LOCATION

Dear All of Us, 

So, how do you do locating your car at the airport or the shopping mall?

Pretty critical, right?

We literally aren't going anywhere until we get location figured out.



In all of life it's quite the same and ever more critical.

We aren't going anywhere until we get our location figured out.



The forty eight year old male dressing, talking, recreating, styling his hair 

(as much as he has left), and buying a sporty set of wheels, 

 as if he were a single thirty year old, is a sad example of "dislocation."

He's lost. He isn't going anywhere even with the hip set of wheels.



Conversely, the young couple leaving behind the single life and its ways,

jumping feet first into their new marriage, their new

                             Life Location,

adjusting, working hard, saving up to have a family, are spot on.

They are where they are.



Abraham Lincoln said:

"If we could first know where we are, and whither we are tending,

we could then better judge what to do, and how to do it."

                                Location

In the business world the mantra for success is

                 "Location, Location, Location!"



So it is in the business of living successfully, and certainly so in our spiritual life.

Over the years there is a sequence of Life Locations marked by such as:

   - crib and diapers

   - learning to walk and talk

   - making friends

   - going to school

   - puberty

   - getting a degree or trade

   - years of work

   - relationships

   - most commonly a life partner

   - for some a singleness in life

   - kids and mortgage for most

   - burying parents

   - menopause: male and female

   - middle age spread

     and a bit of dread along with it

   - showing signs of ware

   - getting old and finally

     just plain being old

   - retiring

   - hearing aids, knee braces, physical therapy, pills  -  lots of them!!               

   - getting ready to be the center of attention at the funeral.



Sounds silly, but its critical to successful life 

that we be right where we are actually located.

That's where our spiritual life can be spot on and florish.

Otherwise, it is dislocation and we go nowhere fast.



Life Location is the zone for our spiritual lives. 

Life Location involves touches and tones of experience that vary. 

Examples of what varies with just where we are in life at the moment:

            - self and soul sense  - sex - spiritual openness -  

            - creativity/generativity - negotiating change - growth -

            - prayer/ contemplation/mysticism - failure/pain/suffering -

              rapture and joy - relaxing into Soul Simplicity -

            - a paradoxical diminishment to a new Fullness.

                 - ever so much more always!!


Our spirituality is the center and soul of successfully living 

through all the progressive "locations" of life,

it is the very energy of it.

Who we are unfolds as we embrace and live out life at each next location.

We can't settle down and stay put.

Nor can we jump start later life locations.

Just as there are developmental differences

between learning to walk and playing tennis,

so there are definite developmental differences 

in our spiritual experience and location.

We learn to pray in words early on.

In the last days and location we get lost in wordless embrace, 

we find ourselves in the mystery of Oneness.

There are a host of steps, places, phases, in between - each a unique, textured

                             Life Location.



A lot depends on finding where our car is located

at the airport or the shopping mall.

Everything depends on finding where we are located n life because we

                             "Live Location."



          One day paradoxically it finally becomes a

                               Nowhere

                           that locates us

                        Everywhere/Always.

Always.

      "Location,

                   Location,

                              Location."




                           Holding us all in

                          God's Dear Love,

                             John Frank

                               *****

PS

   For those of us "locating" in old age, please do read:

                              The View

                        The Surprising Joy

                            Of Old Age,

                          by Jeffry Kluger

                         Time magazine,

                     September 11, 2018,

                         pages 19 - 20.

         It is an excellent treatment of this wonderful

                           Life Location

                               *****


It's so good that we all join in, locate together each week here at

                        "frankly speaking".

                  Please invite others to join in.



            For those new to our weekly sharing,

                           WELCOME!!

         Please consider a bit of time and soul with

                    What's Going On Here?

                             and

                   Consider Your Source

                for a sense of/orientation 

                        ( see top right ).

                     "frankly speaking"

                spirituality for the street.     

                    It is posted online 

                 every Thursday evening 

                  east coast USA time

        and is available be email each Saturday

                ( sign up above right ).




            Thanks and see you next week.

******************************************************