Some Thoughts on Endings

"When something sacred's sensed in soil or sky, mark the time,"  wrote Max Coots, sage of Canton, New York.  Beginnings, endings, anniversaries of beginnings or endings, that's when it happens, a certain feeling that something important is present, something that asks us to pause, breathe, and mark the time somehow.  Mostly, we don't do it.  But how wrong could it be to have some ceremony, small or large, as the pathways of our lives branch off from where they had been going?

It could be wrong if it is all by rote, without authenticity, a hollow gesture that does not touch the juiciness of the sacred.

But it could be right, too. We do it with beginnings. weddings, births, coming of age ceremonies. We do it with well-anticipated institutional endings -- graduations come to mind at this season -- though sometimes that's where we find the hollow, rote gestures.  Me, with my memories of playing in the high school band, I have only to hear "Pomp and Circumstance," to be deeply moved by the ending of educational chapters in other people's lives.  But then, when I sat in the sun with a large group of newly minted Ph.D.'s I found myself sitting next to a young woman chewing grape-scented gum and clearly unimpressed with the ceremony, just going through the motions one more time..I remember the gum, but I don't remember the speeches.  I remember being "hooded," and the congratulations of my family. How much on that day was meaningful, how much hollow rote routine?  Retirements face the same hazard --  a predictable gift, standardized speeches, toasts hauled out from old files of festive things to say, but no juiciness.  Marking the time in a sacred manner, that's the challenge. We do it at the end of life-- though sometimes people back away from the truth-- part rote, part juicy... how much of each?

There are exits that go unmarked.  Divorce. Children leaving home.  Leaving a job. Leaving one home for another.Quitting school without finishing  A miscarriage, stillbirth, or abortion. An estrangement in the family. I suspect that for all of these, something sacred's sensed in soil or sky, but we don't know what to do or whom to invite..

Today was a day when I helped a family mark one of those difficult exits.  Shame and sadness filled them as they remembered what had happened.  Mostly, they were no longer angry, but years had passed.  And it had kept the family from being close for a long time.  Maybe marking this time was helpful, even now.  I hope so.

I'm sitting with the thought that we are maybe not paying the right attention to the exits that need our attention, letting the juiciness of the opportunity slip away with the ending unmarked.  I am resolving to let exits in my life be marked with all the wonderful mixture of emotions they have in them, and to encourage others to do likewise. Will you join me?