But, for today I’m trying to focus on insight gained from yet another book I have found tremendously enlightening called, Discover Inner Peace; A Guide to Spiritual Well-Being. There’s a section in it titled, Seasons of the Spirit.  Naturally, I searched out the chapter on autumn and found some great food for thought:

The most basic spiritual exercise for autumn is to rid ourselves of such pseudo-poetic melancholy.  True spiritual awareness has no room for regret.  The passage of time is no reason for sorrow.  When the past streams behind us…it must not be allowed to accumulate in some receptacle of regretfulness, along side failed dreams.  If, indeed, we are carrying such a receptacle around, it can only impede our journey.

The pseudo-poetic melancholy referred to is thinking that with the end of summer comes shorter, colder days and the onset of decay…lifelessness.  But for those of us in this second half of life,

It is the season to take stock and to harvest, to gather the fruits of personal spiritual experience and store them away to nourish us during leaner, more difficult times….pressing inner truth from our discoveries.

I like that analogy, especially because I really dislike the winter months (even though I was raised in the winters of Buffalo, New York).  Somehow the mental image of snuggling in on a bitter evening in January to feast on all the truly significant emotionally and spiritually satisfying fruits I’ve harvested does lessen the dread of those inevitable chilly nights!

This is one of those posts that I hope will make an impact on those in the first half of their lives, i.e. my much-loved children.  There’s no reason that this insight should only be of benefit to those of us looking to make sense of a half century or more of memories.  I wish I had been aware and open to this kind of reflection twenty years ago.  It would have made many a long, cold winter a lot more palatable.

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In pursuit of longevity, those of us over the age of 50 need to give ourselves credit for the wisdom of our years and what the sharing of that wisdom can mean to those following behind us, including our children, grandchildren, fellow workers and/or younger friends.  While many of us still have our own daily struggles with health, finances, and obligations too numerous to mention, we have experience(s) that can lessen the struggles of someone else.  I’ve found that I’ve reached a point in my life where I, quite frankly, am pleasantly amazed by my insights and the fact that they have “suddenly” appeared!  So who knows…maybe by sharing some of those insights or life lessons with a member of a younger generation (who may not even be aware he or she is being enlightened), it will be of benefit to that young person somewhere down that “long and winding road” (thank you John and Paul).

THE BRIDGE BUILDER

An old man, going a lone highway,
Came at the evening cold and gray,
To a chasm, vast and deep and wide,
Through which was flowing a sullen tide.
The old man crossed in the twilight dim-
That sullen stream had no fears for him;
But he turned, when he reached the other side,
And built a bridge to span the tide.

“Old man,” said a fellow pilgrim near,
“You are wasting strength in building here.
Your journey will end with the ending day;
You never again must pass this way.
You have crossed the chasm, deep and wide,
Why build you the bridge at the eventide?”

The builder lifted his old gray head.
“Good friend, in the path I have come,” he said,
“There followeth after me today
A youth whose feet must pass this way.
This chasm that has been naught to me
To that fair-haired youth may a pitfall be.
He, too, must cross in the twilight dim;
Good friend, I am building the bridge for him.”

-WILL ALLEN DROMGOOLE

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