Tag: aging

The Final Quarter

~ purplesage41 ~ 3 Comments

Poets, philosophers, and psychologists often compare the stages of our life with the turning of the year.  If we consider the seasons of our lives, this time of year is the final quarter—an appropriate metaphor from the football season! I assume that I will live to age 92, as my mother and her sister did.  If my schedule of quarters is correct, I am more than half way through the final quarter. These years have been marked by my second and final retirement, the loss of my husband and my dearest female friend, and by the usual changes of aging. I know that the final stage of life would test the resources that we have developed over many years of life, but I didn’t expect the test to be so sudden and so painful.

My middle daughter also pointed out that, starting at age 22 when my first child was born, I had been responsible for at least one other person and sometimes as many as four or five at a time.  Now I was only responsible for myself, a situation that is both liberating and challenging.. As Janis Joplin sang, freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose. I am in no hurry to see my life end, but I am also accepting my mortality.

Assuming that you do not fantasize about heaven with pearly gates and a gigantic family reunion, there are two very different ways to come face to face with the final quarter and the impending end of life.  One is from poet Robert Browning:  Grow old along with me, The best is yet to be, The last of life, for which the first was made.  Dylan Thomas sees it differently: Do not go gentle into that good night, Rage, rage against the dying of the light. There is truth in both of them.  Browning sounds like a bit of a Pollyanna, and Dylan Thomas like a grumpy old man.

In his book Aging Well, George Vaillant identifies three tasks of old age.  They are integrity, generativity, and keepers of wisdom. Those mostly joyful and meaningful tasks can make this last quarter rich and fulfilling. 

Integrity means wholeness.  It means putting the pieces of our lives, past and present, into a framework that tells a meaningful story. I have always been a storyteller, like my mother before me, but even more so since I had grandchildren with whom to share family stories. Because my story does not stand alone. It is interwoven with my great-grandmother who marched for women’s suffrage and my sister who struggled with the uprootedness of being a military wife and the ancestral faith tradition of the early settlers of New England in which I was raised. It is interwoven with my husband’s family and my children and grandchildren and the many dear friends with whom I have shared my life.    If task of the first half of life is to create a separate identity, the last half of life calls us to reconnect, to find our place in the cycle of generations and the work of the world.

Generativity means mentoring the next generation, whether it is children of colleagues or church leaders or, in my case, teaching graduate students and empowering voters.  Even if we were mentors during our working years, it is different in the final quarter.  We are likely to be less competitive, less focused on proving our competence.  The people we may be called to mentor may be older or younger than before and they may need very different kinds of wisdom and patience o from us.  More listening, less talking. Like Yoda.

In the Hindu tradition, life is divided into four stages—the child, the student, the householder, and the spiritual seeker. At the end of the student stage, one is expected to assume the responsibilities of adult life—work, marriage, children, community.  But in the words of one Hindu text, when one’s hair has turned white and one has seen grandsons, it is time to abandon he life of the householder,to turn it over to the next generation, abandon material possessions, and seek the life of the spirit.  Being a contemplative hermit would be the highest expression of this calling.  But a guru also fits this mold, a keeper of wisdom who shares it not just with selected groups like grandchildren and students and patients and clients and friends and neighbors, but with whoever turns up in need of some wisdom.  

That wisdom is evoked at least in part by giving up our attachment to possessions.  I have noticed in myself and in many of my fellow travelers through life’s last quarter a change in how we approach to possessions, not so much stressing acquisition as cultivation, enjoyment, and letting go.  Living in a smaller space, giving things away, truly practicing the belief that less is more. Approaching the end of life with an attitude or acceptance and gratitude.  This kind of wisdom is shared with anyone we encounter, not consciously or intentionally but just by the way we live our lives.

At the same times, it is important for ourselves and others to live until we die.  To be kind and caring and helpful and engaged for as long as we can.  To keep on learning, living, loving, playing within the limits of our declining physical abilities.  To accept our limitations with grace and patience, two skills that those who follow us will need to notice and acquire.  Those of us who don’t put much stock in a concrete afterlife need to continue to the last breath our work of making heaven on earth, a place where human and other life forms can flourish and prosper.

