Oh, Grow Up!

Oh, Grow Up!

It's not so bad.

Growing up is hard.
Of course this is true.
But now I'm much older
and can say with certainty
growing up means more
than years of struggle.

Among my fellow adults
I see too few prophets,
artists and leaders,
but plenty of adolescents
lacking any originality,
seeking only to conform.

I admit it's taken me
much too long to grow up,
and may not have happened
without heartbreak and failure,
and some necessary humility
forcing me to acknowledge
my own mortality.

Growing up means
growing down,
becoming rooted.

Growing up means
learning to become one
with life and death.

Growing up means
becoming awed
by the beauty of all life
in the radical quest
to transcend survival -
going beyond the known,
until we are falling,
falling into the arms
of the creative force
called God.

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I hate that word, mature,
but I guess I am growing up.
~ Sheryl Crow

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