Whale Song

I've got at least ten starts somewhere in here. It was a long night, a lot of physical problems seemed to remain front and center until midnight.  That is a consequence of growing old.  The aching bones and muscles, the allergies, the digestive tract, the blood...the older we get, the smarter we get and I think we kind of suffer little deaths each day...always conscious that our bodies are changing, slowly or sometimes quickly, wearing out. But that reality doesn't haven't to be the primary reality. 

I learned early on, that if you don't like your reality, then change it. If you can't change it physically, then change it spiritually, emotionally, mentally.  It's kind of boils down to attitude.  Evil things can happen. Beautiful things can happen. All events depend on attitude, which cannot be taken away from you. 

And opinion always seems to matter. Likes and dislikes. Loves and hates. Betters and worse---es. Good and bad. Same and different. Do you listen to your own voice, or are you waiting for someone else to tell you what to think?  Your own survival may depend on your choice. 

Whale song:   I heard a news article on NPR about a whale that was singing his song in a register that the other whales could not hear. His song was beautiful, but out of the range of the other whales in the ocean. So the whale was essentially alone. I seem to recall that the news article mentioned that the whale may be depressed.

We all have been given a song to sing by God.  The song belongs to no one else.  And we are called to sing it to God. 

If others can hear it, that is nice, but not necessary.  We can choose to sing the song we were given...or we can try to sing someone else's song.  I suggest that if we sing a song that doesn't belong to us, we will remain forever sad...unless we can convince ourselves that someone else's song is really ours.  But we will remain in existential loneliness if we sing the songs of others when God has given us our own beautiful song. 

Sometimes our song is singing sitting from the limbs of a tree, which sings with us...or with a friend who understands us completely...or we sing as if no one is listening...or we sing in a range where others of our kind really can't hear the song. But still, when we sing our own song, the one given to us by God...it is beautiful and I think God smiles.

I watch people die. I watch people grieve. I watch people search desperately to find their song...and now and then, I sing with them.  It's been a hard week, but I'd like to think a productive week.  I have witnessed to many things, important events in people's lives.  I even got to do another baptism in the last eight days. I've also watched a baby and an old man die. I've been with people, trying to remind them to breathe again.  I have said things that I suppose were sometimes good and sometimes not...but I gave it all my best. I sang my song.

Then last night, my body sang a song to me. It said I might need to do things differently, if it is not too late...but it ached and would not stop hurting. I wondered if God wanted me to feel a little bit more deeply, what I walk into when I walk into a room to be with someone. (I was just going to get graphic about what I have seen, and thought better of it). 

I marvel at how some people are able to face their song and others continue to sing something else. 

Then I began to realize that those songs, too, are part of the journey.

Somewhere in a prayer:

Lord, I accept all because I know it comes from You.  It is your gift to me and I receive it with gratitude.  I want to do what You ask of me, in the way that You ask, for as long as You ask, because You ask it.  Help me to accept all that You have given me with gratitude, knowing that I would not be here at all had You not willed it.  I will love and be loved.  I will be with and without. I will rejoice and I will weep.  I will hold and I will let go.  I will stay and I will leave. I will weep and I will laugh.

All because of You, I will remain grateful.

I will sing the song You have given me, whether the world can hear it or not. 

Love, Cindy