Compassionate Colleen 3

Good day, compassionate bloggers.

It seems to me, that I am all or nothing. Do I do for You, or do I do for me: my eternal inner quest for balance! Am I being compassionate or selfish in taking care of myself. I run at about 100 mph. Then low and behold some act of God and me not paying attention sits me on my ass. Literally, as I sit with ice on my ankle, as a physiological child of God, my body will do for me what I won't let my mind do. Stop, breathe, rest, find a balance. It's not all and its not nothing. It is you and it is me. So today I offer a prayer to You, for You - that you find your balance. Do for your brother and sister. Take care of yourself, too. I am reminded of one of my favorite cousins. At the end of his short life, he was asked often to go to church. He asked, "tell me, at your church, do you pass a basket?" Well, yes we do, " they said. "So is it like this: if you got a little, you give a little and if you need a little, you take a little?" He never did find that church. Today I sit in that church, blessed and grateful.

In a weekly write, as I am honored to do,  I have a truth to share. At 5am on my way to my latest obsession, Boot Camp, My Heart spoke (as it often does) and my heart's battle cry: Let there be Peace on Earth, Let it Begin with Me. When I lost my Husband 4yrs ago, that is what my Heart screamed. (and breathe.) This a.m. I put Compassion in place of Peace (although they do interchange.) My Peace compels me to be Truthful. My Blog Boss said people want to get to know me. So here goes. February 26th, I celebrated 2 yrs of sobriety and I am in a program of recovery. My sobriety requires me to be compassionate and help others. My Heart said write it. Put it out there. To suffer in silence is to be in Hell. I know. Gods Grace is freedom from these horrible chains. Grace allows us much, like telling the truth at all costs. To be compassionate to You and to Me.

Peace Out. Colleen

The Laying on of Paws

Pets are great models of compassion! Truly, they bring so much love to their humans. They don't make a special effort. It's just who they are. We can learn a lot from them.

I have been fortunate in my life to always have pets. Mostly cats growing up. When I was in Kindergarten, our family cat Jerry had kittens on my bed. From that litter, my parents let me keep one. Her name was Midnight. She passed away at 18 years old during my college years. Midnight literally grew up with me. She was the Holy One who kept watch when any of us were sick. She was always positioned on the afflicted area, doing her job proudly. She blessed our family with kindness: pure and given freely, unconditionally. SO many kitties have come after her - all of them wonderful. "Mids" set the bar high.

On my 40th birthday, a dear friend of mine blessed our family with a golden retriever puppy - 8 weeks old. I had never had a dog of my own. We had a brief stint with a poodle when I was 3 or so; however, we were a forever dedicated "cats only" family. Until that fateful day in 2002, when Benvolio Berry arrived on the scene.

I had long been a pal to the dogs of friends. Aunt Jean would run around the yard, throwing tennis balls, frisbees and sticks. I would lie on their living room floors with their canine companions, playing tug-o-war or scratching bellies. Finally, when friend Karen was on a quest for a puppy to give her mother, she generously thought of me and my two young children, saying, "you guys are meant to be dog people." And so we were. 11 years later, our Ben has been the great teacher of the household, showing how no act of kindness is too small, no moment of compassion goes unnoticed and that love is the key to everything.

At times in our home, as my kids grew up, we had a number of cats, either adopted from the shelter or born of a rescued pet. (Insert laugh track here if you remember our motley menagerie.) Ben loved them all and they loved him. There are too many stories to even remember, but one rings clear for all three of us. One of our cats was an outdoor spirit. We allowed it because we knew, at the time of her adoption, that she had been reared in a barn. One time, Nellie had found a rabbit in our back yard. Usually she was a bird girl. This time, she hopped and ran around the yard, playing with this little creature that couldn't defend against unnecessary roughness.

Big Ben went out in the yard awhile later to play and found the injured rabbit. When the dog didn't come back in when called, I went out to investigate, finding him, stretched out with his paws in front of him, harboring the wounded bunny. When guilty Nellie came near, Ben would (uncharacteristically) growl. Periodically, he would nudge the injured creature with his nose, lick it's head. He would not leave his post. Ben looked profoundly sad. At first, I thought he was staking his claim to the rabbit as food. But learned quickly that my initial judgement was not true. I called the kids outside. They were immediately glued to the unfolding drama. Together, we witnessed the last moments of life: the weeping, the anointing, the praying, all through the gentle care of this big fluffy dog. We were silent (also uncharacteristic.) Even with his somewhat imposing size, his loud bark and gritty growl, Ben was the peacemaker. His respect for this little creature was formative for all of us.

