Volume 20, No. 3-Fall, 1996
Table of Contents
On Pilgrimage
by Jean Sweeney
Solitude
by Rose Mary Dougherty
Ask Hildegaard
by Hildegaard
Shalem: An Invitation
by Patricia Clark
The Vision and the Path
by Gerald May
Music as a Doorway to Prayer
by Ann Kulp
Discernment as the Fruit of Prayer
by Gary Straub
Weathered Body, Shaping Spirit
by Tilden Edwards
On Pilgrimage
by Jean Sweeney
Tonight I drive home from work. The moon is full, and Jupiter holds a steady presence in the evening sky. I grin in delight and thankfulness at the remembrance of my wood-shuttered, open window in Avila. That was the last time I saw the moon and Jupiter together. It was the end of our stay in Spain, and the full moon had flooded my bed. There was such white light, such luminosity, that I thought surely I'd get a moon tan. I could not sleep. I had risen to respond to the Lover's gift and commune with the silhouetted storks on the roof of the old cathedral. I received God's loving of me and felt as if I held this transparent, lunar light within. I was made in the likeness of Light. A sweet and tender fullness filled me.
This present-time moon view now brings me back to the here-and-now and to the request to write this article on the impact of the pilgrimage to Spain on my life. In many ways the previous four years of losses positioned me for pilgrimage. I had been hollowed out, painfully stripped bare of the securities of: the comfort and context of a long-term marriage, a parent, an inheritance, and the beloved colleagues and energizing team dimension of my work. I remember feeling like a stark, winter tree with no promise of spring in sight. Yet there was sometimes this sense that a Greater Hand did the readying. And eventually enough glimpses and experiences of spring came for me to choose life.
When I read of the pilgrimage in the company of John of the Cross and Teresa of Avila, I felt the desire to re-dedicate my life, my ministry to God. Perhaps I was empty enough to allow God's way in all things. Really. Again.
More than a month before the trip, a letter from Shalem suggested beginning the pilgrimage with attention to the inner pilgrimage by way of journaling. I did. I asked John and Teresa to be my spiritual directors during this time. Each day I read a bit, meditating on Teresa or John's words and letting them lead me to prayer. One day Teresa said, "Consider Jesus," and I did. Both Teresa and John sent me back to the scriptures and the companionship of Jesus. The word of God in the scriptures always takes on new dimensions when I am in transitions, bringing me to radical truths about myself and my relationship to others and to God. I wondered if perhaps that is what this pilgrimage would be--a new clarity for my life.
Just as I was feeling smug in my meditations with John of the Cross on his words about the soul being attached to nothing "which would introduce noise into the deep silence," events happened simultaneously in my personal and professional life. One stirred a strong pain of betrayal and some rage, which took me completely by surprise, and both left me with a sense of having no place of belonging, no home. On that note I left for pilgrimage--noise stirring the deep silence! So much for my readiness...
During our Segovia retreat time, I sat long hours overlooking the monastery gardens, the row of cypress, and the 12th-century castle fortress. John saw this view also as he gazed from his cave of prayer. Was he only "in Love" there or did he go for healing? I faced attachments, saw the truth of what I clung to, and dared to draw a bit nearer to Nada. If I'm not going to desire to be nothing, it seems I might be brought to it anyway! Segovia was a place of letting go, a place of approaching the "house being now all stilled" and the passion of John.
Solitude
by Rose Mary Dougherty
These past few months I've been noticing in myself a strong and steady attraction to solitude, and I've been wondering what it means for me. But I am puzzled and perhaps a bit wary, because I've not had a particularly good "track record" with solitude, even when I felt what I thought was an authentic invitation to solitude. Often the invitation was quickly followed by a strong aversion. Sometimes there was a fear of being swallowed up in solitude, of just disappearing and never returning to life--something like the Israelites wandering in the desert for years and years and years. Sometimes, when I thought of solitude as a place of purification, I was afraid that I might be so changed that my friends wouldn't recognize me or want me when I returned. Sometimes I was afraid that if I took solitude seriously I wouldn't be able to care for people in the ways I wanted to or thought I should.
