Have you ever thought of yourself as a "vessel of love?" This image speaks to what I envision for the elderhood years. The vast life experiences of the past provided countless opportunities for our love to grow and mature. The persons we have known, what we have done or had done to us, the beliefs stretching our minds and hearts, what we gained and what we shed, the results of our choices and decisions, our deliberate participation in the evolving history of the world-all this and more we bring with us into the final decades.

During this lifetime, whether we've been aware or not, a Presence of immeasurable love has been flowing through those experiences, quietly filling the vessel of our inner being. Like vats of matured wine, our ripened goodness has readied itself to move outward. The Beguine mystic, Mechthild of Magdeburg, trusted that "the great flood of divine love never ceases. ...It flows on and on effortlessly and sweetly and without failing until, finally, our tiny vessel becomes full and spills over." Now is the efficacious time to tend "our tiny vessel" so this graced goodness strengthens in us and benefits the life of those we encounter.