When I was 18, I happened (And this is how Tao works in our life–not that Tao has a purpose for us. It is that this is how life with Tao works. This is just the way it is when we walk the way of Tao, which is also the way of God. God and Tao are one. And our place is to live at one with God and Tao. But back to my story.

When I was 18, I was at home and happened to walk through the living room with the black and white television set on and a made for TV detective movie was playing with a scene of a swimming pool and a pool side table with a 35mm single lens reflex camera on the table. And just like that, I fell in love with that camera. It took me a while to figure it out, but from that moment cameras have been a part of my life.

The other thing that happened when I was 18 is that I bought a Remington office typewriter that I used through College and through the first few years in the ministry ( I am a retired Presbyterian Minister), until computers became the thing and I went the way of word processing–the other part of my life.

Writing and photography have defined me from 18 to right now–I will be 82 in a bit over a month. And they came from nowhere. I fell in love with them and gave myself to them Til Death do we part.

I don’t know how things like that happen, but Tao works just that way. I suggest that we live as one with Tao and trust where the road takes us instead of having our own idea of how our life ought to be and going with that no matter what. What egotism to think we know how to live our life! Our life knows how it needs to be lived, and our place is to listen to our life.

It just so happens that Gene Gendlin and Ann Wiser Cornell have written books (“Focusing”) by Gentlin, and “The Power of Focusing” “The Radical Acceptance of Everything,” and “Untangling.” All these books are about listening to ourselves–not the ego-self, but the inner-self that knows who we are and what is ours to do. With the wisdom of these books in hand, we are well prepared to listen to the inner nudging of the Tao calling for our alignment and participation with the Tao over the remainder of our time left for living. It is a wonderful partnership to form and to maintain.