I’m celebrating my 60th birthday with 60 days of gratitude to people in my life. Today’s gratitude goes to my cousin, Susan.
Today, I want to express my gratitude to the one person in my life who always reminds me of God, in particularly, how I am staying – or not staying – mindful of a reverent path. I haven’t spent much time with her. We have only shared a few conversations in the midst of large family gatherings, and those just within the past 7 years. I have never visited her where she lived, never saw where she worked, never gone on an outing with just the two of us. She has not seen any of my homes or walked with me on a trail. If we have shared any of these moments, I don’t remember them!
Her yearly birthday cards and greetings, often simple handmade ones, have anchored me in the steadfastness of her role. She’s my Godmother, the woman who held me at my Baptism in the Catholic Church and said she would see to my spiritual growth. We have never talked about this, as far as I know, but just thinking about her is a reminder that tending to my spiritual path is a good idea.
My favorite of all of the cards she sent was the one for my First Communion when I was seven years old. It was made of a square of wrapping paper, gold background with two columns of white circles. In the left column, each circle contained a letter of my name R E G I N A. The words in the right column’s circles started with those letters. The only one I can remember today was the one with “I”. It said, “Instant obedience.” I’ll have to search through my secret box of special things in my storage unit and see if that card is still there. Even if it isn’t, the meaning that I’ve taken from that card and the consistent greetings over the years is that in God’s eyes I am special and unique and lovable.
There have been years when I was pretty sure that I was spiritually on my own in the world, when the Catholic Church was the last place I would go for my own connection with God, and still her cards or emails would arrive around my birthday. I would reflect, “So, here is one person who feels the movement of Spirit, especially in Nature and in the Mother Goddess energy, and who acknowledges my life in Spirit. Perhaps I can stay open to that Mystery as well.”
It still feels most sincere and authentic for me to practice a personal Spirituality, particularly while walking in Nature, and I’m still reluctant to talk about that with my Godmother, but my gratitude for her consistent reminders that I am precious in God’s eyes can be openly shared today!
So, to my cousin, Susan, who also goes by her religious name, Sister Pat, Thank You for being my steadfast connection to God, whether you have known it or not!