With all these built-in aversions, I often chose solitude at best reluctantly. The few times I did manage to choose it with enthusiasm, it was usually because I had conjured up some image of myself as another anchoress like Julian. I even imagined how God and I might be intimately bound together in solitude. I seemed to set myself up for disappointment. This only heightened my aversion for solitude. Why then, given my past history of aversion and avoidance, should I have this strong, steady attraction to solitude now? Why am I willing to let it be there? Why don't I push it away? I suspect the attraction to solitude got fixed in my heart before my mind had a chance to take over. Now my mind is coming to understand that it has nothing to fear. It can be gently with its puzzlement, its wariness.
"I live by myself," I say. "Isn't this enough solitude?" But is being by oneself necessarily solitude? Is being with people a lack of solitude? What's at the heart of solitude? Webster's defines solitude as "the quality or state of being alone or remote from others." The solitude of which I speak, to which I am attracted, is, I think, "the quality of being alone." It has something to do with living in the place of my heart where I am alone with God. For me it has to do with living in a place of authenticity.
Physical separation from others does not necessarily create solitude. There are times when I have been by myself but not alone in the sense of being truly in myself with God. Even with no excuse, I've managed to stay outside myself, in the company of many people and projects. There have been times, also, when I have never felt more in myself with God than in the intimacy of a friend. Perhaps Merton speaks to this when he says that spiritual community exists to protect the solitude of its members.
If the quality of solitude is what is really important, then why physical solitude at all? From all I've learned from the spiritual classics, it seems that I need times of physical solitude to support an ongoing quality of solitude. Perhaps these times are just my heart's way of claiming its desire for God. Perhaps they are meant to be more. Perhaps the times of physical solitude, when I enter them intentionally yet without agenda, can be the times of divesting me of images of myself in relation to others and to work, maybe even to God; times of coming home to myself.
Yet I'm never quite sure when the attraction to physical solitude is an indication that it's really called for. Sometimes I try to notice when the attraction seems strongest and steadiest in me. When the steadiness is there, regardless of circumstances or even interior fervor, I tend to trust it more. When it shows itself most consistently in the midst of misunderstanding or vulnerability with others or when I feel what I perceive as responsibility toward others weighing heavily upon me, I get a little suspicious. What I sense as a call to solitude might just be the cue to lighten up a bit, to have some fun.
Sometimes I wonder about the length of time to stay in physical solitude. When is enough enough? When is it too much? One of the desert fathers is quoted as saying that the desert vomits out those whom God has not called into it. Perhaps we could add, "and those who have overstayed their time." But I doubt that I'll need to worry about that. In the past, one of the things that has moved me out of physical solitude is my inner discomfort. As soon as I have felt a restlessness, when I've no longer been able to pray as I think I should, or when I have felt the pain of seeming God-desertion, I've either tended to bolt or become so judgmental of what's going on that I might as well have bolted. Occasionally I've been graced to stay, to let things be as they are, to move from a place of control into surrender.
Sometimes in physical solitude I've felt the pain of others very keenly and taken it as a sign that I should leave the place of solitude to be with them, to do something for them. I had this experience during the summer retreat and went there carrying several people's pain with me. Early on in our sitting, their pain became almost unbearable, so psychologically I left a place of prayer, of solitude, to try to figure out what I should do for them. Then I heard the words (not really "heard," I guess, but I got the sense from God), "Everyone's OK. I've taken care of them." I didn't need to second-guess the words; they brought me home to myself. It wasn't that I cared any less for the people. I just cared for them differently or from a different place. Perhaps physical solitude is what is needed to detach us from the image of ourselves as indispensable. Perhaps it is a daring act of trust in the caring love of God for others. Perhaps a quality of solitude frees us to be part of God's caring love for others.
My mind continues to question; it's just what it needs to do. My responsible self needs to be sure it has covered all the bases. But I don't take the mind too seriously anymore. There is something more reliable at work. I call it "grace." I call it "Love." As I've prayed to know the meaning of my attraction to solitude now, I am drawn back to a Scripture passage I read long ago: "I will woo her. I will go with her into the wilderness and comfort her; there I will restore her vineyards, and there she will answer as in her youth" (Hosea 2:14-17). My heart rests in that promise. I trust.
Ask Hildegaard
by Hildegaard
Though Hildegaard received a number of deeply spiritual questions, unfortunately she can answer only a few of them here.
---------
Dear Hildegaard,
Why do you spell your name with two "a's"? Not that I'm envious.