Matriarch Rules

~ purplesage41 ~ 3 Comments

I was the youngest of three children.  My mother, sister and brother are no longer with us, nor my husband, my sister-in-law Kay and my brothers-in-law Bob and Dick. I have one surviving sister-in-law but our families have never been close, either in distance or in spirit. Only one of my sons-in-law has a surviving parent, whom we all like very much. I feel that I have become a matriarch with respect to my three daughters and sons-in-law, four granddaughters and one grand-son-in -law who also has no living parents. 

Several years ago, I invited my niece and nephew to join my daughters in a weekly email conversation about what’s going on in our lives. One son-in-law, one niece-in-law and one first cousin once removed (of my daughter’s generation—also with no living parents) asked to join the weekly exchange.

There are rules for just about every relational role in a woman’s life—daughter, sister, wife, daughter-in-law, sister-in-law parent, grandparent—but few of us become a de facto matriarch (and even fewer men become patriarchs!). I didn’t get much grand mothering. One grandmother died before my parents were married, and the other was not the grandmotherly type, despite her 14 grandchildren.  Guidelines have been hard to come by as the generations continue to stretch on.

I learned a useful concept from studying Stoic philosophy.  Each day, think about roles and rules. I have many roles—not just the family ones but friend, community member, economist, writer, engaged citizen, voracious reader, sporadic teacher, lifelong learner.  Each role has its own rules, which in Stoic philosophy call for the appropriate virtues and the ways they are called for in our roles.  So I thought I needed to reflect on this particular role and the rules that it called for. Let me be clear. These rules are aspirational or intentions. I do  not claim to practice all of them all of the time, but as I feel my way around in a somewhat different role than I have had in earlier times, I do my best. Here they are.

  1. My first rule is to respect their boundaries, always willing to help but not to interfere. It’s a delicate balance. For example, I treasured having the freedom to choose my major in college, partly because I went on a combination of  my own earnings and scholarships.  I wanted the same freedom for my daughters, and my granddaughters, whose education we financed for the daughters and helped with for the next generation. No conflict there. Three daughters who chose to major in, respectively, art, music, and anthropology were not about to limit their daughters’ choices—one just an associate degree, the others in theater, education, and a the youngest a dual major in anthropology and Japanese.
  2. My second rule is to be open to change and accommodation around holidays. Theye are holidays, which had to be parceled out equally once the daughters got married and had in-laws with an equal claim. My mother remained a very central part of my Christmases well into my fifties, needing to be the center of attention, and I vowed to honor my daughters’ need for their own family time. We celebrate Easter now because that’s when my daughter and son-in-law in New Jersey can get away, joining us on Zoom a couple of times over the Christmas  holiday. As we await the birth of the first great-grandchild, I recognize that my role in Christmas will continue to shrink, and I approach that with a mixture of relief and regret. We have been through a steady and gradual shift to emphasizing being together rather than food and gifts and other structured activities. I cook less and buy fewer gifts.  Once I said that I wanted to smallify Christmas, a particular preference of my oldest daughter. My youngest granddaughter, who was about five, asked her mother, “Is smallify a word?” and her mother said” If Grandma says it’s a word, it’s a word.”
  3. Stories are a must.  My youngest daughter compiled a genealogy that has encouraged all of us to claim our heritage, especially the Scots-Irish part. My mother was a good storyteller and I have tried to carry on that tradition. My niece and I and my oldest daughter and her daughter have visited and fallen in love with the Scottish motherland from which that side of the family emigrated to America in the late1700s.
  4. I want them to know how grateful I have been for all of them.  On Mothers’ Day, when I remember, I thank my daughters for teaching me how to be a mother. I see traits, attitudes, hobbies, skills and physical characteristics that remind me that DNA is eternal life.  They all share my politics and most of my values. One granddaughter and I have a cowlick on our foreheads that trace back to my father. Carla’s music can be found all over the family.  We used to joke that had had her mother’s ear and her father’s rhythm, while the opposite combination would have left her no hope for a music career.  Christine’s art comes in part from her great-grandfather Christian who somehow supported a family on ten as an artist. The family stories were passed on by mother but codified by my youngest daughter, who went on to a career as a librarian but also a midlife second career as a photographer, both fed by her love of stories, pictures, and data.
  5. he most important tasks of my duties as matriarch now center around my aging and eventual death.  I live in a retirement community that makes my friends and neighbors very aware of their own and one another’s limitations and challenges. We all want to stay independent as long as we can, and some of us imagine that we can when we really can’t. I have stopped depending on my sons-in-law who have limited ability to meeting my handyman needs and found people who will do it for cash—including, at the moment, my granddaughter and her boyfriend who are my designated personal assistants. I have handled three estates in my lifetime—my mother, my husband, and my best friend who died without a will and no close relatives other than a father in a nearby nursing home. A good matriarch leaves her family with clear instructions and arrangements. Hopefully at some earlier time, recognizing the possibility of becoming a widowed matriarch, she has boned up on finances so she is prepared to take on that kind of responsibility.  Being an economist with an independent career, that was not a challenge for me, but it has been for many women of my generations.

