Life aint always pretty

So happy holidays to all. Snow here and there, lives full of joy,
sleigh rides each evening under the stars, hot chocolate by the
bonfire, just one big wonderful time of year.

Except real people are hurting, and living and dying, and life is not
always fun and smiles and please pass a bowl of cheery fresh oranges
picked by underpaid workers in Venezuela.

Watching and reading Dave and how his life is being pulled in two
directions at once. Life and joy and growing relationships on one
hand and the helpless feeling of watching a family member suffer and
knowing there is nothing we can do on the other. And it happens to
all of us. Each family that has a new birth is infused with joy as if
no other family on earth has ever been so blessed, so covered with
joy at the newness of life. And at that same moment, down the street,
in your very own town is a family suffering through the agony of the
end of life and feeling that no family on earth has suffered as they
have.

Part of me finds support for the "circle of life" concepts that are
so common in Buddhist philosophy by looking at the cycles of our
lives. Part of me wonders at the power and beauty and raw strength of
youth while another part (the larger part?) cries out for the
confusion and suffering that comes late in life. Just in my office at
PUC, one family has a new baby, another family just watched a mother
die, last week. How does it all balance out?

Watching my own mother move into the more complex stages of Alzheimer
disease is a struggle. Just writing that down is a struggle, it
somehow makes it too real. Too real, the changes in personality and
the loss of depth and soul and history and joy in new things and
confusion and loss of awareness that there are even changes taking
place. Where is the balance in life with a disease that takes our
heart and leaves our body to slowly die over ten years. Where is the
balance in life when who a person is slowly fades away into quiet. It
has been called the "long goodbye" by writers better then I, but
where is the goodbye when there is little awareness of the changes by
the person who is changing.

Hold each other, say "I love you" while there is still time. Be there
for each other, life is not for ever.

so, Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year and to all a good night.

craig