Finally, when the rabbit had breathed his last, Ben allowed me in to prepare for burial. He stood and stepped back, allowing me to lift the bunny in a shovel, moving slowly and deliberately to the grave site the kids had prepared. Ben followed. After the ceremony (yes, we always crafted rituals for such things), he sat by the mound for several minutes before coming back inside. We were forever changed by Ben's compassion. To this day, we speak of it with reverence.

 Of course I know that all loving pet owners have experienced similar miracles. Pets are great teachers. This particular one changed our family. My Mother often speaks of her cats caring for her, most remarkably after her recent surgery. Companion animals have been the subject of stories from the beginning. It's primitive, the nurturing experiences that animals offer, kind of a tutorial for humans, trying to reach back for those primal gifts.

We may have an edge intellectually, us humans; however, we don't always exhibit that unconditional love that is regularly modeled by our pets. That's not to say we don't have the capacity for it. If we can imagine ourselves in a situation, we can understand those going through it for real. Empathy, imagination, kindness, compassionate response - standard features of the human bean (thanks, Roald Dahl) - yes! Young ones exhibit this understanding, before not-so-positive modeling become learned behavior. If compassion is at our core, then positive practice, education and a world that models the universal "right" can shape the human family, like a dog holding vigil for a dying rabbit or a cat lying confidently on a surgical wound. Everything is possible with love!

Liver & Onions

London from Peace on Fifth. Yes, that's right my last name is my business because I married the business nearly 18 months ago. Peace on Fifth is located at 508 East Fifth Street in the Oregon District, Dayton OH. The focus of the store is compassion to planet, animals, people and self. Every thing offered in the store is eco friendly, made without animal testing or destruction of animal habitat, no slave or forced labor and go for you stuff. We active support and participate in actions to end human trafficking and build awareness of human trafficking and exploitation locally and abroad.  Thank you.

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There is a great coursing through my veins of dust.  This red and copper dust has filled my arteries and lies in wait for some lubrication and some liquefying.  This dust still pushes forward with the rap of my heart blowing high pressured air, heat and will to move this dust along. As I meet my block, my writing joints atrophied, I wait until a word conjures up synovial fluid and I am in the word.

Liver. 

This is my word.  This is the image.  This is impression that has been sitting on the stoop waiting for me to say hello.  Liver just sits there and has been for years as a gastronomical fossil and not one that I am the least bit concerned with, or so I think.  But it sits there on the southern porch of my childhood, in the Texas sun, chewing tobacco and watching the sunset.  Whatever it means I have no true desire to investigation because I don’t have an affectionate relationship with liver and as I recall, and I do recall, liver was never quite friendly, in fact liver was one of the more difficult memories for me to stomach.  But liver sits there, on the porch chewin’ tobaccy. 

If liver had a theme song or a movie, I have no idea what it would be.  My theme song would be How let the Dogs out by the Baha Men as I always feel like I am running around my house, my life, my relationships like a wild and crazed dog.  Even as I write this I have no idea where the keys to me house are.  Liver, I think would have a theme movie, The Good, The Bad and The Ugly, the 1966 Spaghetti western outside of the plot or the themes, but the title.  Liver looks, is and tastes good, bad and ugly. The color of liver is dense and wonderful and what I have the most tolerable history with.  Glorious dark rich tones of purple and black that are full and sweeping, reminding me of gorgeous eggplant, exotic toenail polish, and stacks of deep near chocolate colored jewel tones sweaters in department stores.  I think of liver, with its lack of marble, as coming from some spectacular animal, a mythical animal and its gorgeous flesh tastes horrible as a punishment for killing it for food. 

So maybe Liver has something to say.  Maybe I should sit for a visit and see why this piece of meat is calling me maybe. I don’t think that I can truly remember that last time that I had liver.