I have chosen a green burial and intend to purchase a plot in the near future.  I have updated my will and compiled all my passwords, accounts, and other financial instructions to hand over to my executor—the art major daughter with a recently added MBA and a good head for money. I am prepared to relinquish my townhouse and my car in favor of an independent living apartment in the not too distant future. In t e meantime. I work hard at maintaining my health and managing my resources, asking for (or paying for) help when I need it. I keep my mind and spirit active and engaged with a circle of friends and communities of shared interest.

Bering a matriarch is and is not about power. It is the commitment to be a responsible adult to the very end, living life to the fullest within the growing constraints imposed by an aging body. It is the power to support, affirm, and love my children and their spouses and children without trying to control their lives.  It’s also about joy. Healthy, retired adults have a great deal of freedom and opportunity to try new ventures, renew and enjoy old friendships and develop new ones, accompany friends on the journey of aging, explore new ideas, and often mentor some of the next generations who share their interests and value their wisdom.  It is joy for me of seeing two generations of woman children grow into responsible, confident, competent, joyful human beings living rich and meaningful lives and dealing with the challenges in thoughtful and responsible ways.

May each of you live long enough to become a Matriarch or Patriarch and to enjoy it to the fullest. As Robert Browning wrote, “grow old along with me, the best is yet to be, the last of life, for which the first was made.”

Mabon: It’s All Downhill from Here

~ purplesage41 ~ Leave a comment

The least known of the eight seasonal Celtic festivals is Mabon, this earth holiday celebrated at the autumnal equinox.  If Lammas (August first) is first Harvest, Mabon is second harvest, at least where the Celts lived in the British Isles and the northern part  the giant peninsula that is Western Europe. Apples. Pumpkins (not in Europe!). Root vegetables. The days grow short, the temperatures fall.

The equinoxes are what mathematicians call inflection points, as compared to Litha (the summer solstice) and Yul, which are peak and trough, mountain and valley. We climb the mountain after Yu, head back toward the valley of delight at midsummer.. Unlike many mountains, the length of days is on an accelerated path at the beginning, slowing down at the inflection point and climb more slowly toward the midsummer peak.  The reverse comes with the decline into winter.

We notice peaks and valleys in the wheel of the year, but often neglect the turning points in our own lives until long after the fact.  Mabon and Ostara (the vernal equinox) remind us to be more attuned to the changes in the seasons that mirror the changes in our lives.

The interval from Litha or Lammas to Mabon is the beginning of aging in the seasons, including the Corn God or the Sun God.  It is a time of anticipation of both death and birth.  The children are grown, perhaps we are retired or planning to retire. It is a good time to take stock of our own aging process, to notice the changes in our bodies, our interests, our daily activities.  We can try to slow the aging process so that these later days of autumn leaves and fires in the fireplace can be enjoyed in different and more leisurely ways. 

My aging friends and I can assure you that travel is fun and inspiring but also is not a full- time occupation. If you haven’t taken care of your health until now, that can too easily become a full- time activity!  But if your health and memory are good, and your income is adequate to your needs, it is a good time to give back to the earth and human communities that have nurtured us. Volunteering, mentoring, teaching, coaching, helping rescue animals, organic gardening, are among the many options. So is part-time work in something completely different. Many of my friends have turned to writing fiction.  Always a nonfiction writer, in retirement I have written nine more books to join the nine I wrote when I was working. Currently I am writing my autobiography,  not in hopes of publication, just for family and friends.

There are two poets with contrasting views of the aging stage of life.  Dylan Thomas        : Do not go gentle into that good night, Rage, Rage against the dying of the light.”  Or Robert Browning, “Grow old along with me, the best is yet to be, the last of life, for which the first was made.  With Browning, I vote for the goodness of aging.  My role model for engage aging is Jimmy Carter, peanut farmer, humanitarian, disease eradicator, Habitat for Humanity worker, Sunday School teacher, and fiction writer until his death at age 100. Who is yours?

