It is always interesting to me how things show up on your path just when you need them. Yesterday was a rather scattered day for me. I was feeling a little out of sorts and kept trying to get my head around a day that seemed to be driving itself. Ever have one of those experiences? By the day’s end I had let go of it, mostly, and just chalked it up to the rainy, weird weather that has graced us in January. I decided to allow sleep to bring an ending to the unrest I felt.

And then this morning I awoke to a poem delivered to my email box that startled me. It came from a regularly sent source that I receive every day. But today’s words were particularly appropriate. They were written by Adrienne Rich a poet, feminist and essayist who died this past year. She wrote:

Dear Adrienne:

In sisterhood,
Adrienne

Wow! Her words seemed a challenge to me. Perhaps it is because I find myself in many conversations these days with people who are asking this question ‘what do I intend to do with the rest of my life?’ Many of those I walk this path with are at places in their living where this question rides on their forehead like an invisible tattoo. The young ones. Those in their middle years. The elders. I hear us all asking essentially the same question. And this question seems to be made more pressing with the gray skies that hang above our heads. In this particular January of 2013.

Rich’s words will travel with me as I walk into the dreariness of the day. I offer them also to you. I would like to believe that her words arriving in my box, on this day, were a gift. Perhaps they will lead me, or you, to craft an answer to this ultimate question. My prayer is that the Holy will move in the cracks and crevices of the mulling and the planning and bless whatever ideas will come. Perhaps someplace in the low hanging clouds rests the answer for each of us.