Friday is my birthday. I will be 63. That doesn’t seem remotely possible. 50 years ago, I was in 8th grade, and there are ways in which that seems like yesterday; the wonderful lessons I learned from teachers Kay Nietzsche and Sara Jane Moore, the ways my mind and heart opened to new ways of thinking - new possibilities.
I remember walking home one day with friends Karraine Ann and Karen and we were having such a deep discussion about communism and fascism (which we were studying in Mrs. Nietzsche’s class) that we could not end it. When we got to the point where our paths were to diverge, we sat down on a stranger’s lawn and continued our conversation at least another hour.
That girl, with her passion and her clear sense of right and wrong still lives inside me. Fifty years later, her sensibilities guide me. Perhaps on this 50th anniversary that is coming up, I need to resurrect her life force. I need to re-awaken to the deep Truths I knew unequivocally then.
That is the girl who, a year or so later, realized the Truth being spoken in the first few verses of the book of John. I want - no - I claim that curiosity, that energy, that passionate focus again in my life.
I had not given my birthday much focus as I moved through preparation for the Asilomar Conference I attend each year. This morning, I realize that this birthday is the 50th anniversary of my becoming a teenager. My!
I can never underestimate the power of young people, because I still have such clear energy and memory around what it was to be one. I am ready to spend the next 30-40 years exploring what it is to be fully and completely alive.
It has been said that, as much as we profess to be afraid of dying, in truth, we appear to be afraid of living - of fully committing to the life that is ours right now. I choose to enter into this birthday and this week with the passion of a zealot. Life is awaiting my commitment. I shall not leave it wanting!
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