Let Me See

~ purplesage41 ~ 3 Comments


I am a member of the silent generation. I think we World War II babies just got lumped into the Silent Generation, because we weren’t so silent. We were in college in the sixties along with the first batch of the Boomers, and we did our share of protesting and demonstrating. As we grew older, the challenges we were addressing didn’t get much response until those challenges started hitting the Boomers. Birth control. Menopause. The glass ceiling. Equal pay for equal work.(Yes, I’m sure the guys had issues, but gender issues were petty hot in those days.I can only speak for my own gender on health issues!),
For the past ten years, as my ability to read the fine print or thread a needle or see well enough to drive at night has diminished, there was no response from the larger society adapting to our needs. But now that the Boomers are having the same challenges (both genders, except maybe the needle part), perhaps we will see some awareness that changes are overdue.
Here is my list of grievances around which I wish to peaceably assemble (during daytime hours) and seek redress as I am promised by the First Amendment. Well, it promises I can complain. It doesn’t say anything about fixing things.

  1. Low contrast signs, pictures, etc. My congregation has a lovely tasteful sign outside. It is painted beige with white lettering. Most people can’t read it, not just old people, but sharper contrast does keep us reading longer. Hey guys, if you are looking for patrons or customers or employees, consider the legibility of your signage.
  2. Shrinking print size on everything from cooking instructions of foods to operating manuals to instructions of taking medicines, both prescription and over the counter. In case you haven’t noticed, those people with deteriorating eyesight are among your biggest customers.
  3. Night driving, night meetings, SUV headlights string at us directly in our smaller, low to the ground vehicles. I know that big hulking SUVs are already not designed with consideration for those who share the remaining space of the road, but car designers and insurance companies might have an interest in headline design that cause episodes of blindness in oncoming drivers. And voluntary organizations might want to consider offering more daytime gatherings, events, etc. for that age group who are often the bulk of their market. Matinees. 5 pm meeting instead of 7ish. It’s not just the night driving, it’s also a tendency among my fellow octogenarians and their trailing septuagenarian Boomers to feel their energy droop at the end of the workday or former workday. I have seen some signs of awareness of time-of-day issues in scheduling events, but it’s only a trickle so far.
    Is this a government issue? Maybe the car safety and the print size on drugs. But shouldn’t the market be responding to consumers? Is there any competition left? Instead of big meals or big Macs or big bargains how about offering customers or members big signs (with contrast) and big print?
    Oh, for the golden days of my youth when I did battle to allow girls to wear Bermuda shorts on campus and protested the war in Vietnam. I know I should be saving the earth and making it safe for democracy, and I do my best, but I could do better if I could drive safely at night and read the fine print.

Inclusive History, Anyone?

~ purplesage41 ~ 1 Comment

Warning to my readers, this is a polemic.

I’m not sure when state legislators around the country and particularly in my home state of South Carolina started thinking they were curriculum experts.  Despite the fact that few of them have any training or experience in teaching kids, they think they know what public school pupils should learn and when and how they should learn it.  So far, they’ve pretty much left math and science alone (except for their superior expertise in matters of public health, like masks and vaccines).  But when it comes to teaching history, they know which version they prefer. The whitewashed, sanitized virtue of America’s greatness, without any reference to uncomfortable truth, like, say, slavery, extinction of native peoples, Vietnam….  

Their argument is not historical but psychological.  Knowing the facts of American history (for instance, that it is  always has been governed primarily by and for old rich white men) might make children feel guilty. Or ashamed of being white, or male, or from a wealthy family.  That’s the construction they put on what academics have been calling critical race theory.  In the war of labels, let’s begin by calling it what it is, inclusive history. Here are some South Carolina people I would like to include. Eliza Pinckney and the development of indigo as a major cash crop by a woman.  The Stono Rebellion (look it up) and the Denmark Vesey plot (look that up too). The Cherokee and the Trail of Tears.  The abolitionist Grimke sisters, daughters of a South Carolina judge and slave owner. The capture of a Southern navy ship by Robert Smalls and his fellow enslaved companions, who safely delivered it to the blockading Union navy in Charleston harbor. Jim Crow laws and underfunding of public education in areas where African Americans were in the majority that limited the ability of  former slaves to become full members of society.  Organized and often violent efforts to prevent these same formerly enslaved workers from leaving Southern states for opportunities in the North. The long battle for women’s right to vote. Maybe telling those well-documented true stories without judgment would help African American, Native American, and female children feel that they are a part of our history.