Love, Juulian
Dear Juulian,
To keep me aware of the Great Almighty Being at all times, I suppose--just
as I'm sure you understand the unlimited, unconditional love of God. It
helps to have a daily reminder, I feel, though actually it was my mother
who gave me this name and is responsible for spelling it this way.
---------
Dear Hildegaard,
According to Sanwijch of Munster, silence is an anagram of license.
What is the significance of this?
~Anxious
Dear Anxious,
If there is a hidden meaning in this anagram (which I seriously doubt--despite
the fact that it came from the mouth of St. Munster), it may be that God
the Great Mysterious One has given us a license to silence. This, I believe,
is pure gift. No need to speak when there's nothing to say; no cause to
find the perfect words. We are given permission to simply be.
---------
Dear Hildegaard,
You sure missed the boat, telling me to stand on my head in front of
a mirror. I've become one with the question but started to develop an unsightly
aura around my knees. What do you suggest now?
~Simply Asking
Dear Simply,
What you describe could always be a nervous disorder, but let's assume
it's something mystical instead. I'm curious as to when you first noticed
it and how often you're actually doing this prayer. But nonetheless, perhaps
I neglected to say that this is a prayer best done in private? So whatever
occurs is between only God and you. God, I'm sure, is used to unsightly
auras--radiance, luminosity, that type of thing. The question is, can you
become one with that, too?
Love, Hildegaard
Shalem: An Invitation
by Patricia Clark
Each month in our Communications and Outreach work group meeting, we sit with a candle in silence and pray for God to direct us about ways to communicate about and offer outreach for Shalem. In one of these meetings last spring, the name of a very good friend of mine came to me. I have known her for over twenty years but never thought of her as part of my network of spiritual friends. I sat with her name for a minute and then felt moved to share with my colleagues about her. Rolling out of me came this new consciousness of the great value she is to me spiritually, and what a tremendous gift Shalem is, and that I could play a part in bringing these two together.
Out of that time, I invited her to join me at a quiet day. Feeling a little self-conscious about sharing the intimacy of my spirituality with a friend from the so-called secular world, I prepped her thoroughly about the silence, that some people would be sitting on the floor, that she would have a lot of time to herself. She came and the day was for her--as every day is--in God's hands. I think she felt a little gift from the intentional silence of the day. She said that giving herself time and quiet felt good.
Since then, much has happened between us in what I call the quality-of-life department. She and I "happened" to have the good fortune to talk for two hours each week over the summer while we carpooled to a class together. We talked about things so uniquely human and deeply profound--ways to take care of ourselves, how God may be leading us in the little things that happen with our adult children, men and spirituality, food and finding time to cook, things that are happening to our bodies and our aging selves.
She has become one of the people with whom I talk about the meaning and integration of all that is happening in my life. She is acknowledging the unique, precious life she has as full of beauty and love. She has made some very good choices, I think, about herself and has affirmed her process of learning and knowing. We've found time to share books, recipes, and good stories when we had no time for much else.
All of this seems very much like what good friends do and yet it seems especially blessed, even baptized a little by that beginning invitation and nudge from prayer in my work group meeting.
I had a birthday several weeks ago and her card affirmed in such a warm way my--as she called it--"interference" in her life.
I am very grateful for the space that Shalem gave me to recover this true human resource--a good friend. But even more so, this experience makes me think of the subtle and fragile web God weaves around us to serve each other with friendship, love and compassion. And giving myself a gift of a few minutes of silent, intentional prayer lifted up for me one whom God sees as ready for another step of deepening and awareness.
I offer this story as an invitation to you, while sitting in church, in traffic, or in your quiet waiting times, to ask who comes to you. Who would God have you invite to become more intimately connected with the Spirit now? And with this name, what seems right for the next step? How are you called to invite, for God, another person into the unfolding of human love as God knows it?
Shalem quiet days or other programs, copies of Shalem News, as well as other spiritual resources can be welcome invitations. I encourage you to risk asking and responding to the question. The rewards can be very sweet.
The Vision and the Path
by Gerald May
If I write another book, I think it will be about letting God guide. That was the theme for both the Wilderness Retreat and the Summer Retreat this year, and it appears to have become the theme of my life. My most consistent prayer now is, "Dear God, keep me from doing anything as if I were on my own. Please don't let me forget that you are always with me."
