Hi there. I had a neat conversation with my Mom today - she turned 85 today. She told me she recently heard a minister talk about trying to accept the pain and suffering in life and not to blame others or God (or Creator, a name I typically use). She also told me that she is ready to "go home" (die) any time now.

I asked her: "Mom, do you think God (we use that word when we talk together) included pain and suffering as part of the human condition, so that when our time on earth was done, we'd be ready to go home and not cling stubbornly to the physical world?"

She said yes, she thought so.

What do you all think? Did our Creator make physical life hard so we'd feel at ease to go home to the Spirit world?

If life on earth was all sunshine and butterflies and rainbow ponies, who would want to leave it? But as we age, or as illness or pain comes to us, life in the physical form loses its appeal.

This just strikes me as a pretty smart way of designing life in the physical world - and pretty compassionate too. When I was young and strong and healthy, the thought of dying terrified me - I did not want to leave this world! But now I'm older, and have had challenges with pain and illness, death and going home to "summerland" is not scary anymore - and I can feel more accepting about something that will inevitably happen. Which seems compassionate.

Not that I have a death wish. But I admire my Mom's acceptance of her own mortality - she lives her life to the best of her ability, but she's "ready to go" anytime now ... and she tells God this every night in her prayers.

There's a Native Drum song in which is a line I just love: "And whenever you are ready, Great Maker of Life, I'll come home to you."