Spirit Matters

 

November 2025

When Karen R. Smith invited me to submit a monthly column, I was surprised and delighted. I appreciated the challenge to stretch my spiritual writerly wings to see what might emerge. So here goes, and I welcome your feedback!

 

 

Kiss the Joy as It Flies

This is the season of lengthening night, for some a loss of sun and light, for others a gain of rest and retreat. I feel blessed by every season and autumn is no different. The summer harvest is complete, pumpkins and candles glow, and I turn inward.

Which includes grief as holidays approach. At our Thanksgiving table, I feel the ghosts of dear ones who have passed: my father and mother, my artist brother-in-law, my stepson’s beloved grandmother, my Marine veteran brother-in-law. I even long for holidays past, shared with our little children, though they are now thriving wonderful adults. It’s as if in the growing dark, there is more space for remembering, which can include missing.

The way I’m made includes big feelings and losses cut deep. However, my father Bert taught me a profound lesson when he was 89. That was the year my mother Marty died and, due to balance issues from spinal stenosis, he had to move from their family home in a longtime loving social neighborhood, to a senior community. All the while in deep sorrow for the end of his 66-year marriage with my feisty creative mother.

But because he loved my sister and me, he stepped up gamely and chose Northgate Plaza, where at the age of 91 he met 90-year-old Penny and fell hopelessly in love. They had seven sweet years together before she passed, and – yes – he grieved whole-heartedly again. But when my mother died he had decided to live by this quote from William Blake, to kiss the joy as it flies. To live the rest of his life fully, bring as much good cheer to others as he could, and enjoy the years left for him. My father was capable of great love and thus great grief, but he chose to keep going forward rather than shutting down. This reminds me of a poem:

 

Love Came First

You don’t move on after loss but you must move with.

You must shake hands with grief, welcome her in, for she

lives with you now. Pull her a chair at the table and offer

her comfort. She is not the monster you first thought her

to be. She is love. And she will walk with you now, stay

with you now, peacefully. If you let her. And on the days

when your anger is high, remember why she came,

remember who she represents. Remember. Grief came to

you my friend because love came first. Love came first.

– Donna Ashworth

 

So, in the spirit of my father and Love Came First, I honor grief but also celebrate this moment unfurling. While dear ones are no longer physically present (though I swear my mother keeps elbowing in when I’m trying to make gravy!), our Thanksgiving table now welcomes new extended family as my stepson and his fiancée prepare for their wedding next summer and her family joins us, bringing fresh laughter and life, as mashed potatoes and pie are passed hand to hand.

In the quiet dark, I pray for the grace of gratitude for all the great loves I’ve known, and for the ability to celebrate the profound gifts offered everyday: my husband, healthy children, a safe warm home, nourishing food, friends, spiritual community, books, music, health, the beauty of cedars and owls, kind neighbors, good work to do, and surprising opportunities that rise up and call me forward. To kiss the joy as it flies…may your deep autumn be peaceful, healing, and abundant with wonder.

– Marcia Rutan

Prayer chaplain, poet, elder, Earth pilgrim

 

Music suggestion: In the Name of Love (Carole King)

 

 

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