Yet I do forget. Although I have no doubt that divine presence is always available and holy Wisdom is forever ready to guide my actions, I keep forgetting. Several times each day I still catch myself beginning to strategize and cope as if I were all alone. I suppose it's a control thing. My heart yearns to live so intimately with God that I become part of the Spirit's flow in every moment, but my ego clings to its old safe habits of fending for itself, trying to chart its own course even though it has no idea where it's going. To tell the truth, however, I no longer care much about the psychological reasons for resistance to being guided by God. I've spent a lifetime understanding psychological reasons, and here I am, still resisting. So I turn to prayer instead. "Don't let me forget..."
It is such a simple thing. God is present everywhere, involved in everything, longing for our intimacy, promising to lead us on the path of life. The promise is stated again and again in scripture, and my life experience has shown me repeatedly that the promise is trustworthy. All I need do is feel my desire for God's intimacy and guidance, ask for it, and relax. I honestly believe it is that simple. So it should be easy, right? Nope.
I find it fascinating how the ego complicates things. Here's a recent example. In my last few Shalem News articles, I spoke of several spiritual experiences I had when I was very ill. One seemed like a voice saying, "What we're here for is fun." In the summer issue, I described some of my reflections upon that statement, and how it led me to a fresh vision of creation. I really believe that we are here for fun.
What I did not mention is how I tried to turn that vision into action. Since we're here for fun, I decided I wasn't going to do anything that wasn't fun. This lasted about a week. For some reason, I ran into considerable difficulty with friends, family and co-workers who were left having to do the things I didn't consider fun.
It wasn't the first time I'd taken an inspired vision and run off on my own with it. In a long tradition of other misguided missionaries and crusaders, I have often glimpsed a vision of a better world or neighborhood or office or home and, as if having received my marching orders, set out to accomplish it on my own. As I realized this, it seemed God was speaking to me again. "I show you these things so you may enjoy my endless possibility and be assured that you are part of something very good. I want you to share my vision with me, not run away from me by seeking to implement it."
As the Quaker John Churchman wrote in his journal over 200 years ago, "I began to see that there was a difference between seeing what was to be done, and being bid to do it." More importantly, I realized I was using the inspirations of God as an excuse to go off on my own, defeating the very desire for intimacy that opened me to those inspirations in the first place.
But simplicity returns. It is worthless to know a goal if you have no idea of the path towards it, and if you do know the path, knowing the goal is just icing on the cake. In other words, it is the path that matters, and the way one places one's footsteps along it. If I am simply desirous of God's guidance in every step, every action, every word and breath in every moment, I really don't need a vision. I already have all I need.
That's how my prayer came to take its present form, "keep me from doing anything as if I were on my own." For the most part, I am now gracefully spared too many visions of what might be, so I have less reason to run off on autonomous projects. Most of the time I walk in grateful ignorance of what might be ahead. I carry memories of what is past, attend to the surprises around me, and keep discovering that yes, it is fun.
And I keep praying to be reminded. I need that prayer because letting God guide, no matter how simple, is still not easy. Not only does my ego keep wanting to forget, but I also find myself ill at ease with the culture I've grown accustomed to. It is a goal-oriented culture, one in which everything is expected to have a reason. Sometimes it is painful not to have reasons to justify what I do. When someone asks me why I said a thing or took an action, or what are my intentions for a given enterprise or my plans for the future, how can I respond? Even if I have a vision, I cannot draw reasons for my actions from it. And even if I feel an action is inspired, I cannot use the inspiration to justify it.
I am certainly responsible for my actions, but it is a responsibility strangely freed from reasons and justifications. I feel as though reasons and justifications are part of a language I once knew but now have forgotten. Now all I really want is for God to lead my next step. So when people ask me goal-oriented questions I babble a little. Occasionally they even nod as if they understand, and I can barely resist the urge to ask them to explain it to me. I also find myself giggling a lot, more than ever before. I suppose it's a substitute for words. I would say it is a very fine substitute.
Music as a Doorway to Prayer
by Ann Kulp
Music has called us to prayer through the ages: the shofar, psalm, pipes, harp, trumpet, the peal of bells, the carillon, and symphony. Some of us have been stilled and called through Tibetan bowls, whose sound lingers and leads us into the silence of waiting. There is the music of the gurgling brook, wind in the rustling trees, the chirping of cicadas and other natural sounds. There is the music of Native American flute, a jazz band, a Gregorian chant. It matters not what kind. Each is an echo of some sound heard eons ago, and perhaps remembered. At different times in our lives we may hear sounds that become moments of such recollection, drawing us more deeply into the attitude called prayer.
