comes from knowing that none of the side roads of life were really wasted. Truth is, we learned something invaluable on each of them. We learned that to come to fullness of life it takes absolutely nothing at all beyond the development of the best in ourselves.”

— The Book Of Years