The Civil War (NOT the War Between the States, because they had all signed on to the Constitution that made the USA a single nation) was fought over slavery.  Of course, it was fought over states’ rights and the Tenth Amendment, but they only right that Southern states were really interested in preserving and protecting in 1861 was the right to own slaves, as their own secession documents make very clear.  (Modern Southern states have added the right to own guns and the right to keep other people from having abortions, but that’s another story.)  Legislators’ right to tell teachers how and what to teach shouldn’t be protected either; I’m pretty sure their heavy-handedness in exercising control and their miserliness in adequately funding education plays a role in the 1,000 teacher shortage that the state is experiencing right now. (That, and low teacher pay and excessive paperwork).

The rationale for this obsession with “critical race theory”  (translation: :inclusive history) is , as I mentioned above, that teaching the actual facts of state and national history may make some students feel guilty or ashamed to be white and/or male.  It shouldn’t, and no self-respecting teacher (who has been trained to understand child psychology!) would allow that to happen.  Perhaps an accurate reading of the facts of history makes legislators feel that way, but that might be a good thing. Children are not personally accountable for what their ancestors did, but they do be aware of the impact of slavery, patriarchy, segregation, and discrimination on formerly enslaved people to the benefit of others.  After Reconstruction, white Southerners turned to what they called Redemption, which was to say, restoring the status quo ante.  True redemption would be working toward a equal society with opportunities and support for every person.

History is messy.  It is written by the winners in most places, except the American South. Facts are facts, but facts have context and interpretation. South Carolina has an elected Superintendent of Education whose job it is to determine what children need to learn and at what grade level.  There is a State Board of Education and an Education Oversight Committee and 79 local school boards who are all trying to look after our children so that they have the skills and knowledge they need to function in adult society as consumers, workers, and citizens.  I trust their judgment about what to teach and at what grade level more than that of 170 people elected and regularly re-elected from largely noncompetitive districts who need to get their priorities straight.  Health care, housing, infrastructure, education funding—those issues affect all of us and our children.

One of my granddaughters started her public school teaching career this month.  For her sake , for the sake of her fellow teachers and the children in their care, please let them teach.  If I have to choose between trusting a teacher and trusting legislators to ensure that our children learn the critical thinking skills needed to function in a democracy, it’s a no-brainer!

Generation Segregation

~ purplesage41 ~ 6 Comments

My husband and I bought a house in 1966.  We remodeled it multiple times, the last time with the help of an architect friend.   It was our intent to stay there for the rest of our lives.  It was an intergenerational neighborhood, walking distance to the guitar teacher and the Plez U (more or less a 7-11), full of babysitters.  In my heart I hoped our occupancy would last at least as long as we both lived, because I was nine years younger and healthier than my dear spouse.  But my husband’s last three years were in a nursing home with kidney failure and growing dementia.  Left to fend for myself in a five bedroom house on three levels on an acre and a quarter of land, I moved to the retirement community that adjoins the nursing home where Carl was staying just across the street. 

The only other time I had lived in a largely single generation community was in college, and that was always understood to be a transitional situation. But for eight years now I have lived in a community where there are no residents under sixty and an average age probably closer to 80.  Which I will be in just a few months. Yes, we are also a transitional generation, but the transitions looming are definitely not of the college graduation variety.

Don’t worry! We retirement community dwellers see younger people. Some of them mow our lawns (I still mow my own, but most don’t)  or wait on our tables or tend our ailments (you do get used to having doctors the ages of your grown children).  Adjacent neighborhoods bring dog walkers and bike riders because our streets are city streets open to all, and it’s a nice  place to walk or ride.  The staff at the retirement center are all much younger, including the charming but demanding drillmaster who teaches our exercise class. I have friends on the outside who are too young to live here. I tutor a 12 year old middle school student in language Arts. I go to church, even if right now it is still on Zoom.  I am involved in a civic organization that keeps me on Zoom as its co-president. But I do spend most of my time with my generational peers, and I’ve discovered that maybe that’s not such a bad thing.

