Ellen (above) is one of the most exciting students in my meditation class.

She is one of four people from Memory Care who regularly attend my class. Ellen can be deceptive; when she is in the class, she is focused on what we are discussing.

The following week, she might not remember what the course is about.

I appreciate her; we have developed a strong connection. The sparkle in her eyes never goes out.

Her sense of humor is solid and quick.

She loves to laugh. Sometimes, she wants to hear about meditation, sometimes, she wants to talk. But I always feel that she gets it, even when she doesn’t like it, And she keeps coming to every class.

Zinnia often sits behind her and sleeps after she has treated everyone in the room. She loves the way Ellen scratches her head.

 

In my work at the Mansion, I’ve learned that I need to go where the residents go, not where I want to go.

Sometimes it works; sometimes, it doesn’t.

With Ellen, I feel it always works for me. Today, she told me she would rather talk than meditate, then spoke eloquently about the sense of liberation and freedom the age has brought her. And then she pondered.

I think both things are true for her; then she meditated with her eyes closes for seven minutes.

The thing about the Mansion that I have learned is that it’s about showing up more than anything else. I show up for them; they show up for me. That counts for older people who often feel abandoned and forgotten in the wider world.

I think they know to trust me by now.

This class is essential to me, one of my life’s most crucial t things. It has taught me so much; I hope I am returning the favor.

I suggested today that old age was an invitation to internal freedom, an idea that lit up some eyes. I said our goal is a free and authentic life, and getting older gives us one of the best opportunities to find that. We can afford to feel peace, I said.

Many of the struggles of life are over.

Meditation is rooted in ancient spiritual wisdom, I said, it echoes the insights and lessons of time and, simultaneously, the beginning of a new and fresh tomorrow.

 My meditation class above a full house.

I said I have just had two surgeries, and I walk stiffly at times. But I never see myself as having health problems, as people often tell me I have. My spiritual life is sound, happy, and fulfilling, and the meditation class is part of it.

I read this passage from one of Joan Chittister’s books (I handed out her book The Gift Of Years to every person in the class today, no charge):

“You are not alone in your quest,” she wrote; the quest for internal freedom and an authentic way of life is common to everyone, every generation, and every era. But few, other than the ancient mystics, contemplatives, and spiritual seekers of the ages, have had real answers for achieving it.”

The purpose of the class, I said, is to take to each other about findings ways to feel safe and meaningful.

To achieve eternal freedom and unlock the bars to finding it.

I’ve struggled for years and still work to understand what has blocked my spiritual growth so often.

This requires the most profound honesty from me in my meditation. Sometimes I can’t do it, but it feels like an explosion inside me when it happens.

Ellen surprised me. “Oh, I know what you mean,” she said, “I do feel liberated in old age. I have only me to answer to, and I am free of all the baggage I have carried for many years. I can let go of things…”

I thanked her for what she said. It was important. She did get it.

I thought this was the perfect audience to discuss this; almost everyone is on the precipice of life and change.

The search for spiritual life, I said, is not about religion or health. It points me farther along the road and gives me a much-trodden path.

That is what meditation goes for me, I said, and what I hope it can do for you. Everyone in the class said they wanted a copy of the books I had brought.

I said we’ll meet next week; I’m back now, I said, hopefully for a long time. I’ll keep showing up. I hope you will too.

Everyone got up; it was time for lunch. Art, who often sits beside me, waited until the others left. Art has never spoken to me in my class before or after.  He came over to me and offered me his hand.

“Thank you for this,” he said, “this is important to me.”

Me too, I answered.