Happy Birthday!

“Are you reelin’ in the years, Stowin’ away the time.  Are you gatherin’ up the tears, Have you had enough of mine?”  

The loud sounds of Steely Dan blasted through my heart from an outdoor venue as I exited the Lamb’s Player Theatre on Coronado Island completely focused on celebrating my sixtieth birthday with style. 

“Your everlasting summer, You can see it fading fast, So you grab a piece of something, that you think is gonna last, But you wouldn’t know a diamond if you held it in your hand, The things you think are precious, I can’t understand.”  

Coronado Sunset

I felt the warmth of my long dead brother Peter’s embrace in the spirit sending good wishes and love my way and remembered all the times we jammed and celebrated to Steely Dan keeping the beat while singing and dancing to our favorite which coincidently was serenading upon my current celebration.  

“Yes Peter, I am reelin’ in the years….!”   I feel flooded by thoughts and emotions, heavy from a mixture of memories.  I resist the mark of my age represented by this birthday. 

“Age is only a number” may be true but my birthday designates a place in space and time that represents my life now.  Sixty.  So much yet so little time.   Birth, childhood, elementary education;  Teenage years and high school; Young adulthood, college, career, and marriage;  Parenthood;  Middle age; and all the in-between.  I resist the mark of my age represented by this birthday.  I resist. I resist. I resist. I want to be a “spring chicken”  as my Albanian grandfather would say in his thick accent…forever.

First Year

Holy Communion

Neighborhood Parade

A teenager at last

Highschool Graduation

Marriage & Parenthood

Peter and Lauralyn

Sixty.  For fun, I explored the meaning of the number 60.  Home, family, neighborhood goodwill, idealism, harmony, wholeness, inclusiveness, and infinite potential make up the unique essence of the number 60.  Wow!  My heart and soul embrace and love all these ideas and live in the reality of each one.

Belonging to a loving,  friendly, helpful cooperative family both in my home and out in my community has always appealed to me and is my now.  Harmony exists increasingly letting the glory of love and light shine in and through making me complete for you.  These are my diamonds that I hold in my hand.  This is what is truly precious to me. 

Today I am sixty.  Today I am full of life and actively present to behold the diamonds in my open hand.  These jewels and gifts I hold are not like those that the world gives full of sparkle but lifeless.  The diamonds I hold are glorious giving off eternal shine and love. Each year they grow stronger and brighter becoming more lifegiving, faith feeding and fruit producing.  The more I release them, the more they return to me leaving behind a trail and legacy of  shining light and love. 

She Is Sixty!

Secretly I smile, with a new, inner knowing and understanding that sixty is a season of intentionally sowing and reaping.  It is time for Harvesting. 

Overflow with Light and Love

I speak aloud to sixty decreeing into my day:  “Sixty…I release you.  I blow upon you as if you are a dandelion past flowering and I release all the good seeds from my heart and soul and scatter them all upon past, present and into future.  I declare “Be planted on the good soil of clean new hearts, be watered, grow, and bloom.”

Rather than “reelin in the years and gatherin the tears”, I am casting my line far out upon the waters and reaching for the fresh catch of hope that I am certain is beyond glistening in the sunlight just like a diamond, and truly something precious to me.  I quietly read the first verse in Isaiah 60 and let it sing into the joy in my heart “Arise, Lauralyn!  Let your light shine for all the nations to see!  For the glory of the Lord is shining upon you.” 

The memory of the day I found a real diamond shining out from my carpet in sunshine rushes to my attention and I hum the song I played on the guitar and sang right before finding this treasure:  “Lord you are more precious than diamonds…”  and I feel the warmth of sunshine as I sparkle into sixty.  

Live in Hope!