peace – a meditation

peace at sunset

 

 

 

 

If you are depressed, you are living in the past. If you are anxious, you are living in the future. If you are at peace, you are living in the present.

– Lao Tzu

 

 

 

I am struggling right now with living in the future. The health of someone I love very much is declining rapidly and visibly. I see this person only a few times a year, and the difference between the last visit, in the fall, and this visit is startling and frightening. I can only envision this path continuing downhill to death, and I am frightened and angry at that prospect. Sharing my fear at a meeting has helped to lessen the anxiety, but it is still there. I know that death is inevitable, and I pray for acceptance of that fact. Perhaps more importantly, I must pray that I am ready when it does come. Only through acceptance and the help of my Higher Power can I return to living in the present. Only then will I again be at peace.

A meditation for December 27, 2012.


Warren Zevon singing Bob Dylan's Knocking on Heaven's Door. He was dying of cancer when he recorded the album, The Wind, on which it appears.

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