As I ponder the meaning of music for me, I have a sense of being touched deeply, as though certain melodies come from elsewhere, as though they resonate with a part of me with which I have little knowledge. The melodies seem to possess a power to unlock a part of my emotions through a rhythm or sequence of tones that sounds simply sublime. I feel in tune with a different kind of reality, different from my everyday routine. I may experience solace, release, a "lift" or sheer exhilaration. Music becomes a pathway from my head to my heart. My attention is diverted from ordinary distractions to a language that has direct access to my spirit. Music engages me, stills me, inspires me, and sometimes connects me to the Source of all sound and silence. It becomes a holy moment. It opens me to prayer, sheer attentiveness. My heart is open. Music has become the doorway.
Is there a special kind of music that possesses this power? Perhaps, but I rather think it is an individual matter of preference, timing and environment. What might leave me cold at a concert may move me deeply in a quiet place, or vice versa. One can't predict when that special doorway will present itself. But it does. I like to think that just as the composer was moved to pen the notes, so the listener can be moved to respond to them. If in the divine economy nothing is wasted, then someone will undoubtedly transmit the inspiration of sound to another who is waiting to hear it.
Music, as a form of creative expression, seems to be a doorway for the composer as well as the listener. Both experience its power to touch places not normally available to the conscious mind. Beethoven wrote his Sixth Symphony (the "Pastoral") after the onset of deafness, when he found greatest solace in nature. Paul Winter was inspired to write "Return to Gaia" (from Earth Mass) after reading a letter from astronaut Rusty Schweickart who spoke convincingly of his deep longing within for Earth/Home. Mahler's Third Symphony reveals the composer's spiritual struggle as he presents a cosmological ascent culminating in a triumph both contemplative and explosive, proclaiming, "Love God alone all your life."
As Westerners, we tend to choose activities that engage the conscious mind. But with music we can be opened to appreciate the raw material of creativity and opened to something deeper in ourselves. Receptivity to the Eternal Sound, as expressed in music, can lead us into the Eternal Silence, to God, with opened hearts.
Ann, a new member of Shalem's program staff, is currently leading a group on Music as a Doorway to Prayer.
Discernment as the Fruit of Prayer
by Gary Straub
One of our denominational executives requested that I plan and lead a personal, overnight retreat for him and several of his prayer partners, with the clear understanding that our time was to be devoted to God and to undergirding the executive's intense and exhausting ministry. He felt the need for prayer support, encouragement, and especially discernment.
I started out feeling very flattered and honored to design and direct this unusual event, and soon I planned a nifty little mini-retreat, replete with Shalem-type exercises, all focused on the premise that we had to have "stuff" to do. I spent some time most every day for about two months planning and praying. Subtly my own ego became very attached to my nifty plan. Then, thirty days before the retreat, it became clear this leadership role was a big ego trip for me and needed to be surrendered.
As I began to recognize the signs that the ego was in charge and I offered up our time to God, I seemed to feel less prepared. In fact, two weeks before the event, I felt I had nothing to offer--no "neat stuff" to do. Then, out of my despair, came the thought: "Just show up, and I'll do the rest. Rest in Me while I work in you." I sensed a restraint in my spirit against more machinations around planning details and obsessing about the gathering. A quiet sense of peace pervaded my awareness. I knew I needed to just "be still and know that God is God."
So I rested. My prayers changed from, "Lord, help me!" to "Lord, you know." I got in touch with my usual entry pattern at retreats: work up to the last minute, get there in a rush and crash, then take two days to recover. Leadership would require that I get well-rested before I arrived so I could be as fully present as possible for God and others during the entire 24-hour period. Curiously, I was able to rest when I saw it not as a personal luxury but as a responsibility to God and others--a matter of stewardship--even more vital than the obsessive planning.
When I arrived, rested, alert and as present to God and others as possible, my plans shifted. The basic contours and major blocks of content still seemed appropriate to the occasion (in terms of subject), but I moved out of my head and settled into my heart with the material. Our time together simply flowed. My initial discernment about the spiritual needs of the executive and his prayer partners was confirmed, as well as the approach to each person, but clearly only after surrendering to whatever God might have in mind for our time together. I discovered experientially what I later reviewed from my notes of Rose Mary's talk in class, namely that discernment is "a process of aligning ourselves with God's desire and being fully alive to who we are and who God is in the immediate moment."
