Crossing Over into Canaan
Where is your Canaan? Is it like mine?
Crossing into the Promised Land of Eldering,
Into an Age of Second Growth?
Will you and I have the courage
To make that crossing with Caleb and Joshua?
Or will we pull back from the challenge,
Afraid to claim our place in a new land?
Will we see Canaan as a tragic ending?
Frightened of the future, will we repress our unlived past
To be left without memory or hope?
At my time of crossing,
The 65th year that society has colored in blacks and whites,
Work or retirement.
Production or decline.
Energy or entropy.
Value or worthlessness.
Public position or invisibility.
Is it a sudden leap into a sea of emptiness?
But perhaps Canaan is nothing like that.
Perhaps it is a place where old visions are reclaimed.
Where lost dreams are rediscovered in attic trunks.
Where, like Moses’ scouts, we explore new territories
And come upon past visions and well-remembered longings
Hidden in cedar chests and photo albums
That trigger a secret ache to reappear.
Surely Canaan must be a place for celebration,
Reclaiming memories,
Honoring the past,
Harvesting the wisdom of our years.
Absolving regrets and wrongs,
Forgiving others and ourselves.
I say Canaan is more than honoring past debts.
Canaan is a land of ideas and creation,
A rite of passage to the game of second growth,
Earned by having the courage to make the journey
Without knowing what waits on the far shore.
The prize is bonus years to turn regrets
Into a riotous fall colors,
A ticket to enter sacred territory and stake our claim.
To create meaning from a whirl of change.
To ride the leading edge of human evolution.
To light the torch of dignity and pass it on
To generations watching on the horizon for our sign
That they can move forward in safety.
There is a bonfire in my soul,
A longing to be part of what lies beyond that horizon,
To take my place and answer the shaman’s voice
That calls us to build a new vision from ancient weavings
That couple in the river of energy that holds us all,
Sifting our human elements and mixing them in a grand design
That will ride high on God’s shoulders into Canaan
With horns blaring and drums thundering
To conquer Jericho once again with Joshua and Caleb.
Stunning! XXOO
Once again, Ina, profound thoughts, beautiful language, and beauty