Here we are all in a new and different stage of life.  Most of us are retired.  Our days are flexible.  We have aches and pains.  We suffer losses, losses of sight, hearing, and stamina.  Losses off friends, neighbors, family. We forget things.  We also commiserate, encourage, and support each other in matters small and large.  We learn from each other how to tackle new challenges.  We celebrate grandchildren getting married and great grand-children following not long after (or with this generation, sometimes before). Those of us who can still drive give rides to those who can’t. We laugh at our mistakes and comfort one another when life gets hard. In many ways, it is like living in a dorm (or college apartment?), because both house people of the same generation more or less going through the same life changes.

One of the pleasant things about living with a bunch of old folks is that they have long since ceased (with some exceptions) to be competitive.  It’s just too hard, and it doesn’t seem to matter anyway. Social events are smaller and more casual.  Women who took pride in their cooking now proudly announce that they hardly ever cook any more. Heels are shorter and pantyhose is a thing of the past except for weddings and funerals.

One dividing line in this community is between the still married and the newly single.  In earlier decades, some women might be threatened by single women, but at our age, it’s more a question of how we women have a good social life among us when the married ones (some of them) are joined at the hip with a spouse? Often it is a spouse for whom they are a caregiver, but sometimes married couples are just used to doing things in pairs. As a result, a lot of new friendships form on the basis of marital status.  At the same time, political polarization has led to a lot of friendships being grounded on a shared view of the world.  Fortunately, there are enough of each political and/or religious persuasion in this community of some 250 souls, plus some in the middle, to ensure that there are enough congenial friends to go around.  And for those with whom talk of politics or religion might be a dividing line, we can always retreat to cats, grandchildren, and gardening.

I truly believed I would never be attracted to a retirement community.  Yet another life lesson of the golden years: never say never!.

Winter Holidays

~ purplesage41 ~ Leave a comment

Most of you know I am a big fan of holidays.  This year Hanukkah (eight days starting December 3rd) runs alongside Advent (December 2nd to 24th) and tiptoes through Saint Nicholas Day (December 6th). Solstice is the 21st, so have your Yule log ready.  Then Christmas and Kwanzaa (December 26-January 1) and finally Three Kings’ Day (January 6th), rounding out exactly a month of winter holidays.  I usually forgo Hanukkah and Kwanzaa because I don’t know the routine and stick with my Western European heritage represented by Christmas and solstice.  But all of us in the Northern Hemisphere are celebrating the same thing. light. Hope. Warmth.  Snuggling down into our winter cocoons and letting the seeds of renewal germinate inside us. I just can’t wrap my head around celebrating Christmas in Australian and New Zealand!

Every year I struggle with how best to to celebrate these holidays. For years I was teaching at the university up till maybe ten days before Christmas, and I found it  hard to quiet the mind for Advent, or turn the Christmas spirit off to grade exams and then turn it back on.  Now it is much easier to set the work aside.  I do not shop on Black Friday or Cyber Monday.  Each year I try to spend less money on gifts and more time on experiences–music, theater, movies with the grandchildren, listening to Christmas music. (Deck the Halls is my personal song.)  I refuse to consult wish lists, trying instead to listen to who each person is and get them the right book and the right funny socks or T-shirt that rflects what is special about each of them. I try to observe the solstice in ways that are respectful of Mother Earth by generating less waste (reusable cloth gift bags are this year’s addition), turning down the thermostat, and shopping locally from small stores and artisans.

Certain things are slow to change.  Christmas is still family time. When my dear husband of 53 years died just a few weeks before Christmas in 2015, my three daughters took on the task of supplying the traditional gifts–a book, a nightgown, and a jigsaw puzzle.  The jigsaw puzzle is for after the kitchen is cleaned up from four or five days with the eleven people in my immediate family.  But as I get older, I farm more tasks out.  The home is smaller, and so is the tree.  I have been giving Santas from my large collection to daughters and grandchildren. I know the day will come when we gather at my oldest daughter’s house, but I’m not ready yet.

In Hindu tradition, when one’s hair is white and one has seen one’s grandsons, it is time to let go of household responsibilities and material possessions and seek the life of wisdom and the spirit.  I’m not there yet, but I’m moving in that direction, and the gradual evolution of my Christmas holidays is one of the times that invite me to reflect on this stage of the journey.  That’s the start of my passage.  How is yours?