For my friend, Jodie, whose question helped me dig a little deeper.  And in loving memory of my friend, Paul.

She Let Go

by Rev. Safire Rose~Agape Int’l Spiritual Center

She let go. 

Without a thought or a word, she let go.

She let go of fear.  She let go of judgments.  She let go of the confluence of opinions swarming around her head.

She let go of the committee of indecision within her. She let go of all the ‘right’ reasons.

Wholly and completely, without hesitation or worry, she just let go.

She didn’t ask anyone for advice. She didn’t read a book on how to let go.

She didn’t search the scriptures.

She just let go.

She let go of all the memories that held her back.  She let go of all of the anxiety that kept her from moving forward.

She let go of the planning and all of the calculations about how to do it just right.  She didn’t promise to let go.  She didn’t journal about it.

She didn’t write the projected date in her Day-Timer.  She made no public announcement and put no ad in the paper.  She didn’t check the weather report or read her daily horopscope.

She just let go.

She didn’t analyze whether she should let go.   She didn’t call her friends to discuss the matter.  She didn’t utter one word.

She just let go.

No one was around when it happened.  There was no applause or congratulations.  No one thanked her or praised her.  No one noticed a thing.

Like a leaf falling from a tree, she just let go.

There was no effort.  There was no struggle.  It wasn’t good.  It wasn’t bad. 

It was what it was, and it is just that.

In the space of letting go, she let it all be.  A small smile came over her face.  A light breeze blew through her.

And the sun and the moon shone forevermore.

Yesterday was my birthday.  The outpouring of love was overwhelming and something I don’t take for granted.  Connection is really what my life’s work is about.  It’s the fuel that drives me.  I am grateful beyond words for the connections I’ve made in the last 43 years.

One connection that I have that I rarely celebrate is with one of my sisters.  We are adopted but biologically share the same father.  We were born 25 days apart in adjacent counties.  She was born to a married white woman who had several other children.  Me, to a 15 year old Mexican immigrant.  Dad clearly didn’t discriminate. 

No wonder I was a diversity professional.

Anyway, growing up, we were like “twins.”  But in our teenage years we took different paths and our lives couldn’t be any more different if we’d been born on different planets.

Friday, April 5, my 43 year old sister had a heart attack.

She is still in ICU, fighting for her life.  The prospect of losing her doesn’t make me sad.  I have said all I needed to say, long ago.  But for her, I want to share a funny story, that I hope energetically, will bring her some laughter and peace.

One day when I was about 3 or 4, , I asked my sister to come out to the garage with me and look in Daddy’s refrigerator.  He kept worms in there, so I was always afraid they’d jump out at me or something. She wasn’t afraid of worms, so having back-up was cool.

We found some ”grape juice” in there and sat down with these itty bitty glasses to drink some.  We didn’t want Daddy to know we’d been in there and we really just wanted a sip.

I don’t remember much after that until Mom came out.  She was ticked.  I was laughing my ass off and my sister was crying.  Mom demanded to know what we were doing, ’cause apparently, she’d been calling us for awhile. 

My sister, still crying, say’s, “Lisa made me have ‘munnion.”  

Yep, we had our own communion, but what we thought was grape juice was actually homemade wine!

We were stupid drunk, but all Mom could do was clean us up and put us to bed until we slept it off.    

As you can imagine, communion was never the same.

Every time we told that story, my sister would just laugh and laugh.  I hope she’s laughing now.

Leah, no matter what you decide, whether you choose to stay or join up with Mom and Dad, I love you.  And ‘munnion will be waiting for you, either way.

I encourage you to take a minute today and share a laugh with someone you love.  And say a prayer for my sister.  Thanks.

Love, Lisa

Eight years ago this morning, one of my best friends, my mother, moved on to another dimension.  I was present at her bedside, watching the heart monitor countdown to zero, like a new year’s eve event.  When the clock struck “12″, if you will, there was a celebration, just not in that hospital room.  “Mom” had returned to the non-physical world and her spirit friends were throwing one hell of a party.

In honor of my mother, Vera Miles, I return to my blog with a love letter.

Lou,

I know that time has no meaning where you are.  But for us, eight difficult years have passed.   I must admit that it doesn’t seem that long most times.  Your sickness was so much a part of my life that the events of your last 6 months remain quite vivid.

I find it funny that even from the other side, you have no patience for my tears.  “Tears don’t bring back the dead and they don’t move me,” rings loud and clear in my ears every time I’ve wanted to (as T would say), “boo-hoo bubble-snot cry.”  How the hell do you have less patience as a spirit??  Silly woman.

But that was one of your many gifts.  You taught me from an early age that one day I’d have to get along without you.  I never wanted to face the probability that I might outlive you or Daddy.  But you always found a way to make me laugh while thinking about your death.   Even at your bedside and during the funeral preparations, you were pointing out things that were funny to you, trying to get me to look beyond my own pain and see that even in death, there is something beautiful and even funny to behold.

Thank you, Mom, for helping me remember to laugh at myself.  For pushing me out of the nest and believing that I would remember I could fly.  Thank you for the memories of snowball fights and driving lessons.  For always asking if I wanted to lick the bowl of cake mix and for never asking why the frozen peaches and cherries had mysterious holes in them.  Most of all Mom, thanks for picking me to be your daughter.  I was and stiill am humbled and ever so grateful to be Vera’s youngest.

G’night.

Love, Sue

Like many around the world, I am saddened, but not shocked, by the assassination of Benazir Bhutto.  Since her return to Pakistan this fall, I kept asking myself, “is this really worth your life?”

