Dear Reader:

Whenever I am looking for just the right words to describe the complexity of my feelings and emotions that have become cocooned within me …I turn to my Irish poet John O’ Donohue.

In his collection of prose called To Bless the Space Between Us…he talks about arriving at new thresholds in life. I am slowly realizing that Ben’s new threshold is not his alone. All who love and care for him will be affected from now on…his threshold is also ours. Life for all of us has changed.

As we all come together today to help Ben cross his new threshold… we wish to prepare and supply him with many of his happy items to retrieve a new sense of normalcy-his guitar, music, novels, clubs, etc..

” THRESHOLDS” -O’ Donohue

” To acknowledge and cross a new threshold is always a challenge. It demands courage and also a sense of trusting whatever is emerging.

This becomes essential when a threshold opens suddenly in front of you, one for which you had no preparation. This could be illness, suffering, or loss. Because we are so engaged with the world, we usually forget how fragile life can be and how vulnerable we always are. It takes only a couple of seconds for a life to change irreversibly.

Suddenly you stand on completely new ground and a new course of life has to be embraced. Especially at such times we desperately need blessing and protection.

No threshold need be a threat, but rather an invitation and a promise. ”

So until tomorrow… ” Whatever comes, the great sacrament of life will remain faithful to us, blessing us always with visible signs of invisible grace. We merely need to trust. “

” Today is my favorite day” Winnie the Pooh