I have some good news for you! Aging is happening every minute, right here, right now, all of us are getting older, and we have been since our birth. That is good news because it means we are still here with the extraordinary gift of being alive. However, because time seems to speed up as we age, you will be old before you know it. It is part of the cycle of life, and though modern medicine is finding some ways to improve longevity, we are in spite of everything, still aging. Many people start exploring spirituality in their mid-thirties. And by age 50 most of us become aware of how quickly our life is passing by. I have found that rather than resisting the aging process, it is a blessing to embrace it as a spiritual journey. At 50 many people feel like they are “over the hill” and all will be going downhill from there. I know I did. It is true that there are probably less years ahead after 50 than there were before, but life is far from over and there many opportunities to connect more deeply with Life.

My mother was very active and always looked younger than she was She never liked people to know how old she was. When she turned 80, I wanted have a party for her, but she refused. She didn’t want any celebration at all, so we honored her wishes. When she turned 85, my brother and I planned a surprise party for her. Fortunately, we knew that she loved surprises (some people don’t), and we wanted to celebrate her many years of life experience. We invited her family and friends and exactly 85 showed up. We had a wonderful celebration which she loved, and finally everyone knew her age.
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Face it; there are things about all of us that we share in common. They just go with being members of this species. And as we recognize and accept these things and give expression to them we live more fully. And if we don’t own and give expression to these things that define who we really are, then we engage in a very dangerous form of self-denial, the kind that involves a failure to be real, to be authentic and to make possible the best that is associated with being our kind of creation.I believe the most important of these species defining traits is our enormous capacity to love. At our core we have a power equal to all life presents us and through which we unlock the great treasures available to us. And this power is love.

I believe you and I were made, given this mysterious gift we call life by an entity, by an all-powerful being, God, self-described simply as love. And I believe we are akin to this being. In fact, I believe we are patterned after this being and that we possess the same kind of power that this One possesses. This power is love and it is at the core of our identity.
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[Lilly and I recently attended a] memorial service for a friend of mine. I thought it would be mostly about remembering Bill. The service included our singing The Old Rugged Cross and O Holy Night and My Tribute. The reading selections for Bill’s memorial service were read from the books of second Corinthians and John. Almost none of the service was about Bill.Bill’s memorial service was designed to tell us that Jesus is the only way and why. It left me wanting to know something about Bill, who we knew only from dancing. He was a veteran and an artist. He was a man much beloved by his children and step children. He was a really memorable guy.

Lilly asked me if I had any thoughts about the service. I read her this poem I wrote in 1995

HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE

In olden times speech had a different purpose.
Red would be described as
“Red - as the color of the blood shed by our Lord Christ Jesus
when he was on the cross to take away our sins.”
and not just red, but everything was specified that way
which now seems strange, but which helped souls
remember who they were, their purpose and their goal.
This is not the way we speak today and we have lost some
sense of cosmic place and the meaning of our lives,
not that I’d resurrect the old, it does not fit for me.
Today in meditation I focused on the light stream
through my body, seeing light, asking that today
I am aware of being filled with light and being in the light.
I do not talk of red as the color of the blood
of someone dead two thousand years, and still,
there’s something I am trying to recall.

There was recently a Woody Allen interview on NPR. He was asked if his personal philosophy was as dark as his films. I’ve seen several - Love and Death was memorable. Mr. Allen said that he was much taken by a story he heard about two women at an American plan [meals included] Spa. One woman said, “The food is very bad here.” The second said, “Yes, and the portions are so small!” This is kind of his ongoing guidance. The food is bad, and the portions are so small. Life is full of troubles - and short.
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SO SHALL THIS NIGHT END IN JOYOUS DAYOne of the toughest questions in all of the world has to be, how can life contain so much pain, suffering and challenge and still be a gift from a loving God? It’s a hard one. It’s very difficult to understand why pain and suffering are so much a part of life.

As remarkable and wonderful as life can be, there is no escaping the fact that tragedy and heartache are very much a part of it. Human suffering and misery is all around us. Everyday the news is full of stories of tragedies and challenges. We are often confronted with disturbing images of suffering and strife. Here lately, with the earthquakes in Haiti and Chile, we are powerfully reminded of the unavoidable certainty of tragedy.

And sadly, although our thoughts have focused lately on these quakes and the unimaginable challenges facing those affected, Haiti and Chile aren’t the only places where people are confronting overwhelming difficulty.

The images from these quakes have been very disturbing. The attention the news media has given to this catastrophe has reminded us of the horrors so many of us face.

The images show the face of unspeakable tragedy, real human suffering. Think of it, lying in pain on the street with broken limbs, no one to help, no one to give you medication or water or food or move you or help you with toileting; lying in pain, infection setting in, crying out and no one to bring relief; dying a long painful death.
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I’d like to start with a quote by Voltaire:

.”God is a comedian playing to an audience too afraid to laugh.”

I remember a time when I used to be too afraid to laugh. I wasn’t sure of anything - not myself, and definitely not who or what God was. I still don’t have a well defined explanation of “God”. I just know that things are thrown in people’s path, either by a God, the Universe, or Life in general, and we must deal with them. There are a multitude of ways we can handle these challenges. For me, I have learned that my best tool with which to deal with challenges is humor. Whatever struggles dealt to me by “God”, the Universe, or Life in general, well, along with those struggles, I was also dealt this sense of humor, along with my questions about my spirituality. Humor came first and has been the gateway to my spirituality. Without humor, I would not have been able to get to the place I am today. Without humor, I would not have discovered my spirit.
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Official Definition of “Therapeutic Humor” according to The Association for Applied and Therapeutic Humor (AATH)
Any intervention that promotes health and wellness by stimulating a playful discovery, expression or appreciation of the absurdity or incongruity of life’s situations.
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This intervention may enhance health or be used as a complementary treatment of illness to facilitate healing or coping, whether physical, emotional, cognitive, social or spiritual.
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What is “Spirituality”
Spirituality is a way of life that is not religious, but honors the soul and the belief that there is more to life than physical things.
. . . . having to do with deep, sometimes religious, feelings and beliefs, including a person’s sense of peace, purpose, connection to others and beliefs about the meaning of life.
To me, my sense of humor [has helped me develop my spirituality by allowing me to] connect with others on this Journey through life.
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