It's the Southern way of explaining "Karma."
I've been thinking about it a lot lately.
Mine's been a crazy life ... full of incredible highs and devastating lows ... all of which I've ... inexplicably survived.
Honestly there's no way I should still be living at all ... car wrecks ... a misfired gun ... divorces ... betrayal ... abandonment.
"I don't know how you've survived," Herb McKenzie said standing in my office after the latest round of betrayals.
On the up side ... I've been everywhere ... done most everything ... didn't worry about money ... became a celebrity ... busted through glass ceilings ... published lots of books ... and met the famous.
It all seems to even out.
What goes around comes around.
These days, I'm quietly content.
Every morning Sarah ... the love of my life ... dresses, kisses me and leaves to conquer the world ... meaning I'm alone with the dogs, the cat and God.
It's a horrific moment but one I find myself looking forward to.
God and I have lots to discuss.
"You've had ... and have," God's tells me this morning, "the best of both worlds."
"Shut Up," I reply pondering house and flood insurance and my agents apparent complete lack of reasoning, credit card bills and private school costs.
"I'm not going to shut up," God thunders as I stare out of the windows.
Everything goes quiet for a while.
"Remember Thomas Merton?" God asks ... and my mind rushes back to when Bill Berry ... not the former drummer for REM but the other one ... and I struck off to break religious rules and find the famous Monk's Hermitage.
"Yeah," I sigh.
"It's like that," God says.
"Hmmm," I muse.
Merton was a crazy dichotomy ... a Trappist Monk ... taking a Vow of silence ... writing immensely popular books ... becoming a rock star in a robe ... his Hermitage visited by Joan Baez and other rock starts ... who died trying to connect with Buddhist Monks ... which just made him more popular than before.
In a moment of clarity, I know exactly what God is saying.
I've given everything to everybody and now it's time for me ... well ... and God.
We have long quiet talks when Sarah leaves for work.
Our house becomes a Hermitage until she comes home after work and the girls are here on the long weekends.
Bill and I never made it to Merton's famous digs.
But God's telling me that I have now.