I would also have to say that touching into who I am before God and living that as authentically and courageously as possible kept me sensitive to the Presence and Power we all experienced amidst this time. Not forcing this encounter but resting and trusting God to be present in the ways God chooses, even if these are not revealed until the midst of the moment, is an awesome and scary space to live in! For myself, I had (for those hours together) a strong sense of my own inner "melt-down"--being on the verge of tears and simply weeping--even as I counseled with the executive privately a good bit of the time. Now I understand this as a unitive experience--not a sign of weakness, the non-macho thing, but a sign of integration of the head and heart, a sign of mystical cleansing which opened me to the heart of God. And it also seems to confirm what Rose Mary called "discernment as the fruit of prayer, flowing out of who we are."
Gary is part of Shalem's Spiritual Guidance Program, class of winter '96. This article is taken from one of his program papers.
Weathered Body, Shaping Spirit
by Tilden Edwards
weathered pilings
shaped by wind and wave
new beauty revealed
Amidst the open expanse of sand on a Florida beach, I spied a strange shape in the distance. As I walked nearer, it turned out to be an aging pier reduced to its weathered pilings. Something about it was very inviting. I decided to lay my blanket down nearby and let it keep me company for a while.
Waves and winds had worn away the pier's floor. No longer could it keep feet dry and boats tethered. But it was not useless now. After all, it had drawn me to it, in a way that a functioning pier would not have. And it drew seagulls as well, who rested contentedly on its pilings like children sitting on grandparents' laps. No longer was the pier conformed to the exacting utilitarian purposes that others had demanded of it. It had taken on its own unique form, and a kind of mysterious beauty was revealed in the gnarled, weathered stumps. The pier could just be itself now, shaped only by sea and wind, free from what others once had made of it, free therefore from the constrictions of its functional given name, "pier." This was its new value: just being what it was, a reality far more than a functional pier, a kind of open wonder inviting others to come near, appreciate its being, and perhaps secretly learn from it about their own nature.
In a culture that prizes controlled functionality and surface beauty, it is good to have weathered piers around to draw us deeper. It's also good to have weathered people around--people who have embraced the grace of aging along with its pains and limitations (maybe even tasting these as part of the grace at times). Such people can draw us toward the heart of life. They can show us how to simply be with what is, with trust and appreciation and a gentle acceptance of our limitations. Yet they inspire our courage, too, when they discerningly call injustices and falsehoods around them for what they are. Even as they may continue to actively engage life, a sense of the intrinsic worth of sheer beingness can shine through their wornness and, like the pier, reveal a mysterious beauty.
Their slowed steps can have the effect of slowing down our minds and inviting us to taste the fullness of the present moment. When graced by the freedom to give themselves more easily to spontaneous loving and truth-telling, so much the more precious they become to us who are more captured by ego-securing images of ourselves and are not yet so free.
"Even though our outer nature suffers wear and tear, our inner nature is being renewed day by day" (2 Cor. 4:16). That is St. Paul's witness to the continuing promise of aging. Our souls are given room to soar in special ways that they did not when we were at a younger, more pressure-filled age. Jesus' call to the spiritually truth-seeking old Pharisee Nicodemus (John 3:5) "to be born of water and Spirit" we can read as the call to awaken to our own true being as eternally valued offspring of God rather than ephemerally valued functionaries of human society. In this awakening we find ourselves more able to approach what is and what comes to us with a more trusting lightness. There is nothing ultimately left to fear.
My hope for myself and all of us as we grow older is that we will be graced to find such trust penetrating the sometimes scary, painful side of aging. Then we will join those spiritual elders whose trusting way of being witnesses to the One who values us infinitely and who ever flows through our changes. One of those elders, St. Augustine, came to name this divine flowing through our years as Beauty in his poignant exclamation, "Late have I loved Thee, oh Beauty so ancient and so new." Like the seasoned pier, we can willingly let ourselves be shaped by the divine water and wind that are ever offering themselves as architects of our lives. As we yield to these purging and shaping forces in our aging, we will come to radiate the larger mysterious Beauty ever yearning to be manifest in each of us.