As a vegetarian off and on for more than 20 years, it is not often that I reflect on food from my childhood, food that was full of Texan grown grass feed beef.  There was steak and home fries for breakfast, hamburgers for lunch and sirloin for dinner.  There were times when having roast beef or other yumminess ladled with onions and cheese, or barbeque sauce coat the recollections of the fare of my youth, and I view these memories fondly, but don’t miss the beef.  Tucked away in those memories is also the memory of liver.  Liver, who by its mere existence seemed a punishment and for dinner, must absolutely be a penance for sins that my mother was determined to torture out of me.  It surprises me now how much I confessed at the dinner table, hoping that a far worse punishment (not eating liver, heehee) would be warranted if only she knew of my crimes. 

My mother used to make liver and crispy onions for dinner at least once a month.  You always knew it was liver time because there was a feverish hunting for the A1 sauce by my father.  The process would start with the pounding of the liver, the flouring of the liver and the panfrying of the liver.  The process would finish with the frying of the onions.  The juxtaposition of the sweet Vidalia fried onions next to the breaded fried liver, gross.  The cover charge for leaving the table was at least three bites.  I scooted the meat around the plate, cutting off finger nail sized pieces that I covered with a tiara of crispy onions before I mustered the eating.  Finally relieved that I had tackled that huge huge huge bite, I would look down with pride only to see that no matter the size I ate, a larger piece of meat would regenerate in its place.  “You can’t leave this table until you eat your liver.” Ugghhh.

Knitted into my memories of eating liver and onions is the time in the kitchen with my mother.  My mother was a professional and while it is also true today that many women are professional my mother cooked dinner every night.  During the cooking of dinner most times, the kitchen was abuzz with salad, dessert, the main meal, but not so on liver night.  Just to make sure there was plenty of room.  Liver night meant liver and onions.  With a simpler meal, this meant that I could talk or more often than not, listen to my mother.  Liver in some regard held that coveted space in my mother’s life called time. I really go to see my mother and know her.  Know her not as a great woman, but as a human as a person who struggled with watching her beloved father getting old and more dependent  even as she demanded that he move in with us.  I got to see her not as a super woman but as a woman who defined herself by being productive as a mother, helpful to others and resourceful in her community. I got to see her making dinner in a candy apple red strapless dress with hair gloriously coiffed as she finished dinner before the babysitter came and then ran out on date night with my dad (yes, that night she made liver). 

While my father taught me fun things like chemical reactions and the value of well-placed fresh garlic my mother was very different in her method of education, teaching and sharing her values and ideas about the world.  She shared things like a supreme need for gratitude for this country in all its glory and freedom and that one of the greatest freedoms is to eat. Knowing that we had the privilege of eating was always something that she encouraged me to understand so I was never allowed to complain about liver and onions. 

As geographical distance and life moves my mother further and further away from my every day, I am more aware that I miss her.  I am thinking more of those little hidden lessons that I hope I have not forgotten to teach and show my own child. I think of my own child now, who has never had liver and onions.  The food of his youth is nice and pretty, so formulated to always taste the same.  He doesn’t have the pleasure of suffering through liver and onions, but he has been able to sit with me in the kitchen as I make veggie burgers, which he hates, and talk.  As I look at him, I feel for him that he and his friends will spend more time learning about the world in the vacuum of youth from their contemporaries and not from those who live it and struggle with it daily.  Does my son even know me?  Not the archetype of a mother, but me as fallible human and daily beggar of grace.  I struggle with the notion that what I am doing to simply easier and better for him, for me.  In the course of eating myself that line, I have also erased the line of communication, tactile communication that I never acknowledged my mother had with me. 

Food in our country has become a reticent and discreet, potentially unintentional way to strip us from our families and from developing culture and compassion for others.  In part because we are so removed from the preparation of what we make.  Kraft and Green Giant are replacing time with convenience and by doing so they are making convenience more valuable than time.  There is great fear that our food won’t be perfect and that we may be forced to eat something “good for us” but, heaven forbid that it not taste good.  We teach and encourage our children to think that all food should taste sweet, good, uniform.  How much have we missed trying to make sure that our kids are so pampered with the food that they eat; have we forgotten to have special conversations in the kitchen with them? Should we go back to making telephones from soup cans to stay connected and IN each other’s space?  When do you get to know, really know your kids?   When did you get to know, really know your parents?

So Liver is still sitting on the porch.  Just sittin’. I want to ask, what this little adventure is about.  I want to ask if my rantings are enough to get off the porch and to give me a piece of his mind.  But nothing.

