Susan, Full of Grace

Once in a great while I’ve been blessed with the opportunity to witness grace as it is happening. Yesterday was one of those happenings.

The meanings grace I like best are “being at ease with ones presence in the Universe” and, theologically, “the state of being protected or sanctified by the favor of God.” One senses it as much as sees it visually, it becomes a “knowing” from the heart.

My sister Suz is full of grace and performing the spiritual tasks as she readies to depart this plane and move on to a higher one. She is surrounded by a most amazing family, one that has accepted me as Uncle Lan. Suz became my first sister (Sally, too, of course) when Sherry and I were wed so I am hoored to sit and witness without feeling like an outsider.

Hopefully we all get the chance to decide how we want to exit this life on the way to the next Great Adventure. I have now seen how graceful it can be. We all didn’t have much notice, but the energy is positive. The scene I see is tha from Defending Your Life, the shuttles getting ready to enter the tunnels and the characters dressed in white robes. I don’t believe in the Judgement City concept (that we all make it is the really Good News), but I can just see Suz getting ready in her heart to board one of those shuttles.

This is all a beautiful and stark contrast to what’s happened elsewhere in my family this year. We left the docorations in boxes this year, again. As my message from the Universe this morning said, love has moved so close to our hearts that we must look within to see it.

Stuff

We go from a day of counting our blessings (what we have) on Thanksgiving Day to an artificial day of frenetically acquiring more the day after. Those who would give even more hype to the commercialization of the holiday season have given shoppers the term Black Friday, when the meaning of the day after Thanksgiving has never really been a “breakeven point” for annual sales. What’s more important to retail is the number of days between that Friday and Christmas, which can vary between 26 and 32. This year there are 26, six less than 2007, a significant drop. The media just keeps spinning it.

The death of the KMart employee this year is the metaphor for the season. We go from stuffing to more stuff, and woe be to anyone who stands in the way of drastic price reductions. I don’t think this represents most of us this year, but it does fill the constant demand for news stories, and puts events here in perspective with the deaths in Mumbai.