Looking Back, Looking Forward

I have had the opportunity, and have taken the time, to look over my life of late. Much of that journey is now starting to make sense – as a plan and direction are becoming more obvious, showing how the past has particularly prepared me for what is yet to come.

Nursing, the greater bulk of my life, has taught me literally how to touch and to touch life, to care, and to live in the grander lines of stories. Death and dying have become my teachers about birthing, and of being committed to life in the present. Teaching has shown me how to nurture; and that teaching is different from preaching. The military demonstrated structure and order. Religious life and the abbey taught me of silence and of the interiorization of life, and the value of solitude before action … MSF has given cujones to the dynamics of advocacy and witnessing.

My relationships have evidenced my attempts to love; compelled me to deal with my disappointments (as something not always negative); helped me to live with my misjudgments and mistakes; revealed my awkwardness in the never-ending dance of holding and letting go; the importance of forgiveness; and that anger really has little if any place in the aspirations of love and life. …

Though my career is escalating, my turning 57 [this] year makes it only too clear that my life has well passed its halfway mark. But I'm a LOOONG way from taking residency in a rocking chair! There remains much enthusiasm for what is yet to come. The laugh is still there. But the cavalier bravado that marked much of my past will poorly serve this coming evolution – as it has already provided a poor masque [of] what often was actually happening inside. … Life has taught, and continues to teach, me much – especially to get out of my own way! Finding the space for peace in my soul has been buffeted by the need to adjust to an 'ambiguous' future, while attempting to discern what anchors of the past are of value – and what of the past needs to released. New challenges, worlds, skills, and tasks are awaiting me.

Perhaps Saudi Arabia is helping me see the fragility of illusions and images, and the need to be sure that I am honestly about what I say I am about – and open for anyone to see.

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To read our article about Pierre, see: Across Careers and Continents.

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