Crystal Bed Day 12 - What I Learned From My Mother And William Butler Yeats

Today I had a good talk with Mannie before going on the Crystal Bed. He is good to talk to because he shares his thoughts and guidance with you very openly. He always has something interesting to say, and today I felt peaceful after talking with him.

We were talking about my Mom lingering in hospice care. He said "you can look at it two ways." Either

1. It's bad it's dragging on so long, or
2. It's good because you have the opportunity to spend more time with her.

I definitely agreed with #2, and I actually did not want her to leave us -- I realized I wasn't totally ready myself. However, spending every day and evening with her was taking a toll on me in different ways. (Mentally, emotionally, physically.) I was thankful for the Crystal Bed to recharge my batteries.

Today on the Crystal Bed I was full of thoughts about Mom, about Mannie, about my Facebook friends who had written so many nice comments, and about people at church (The People's Church of Divine Prophecy) who were wonderfully supportive also.

In fact some of Rev. Steve Adkins' comments at church were coming back to me now. He had talked about how we need other people in our lives for our own spiritual development. He calls this "co-development" and it is very important. We won't grow spiritually if we sit at home alone in our own cocoons. Involvement with other people helps us grow.

My Mom had been very involved in politics for over 20 years, and she used to summarize her work in this way: "Politics is people." I could see how involvement with people in politics was her way of co-development.

I didn't feel the same way about politics, but I think you could say that "Spirituality is people." Nothing happens in a vacuum. We're on earth for a reason, which is to live life in relationship with other people.

What kind of people should we be? What lessons could I learn from the way Mom lived her life?

I thought of my favorite poet, William Butler Yeats, who wrote during the dark, cataclysmic years of the early 20th century. These years were filled with world wars and holocausts. He thought that good people needed to do more to prevent bad people from taking over the world.

He wrote in his famous poem "The Second Coming:"

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Are good people today full of passionate intensity or have they lost their conviction?

My mother was full of passionate intensity in trying to make the world a better place, and to make our country stronger by involving more people in the political process.

This is the kind of person I thought I should be, and the kind of person I want to be. This is what my mother's life has taught me. If you have values, beliefs and convictions then you should work hard to make the world a better place in accordance with your beliefs. Mom was full of "passionate intensity" and thought she owed it to her children (and to God and her country) to make the world a better place, and so do I.

I hope I can live up to her standards. I know I will try.