I am immensely grateful that I have had burnt toast and a black pancake, that I have had some crazy “I found this recipe in a magazine” dish and that I have had liver and onions.  The older I get the more I can see how it has made me tougher and more resilient than I always happen to believe I am.  I wish this and much more for my child and for the children in your life, through blood, address or marriage.  Our desire to give our children gourmet food with no mistakes and to not challenge what they eat may leave us with children that we’re less connected to than the connection that we have to our own parents.  In many ways liver and onions represents to me the legacy that my mother gave me that sometimes you just have to eat something because it is good for you not that you like it.  Some decisions are tough in the world, tougher than eating liver and onions.  

Eternal questions

From Paul Laurence Dunbar:

"With our short sight we affect to take a comprehensive view of eternity."

This quote is actually taken from a novel by PLD, regarded by many to be less successful than his poetry; although within the fiction, the poetry resonates theme for me - humility.

What do we really know about eternity? A big subject, to say the least. (grin) Is it the infinite or the immeasurable? Does it refer to life after life after life? Or the state of immortality? Perhaps all of the above. For me, having faith means I don't have to know the answer. My task is to believe! Why do we think we need to know something with certainty in order to believe it?

Truth be told, spiritual life holds very few certainties; however, it holds an endless amount of possibility. It is our own frame of reference, crafted over many a year, or newly explored for the young, that shapes the faith we hold in our Higher Power. How we're raised, our environment, family practices, a personal potpourri of influences, our brand of education and our years on  earth - all these things and more contribute to the shaping of our faith. And that faith, for most of us: we hold with commitment!

Scripture can tell us as much as we choose to learn. I've always found Scripture to be fascinating, beautiful, holy documentation, given new life by the faithful reader who draws affirming symbol, comforting story, parabolic strength and any number of nuances that bring relevance to current day, augmenting faith for the believers. Did we see these documents written? Do we know the authors? Do we believe God as the author? Certainties? No. But belief changes the rules. We are only in control of our capacity to believe, the development of our burgeoning or waning faith. It is my opinion that God is present in our struggles and pays attention to this "lack" of control we can all gain when we believe. God is God. We are not.

I love the use of the word comprehensive in the quote. It throws me back to exams, culminating projects: comprehensive - everything is fair game. Know the subject inside and out. Perhaps we can know the subject inside, as that is where our God meets us, where we source the Divine. As human beings, mortals alive on this planet, comprehensive must refer to our fortitude as Believers, not our knowledge of all things eternal. That mystery belongs to God for the giving. We must simply give our power to the Power and know, without question, that God has our backs where eternity is concerned.

Short sighted by nature, we humans are. God loves us (my belief speaking) and takes care of the long sight. Our belief makes it so. No need for us to "affect" comprehensive knowledge of anything. Who are we hoping to impress? We are all mortals, believers in our infancy, fragile and full of potential to be like God, empathetic with all others in our predicament. Belief is real. No need for "affect." Our power comes in the belief that God loves us just that much. Regarding eternity? We'll get there.

Compassionate Colleen

I'm writing on the 2nd day of Lent.

Yesterday my husband Glen and I went to see The Dead Sea Scroll Exhibit!  

Life and Faith in Ancient Times

Wow!  I was able to write my prayers , and put them in a simulated Wailing Wall that will go to Israel to be placed in the real wall. I felt so One World. 

Our Prayers, our Commandments, Our Scripture, our God. We have this amazing commonality that we share. We suffer as one. We share Love as one. 

I do believe that in this Lenten Season, 
my prayer is to share in your suffering.  
I do this today with my prayers that will 
go to The Wailing Wall - for You.  

Peace and Love , Colleen








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My Reflection Point:

During Lent in the Christian tradition, many Faithful choose to give up something during the season, in solidarity with Jesus who ultimately gave up His life for us. This thing that one gives up for 40 days is typically something difficult to do without, so to be together with Jesus in suffering. We imitate the Holy. We suffer, too. For those who find this significant, it's a beautiful devotion. A "walking along side" that has powerful spiritual connection.

Colleen's gift of prayer, her acknowledgement of "One World" is a lovely example of giving up something - a meaningful example. She is giving up self-serving and replacing it with the generosity of praying for others. Not just folks she knows, but folks in general. The great We Are - knowing that suffering is a tie that binds us and ultimately frees us. 