Last night, I saw part of an interview she did with NBC’s Ann Curry, where Ann posed the same question.  I guess on some level I wasn’t surprised by her answer.  She appeared to have a very strong love for her country and a desire to create a system that worked for all.  Her commitment to her people, her belief in something better was to her, worth dying for.

I began to wonder do I believe in anything so strongly?  Am I committed to anything or anyone that I’d be willing to give up my life?

Of course, I would sacrifice my life for my daughter and husband.  I guess most of us have a “someone” we would die for.   But would we die for a stranger, a belief or cause?  Would we choose death so that others we don’t even know could have a better life?

Would I choose death so that I could have a better life?

Over the past several years, much of the life I once had has fallen away.  I know longer enjoy the level of material wealth I once had.  As my business floundered and the bills mounted, my self-confidence sunk to an all-time low.  (And that was saying something.) Friends that I thought were close have long since disappeared.  In fact, my life today bears little resemblance to what it looked like some 5 years ago, when I ventured off to NYC and is even unrecognizable to the life I was living when I finally mustered the courage to leave my corporate job just 2 short years ago.

In a sense, I have died.  The Lisa that once was has been dying a long, slow and sometimes very painful death.  But dead, she is.

I was aware that the choice to be on my own was, for me, a choice between life and death.  I was rotting away in my corporate job.  From my 1st day, I knew I didn’t belong there.  Almost 15 years later, even as my soul cried out for peace and my body ached from a never-ending list of sicknesses , I still pressed on.  Until one day, the voice screamed so loudly that I couldn’t ignore it.  “NO MORE.  Today IS the day.”  And on August 8, 2005, I updated the resignation letter that had been sitting on my hard drive for 2 years, and chose death. 

 So that I could live. 

I didn’t realize then that death meant giving up old beliefs.  Relationships.  Material possessions.  In order for me to LIVE, I had to be willing to give up what had really been killing me all along.  The beliefs that I deserved to be treated poorly, that I was stupid, fat, ugly, a “sinner”, blah blah blah.   Not one of those beliefs would serve me when I left what I called “hell.”

But hell was waiting outside as well.

When you decide to let go of the old and embrace something new, the ”old” gets pissed off.  It’s comfortable and has enjoyed it’s fat, dumb and happy existence in your life for a long time.

The old and new can’t co-exist well in the same space.  The old gets jealous ’cause it’s threatened.  And it starts one hell of fight to stay in the space it has claimed.  Just like the riots and the outrage in Pakistan since Mrs. Bhutto’s assassination, ”all hell broke loose” in my life as well.

Death often brings out the worst, so that the best can emerge.

Mrs. Bhutto gave her life for a better Pakistan.  We may not see that for years to come, but it will emerge.  People who never knew that they could stand up and be heard will do so, because silence isn’t an option for them anymore.  Just like it wasn’t for her.

As I emerge from my own hell, I see death differently.  I no longer see the resulting chaos as something to avoid and be afraid of.  Yes, it’s dark at times.  The pain and fear can be overwhelming–almost crippling.  But if you can hang on, believing in something greater for your life, you’ll make it.  And the new life that’s waiting is better than anything you could possibly imagine.  Silence is no longer an option for me, either.  And I’ve never felt more alive.

There is an old saying “that we must be willing to let go of the person we are, so that we can become the person we are meant to be.”

Are you willing to die, so that you can live? 

You won’t be alone.  I promise.   There is much love for you here.

If I see one more article about holiday stress I think I may scream!!!!!!!!!

Yep, I’m caught in the trap of automatically reacting to something.

Sound familar?

Like everything, the “holiday season” is but an illusion.  Did you have any say into this idea that from Halloween until New Year’s that you were supposed to run around like a chicken with your head cut off trying to buy the ”right” gifts, food, decorations..and so on and so on???

Did anyone ask your input into whether Dec 25 was a better day for you than say, August 2?  

And how about the turkey and the pig?  Did anyone ask their opinion about being served up in excess come the end of the year? 

Well, no one asked me.  So for me and my family, we do what we choose.

My father died on what’s known in this country as “black Friday.”  On the day that millions of people are trampling each other to spend money they don’t have on stuff that no one really NEEDS, I was saying good-bye to my Daddy.  I was 24 and got my first lesson in perspective and choice.

Had I waited until Christmas to buy something for my dad or show up at the house ’cause we “had” to,  I’d have been S.O.L.  Christmas didn’t come for Daddy that year. 

Why do we wait until some arbitrary day on the calendar to show appreciation?  Because the retailers tell us to?

I don’t celebrate Valentine’s Day–my husband and I tell each other every day how much we love and appreciate the other.

I don’t get wrapped up in birthdays or anniversaries–the next one isn’t always promised, so we celebrate our family in little ways.  Dinners out at someone’s favorite restaurant, gifts “just because”, vacations and short get-a-ways, because life’s simply too short.

Showing love and appreciation doesn’t require good credit or lots of cash.  Nor do you prove your love by the amount of stress and strain that you put forth in creating the “perfect” meal or holiday party or buying your kid something because “everyone else has it.”

The only person asking you to do, do, do, is YOU.  If you didn’t lift a finger or spend a dime, it wouldn’t make you any less the magnificent creation that you are. 

If what you are doing doesn’t create peace–STOP.  Otherwise, please keep your complaining about how stressful this time of year is to yourself.

Your stress is self-inflicted. 

Choose peace.