My world both shrinks and grows.
One day, a glorious god’s-ray
aimed directly at my heart;
then a declining, dying Dodo.
Little brown birds peck on my deck.
A Flicker steals their seed.
Another country bombed by robots.
A man-god waves at cheering crowds.
On Monday night, I went to bed fretting about how very little we old people in retirement communities are able to do about all the problems of this world.
On Tuesday morning, before I fully woke (was I still dreaming?), I began to imagine a man called Tom Friendly, and I was comforted.
A birthday poem.
I was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis (MS) four months after I completed a 150-mile bike ride for the American Lung Association. I was thirty-one years old. Two years later, I had to stop working. Soon, I could no longer identify with anyone I knew. It seemed like everyone was either having babies or working. I was doing neither.
Over the last few years, I have been clarifying a spiritual practice that has been a part of my life for some time, but which I have only recently been able to articulate. My time as clerk of my monthly meeting these last couple of years has helped me to understand it as a necessary part of what I do to keep myself spiritually balanced and present.
Excerpts from the keynote presentation to Pacific Yearly Meeting; June 18, 2016; Walker Creek Ranch, Petaluma, California
by Darcy Stanley and Carl Magruder
My mother, Clare Sinclair, chose to stop eating and drinking at the age of 92. She died nine days later. Her whole life had led up to this courageous step – a life full of optimism, deep feelings, adventure, and stubbornness.