This gesture resonates in the human family: one of our own, taking the time to write prayers for her sisters and brothers, sending them through ancient ritual, through spiritual time travel, to the Place that knows no separation!

May we all give up part of ourselves to assume parts of All Others. Holy Community: Hear our Prayer!

Compassionate Colleen

Good morning. I am trying to be compassionate with myself . My tendencies when it comes to just about most things in Life that push back at me, is to give up ! Well I'll just be damned if this IPhone is going to kick my ass, so here I go again. 

If I'm doing no harm, am I doing OK ? What does that really mean to this selfish girl who wants you to think she's all that . If I am who I tell you I am, well I think it's a lie. I've been lying to you. I am sorry. I look at you, and I judge you. I decide who you are, I judge you for the way you look. I do harm.  What this writing has done for me  is to send you some love, maybe a prayer of compassion. And today I tried a little harder to share your burdens. I hope I helped a little, or at least did you no harm. 

Here we are on Fat Tuesday! Honestly, if not for this compassionate seed that is embedding itself in my head and heart, I would not have given a King Cake much thought. To party, eat or drink what you are going to abstain from for the six weeks of Lent - that leads to The Passion Of Christ - In compassion, we share in the suffering .  Some how I think the cake will taste a little different today. 

Happy Fat Tuesday! 

Peace Out. Colleen


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My Reflection Point

This re-occurring contribution from Colleen Penquite will be titled Compassionate Colleen. Her process for sharing thoughts on compassion is so real, so genuine - almost poetry in the moments. Read her every week!

Homo empathicus

A great deal of my professional life has been in the classroom, using drama strategies to teach curricular content and life skills. I am a huge advocate for the whole-child approach to education: nurturing body, mind and spirit - as if there's any other way (grin). The tricky part is tending to each aspect of a child's growth with specific intention, designing curriculum for the whole child, and for each and every child, that will support multiple intelligences and unique learning styles.

Impossible? Of course not. We have plenty of content, arts and athletics, hands-on projects and so much more. Human beings have been refining education practices since the beginning of time. I do sometimes wonder, after a particularly long day, if the obvious has gotten passed us. This is where my research and eventual connection with Jeremy Rifkin's idea about an Empathetic Civilization started to gel with my own sense of wonder.

The Empathic Civilization

Are we, as a human race, empathetic by nature? In fact, does research actually reflect (pun intended) the way we learn our world and engage in it? I believe the answer to that is YES! Empathy is in the hard drive! Any story of our beginnings as a human family involves duplication. I'm far from being a scientist, though I will say: concept of mirror neurons makes total sense to me.

Creative drama and improvisation games include a standard pairs game called "Mirrors." Two players face each other. One is the leader. The other follows each movement the leader makes, as if in mirror image. The side coach requests slow movements by the leaders, allowing the follower to achieve a believable sameness in the study of other. The leadership changes halfway through the game, so both players experience leading and following (important lesson for all humans, don't cha think? ) I've always loved the essential fun of this activity, as do young ones. It's clear. It makes sense. Because deep within us, we gravitate to those aspects of humanness that are like our own, a wiring that sets up our innate ability to empathize.

I would categorize myself as a non-conformist. Only child, creative type, extravert - perhaps even irritated at a young age by other kids needing to be like each other. Although, as I reflect back, I was like my clan: family first, then theatre kids, on and on. But I always craved uniqueness. Truth is, in that way, we ARE all alike. We need to reflect the ways we belong to each other (the human race) and we need to find our "snowflake selves" -  that which makes us unique.

To be educated, one must engage the givens in order to acquire that which is yet to learn. That is to say, what we already know helps us know more. What I wonder about is whether we take time to reflect on our givens - do we teach ourselves about ourselves as effectively as we could? The arts are a huge step forward in any classroom, allowing us to learn through our imaginations, promoting unique expression and coordinated group skills, among a long list of assets. While I believe empathy skills come from arts education - of course, of course - I also know well that arts programs (sadly) are not in every classroom, every day. These are among the first programs to cut when funding is lost. (If I ran the world, all forms of arts education would be primary; everything else would be afforded as budget would allow.)

