I am content…
I am content with the fullness of my life.
 I have five wonderful children and six sweet grand children who are my legacy in this world. 
I have a teacher who gives me the gift of his presence and knowledge.
I have a practice that inspires and guides my path.
I seem to have it all.
Like the river I sit by every day, the flow of my life goes on to a place where it will find it’s finish in the vast ocean of fulfillment.
But yet the waters, my life, are beyond my view toward that spaciousness. I construct the path of the river to the ocean as if I knew the direction it takes and I know that is mind, not true.
I have a longing now for only the second time in this life. I want to change the direction of the river to my own course. I want to take the suffering of one other and make it mine. To assume the suffering and give away my contentment. If only it was that easy.
At the start of my 70th year I want to trade places with one half my time and let him go on and sit by his river without the burden of his suffering as I have more history than future.
If only it was that easy and possible.
I know it isn’t.
First Nation people have pain eaters who can take the pain of another and make it theirs.
That is my hope but not my reality.
Each of us is in the river on our own course and we find our way as best we can. The strength of our faith, our practice, is our tiller as we negotiate the rapids, boulders and obstructions that come in our lifestream. In the flow we carry the weight of the frailty of our humanness and destined by our suffering.
If I could change places and assume the other’s suffering I would do so gladly with humility and grace.
But I can’t.
So I guess I’m not content…