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Living Fully - At Any Age Jean, my assigned roommate for the Finger Lakes Conference, arrived late Sunday night having driven from Washington DC with a friend to attend the conference. We were delighted to find out we had something else in common besides our faith - we both were born in Canada. I grew up in Canada and moved to the U.S. when I married while Jean came to the U.S. with her parents when she was a child. She still has ties in her native province of Newfoundland and was even more surprised when she found several conference attendees who were from Newfoundland, and one who turned out to be a distant cousin. Jean was a few years my senior but she inspired me with her wit and intellect, as well as her perseverance in walking up and down the hill and still having energy to actively participate in the Islam Course we had both chosen. I should have borrowed her notes and thoughts to help me recall events from the week. But we shared insights and girl talk each night as we recapped the day, before retiring each night. It was then I learned that she was a widow, and her husband, a physicist, had known Einstein and worked on a nuclear research task force. He was mentioned often by people from the conference who knew him and admired his wit and love. Jean said she had waited to marry later in life, until she found her soul mate, and knowing her I knew him, and could understand how they were truly soul mates, in spite of coming from different races. I will remember my new friend Jean and think of her every time I open my bible to my favorite Psalm 37, where I pressed the four leaf clovers we found on that hill at Hobart and Smith College. You can read the full text of that Psalm online but my interpretation is ‘Fret not...turn it over to God and He will cut those evildoers off at the ankles’ It’s wonderful how delegating to God frees you of anxiety so you can go on to complete your tasks or just enjoy life more. |
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