Forbearance, patience and tolerance are the only conditions which keep two individual hearts united. – Inayat Khan, the Bowl of Saki

My faults come from my virtues. I hope. That’s another paraphrase from the words of my beloved spiritual Father, Hazrat Inayat Khan

Yes, we are moving fast, downsizing for the final Great Move. Friends, it has been the Move from Hell. The motto of this move has been, “If it can go wrong, it will.” I would think Mercury is in Retrograde, but it isn’t, so I’ve come up with another construct that my husband finds comforting: I’ve decided that Allah is putting us through this debacle so that we won’t have to go through purgatory, or hell, or wherever we might have to go when we do make that Final Move. I fully realize it makes no sense, but there is a Hadith that says (and I am paraphrasing wildly here) that God so longs for us to be with Them in paradise that the trials we endure on earth shorten the process. Something like that, my books were packed days ago.

What has been so devastating about this move, you may be foolish enough to ask? Don’t ask. It would take too long to write it down. And it has all been constructed of the tiny, niggling details that slow and subvert things, not the ones that might be expected. Those have largely been okay. Let us just say that if we have a place to offload our furniture on Friday, when we close on our new house, it will be a miracle. As I said, don’t bother to ask.

But about that quote above: the thing that astounds me the most about this spiritual Father of mine is that these words were spoken or written in the early 1900s, and today they are published in a book of aphorisms for each day. The one above is for today, as we wait for our movers to arrive. This astonishes me once again: how is it that his heart was great enough that he taught for his own and my generation (and doubtless, those to come) and arranged it so that these teachings make themselves available when they are needed? I find this to be true again and again, and as I have asked, constantly, what these times are all about, the answer has come when it needed to come. I am grateful. I am vindicated in an odd sort of way. Perhaps we should all have more faith that the spirit of guidance is always within.

And despite our sojourn to the 9th Ring of Hell and back, our marriage is going strong, and we are still alive.

Just tell me when we’re having fun, would you?