Empathy training, perhaps, could blur the separation between curricular and extra-curricular. It is social study, science, story, kinesthetic, spatial, visual, expressive and imaginative. It is a given in the most complicated math problem. We all have it, yet there seems to be unnecessary mystery about what it is and how to use it. The critical nature of understanding each other, putting one's self in the circumstances of another: utilizing the imagination, as the arts do, to know self and other better - is as critical to humanity as water and air.

Using an array of art forms and the (required) content of being human (grin), I'm working on an empathy curriculum. Feel free to share your ideas. I'll be posting quite a bit on this subject. Empathy is the essential skill to the act of being compassionate. All times are compassionary times.

Peace,
Jean

At least, do no harm.

Good morning, Compassionate Bloggers.
I am a learning Luddite, so I texted my first contribution this morning.

I went to Webster and looked up Compassion : it is the understanding or empathy for the suffering of others, with a desire to alleviate it. Then I found tons of quotes by lots of famous folks. I had to calm down. There's time for more writing later.

For today, I try to get out of my selfish way to do God"s will. It is His will that requires me to show compassion in serving others, with acts big or small. It's the only way for me to move in any other direction than inward.

Of all the quotes I read this morning, this one stuck with me.
From Hippocrates:

Make a habit of two things: help others or at least do no harm.

Love yourself, too.
Peace.

Colleen Penquite, Waynesville, OH
My passion is Real Love & Light

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My Reflection Point:

You know those people in your life who bring this incredible, coherent energy that just flat out jives with your own? A person so connected to the universe that she brings clarity with a simple phrase and a knowing laugh. Colleen is just such a person in my life. And I'm so grateful!

We met several years ago when I was referred to her salon for the best haircut in town. Not only did I get the best hairdoo, I gained a source of inspiration that has blessed my life immeasurably.

Colleen will be a regular contributor on this blog.

                                         ~Jean

Time

Sierra Leone, Poet
Location: Dayton OH; sierra.leone@sbcglobal.net

Her Passion: "let the beauty of what you love....be what you do" -Rumi  

Time 

Time bending since I set my eyes on my dream

miracles that manipulate the timekeepers watch

a clock could never tell the whole story of a woman

I take deep breaths of reality & move forward willing

here at the corner of occasionally & once in a blue moon

we find ourselves moving swiftly through the darkness.

© Sierra Leone 2012 

My Reflection point:

It is always a pleasure to work with artists! The poem above is one of many I'll share in the next few months from the wonder-filled Sierra Leone. She is a beautiful person. Her particular gift is finding the soul in situations, inspiring others to do the same. She is really fond of the six line format. Me, too. It gives just enough to spur an imagination forward. I got to thinking about time as a compassionate partner - for all of us: the great equalizer.

Time is an interesting partner. No matter how you measure it: sun up, sun down, alignments, wristwatches, grandfather clocks, calendars, smart phones or other human devices - time is what time is: movement. Yes, we can spend time discussing the construct of time, the measurement aspect of time, the rather sterile answers that keep time objective, not personal. Yet as a human being, placed on this earth, in the midst of a creation that continues to cycle, watching our years pass or perhaps our lives growing forward, we are installed in the movement. Time is indeed a partner, because it tracks with us. It aids us in measuring the unmeasurable. It is a guidewire through the mystery.

Among many definitions for the word time, Merriam Webster describes time as a non-spatial continuum. Writers of all sorts often personify time. Scientists and historians shape our collective experiences in awesome chunks of before, now and yet to come.  I feel time as a partner, keeping me honest about all that has unfolded in my life, shaping my ever-so-brief presence on earth. Time is a gift. Nothing has made me more aware of time than the growth of my children, a gift beyond measure. Time can also reveal the hard times, the difficulties, the dark nights of the soul (as Thomas Moore would say.) It's all movement!

"A clock could never tell the whole story of a woman" - such a rich truth. A clock is a human invention. Woman is God's work, which leads me to my reflecting point : time as a partner is Holy allocation. The Mystery is such that it doesn't need an answer. As much as we try to define something, claim we know the answers, the more we're thrown off the scent. We don't need to know more than how we experience it, how it makes us grow and how it brings us closer to our fellow humans and the natural world we share. 

I find it comforting to partner with time, to experience myself as part of the movement. Everyone has a unique understanding of this movement. For me, it's to be in step with God's eternal plan while I measure the days of this earthly life. "...moving swiftly through the darkness" is a beautiful way to track our journey into the Light, where time is inconsequential.

Jean