Are we spiritual people?  I don’t even know what that means.  Perhaps you do.  It might point to communion with the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  It might be to walk in the steps of the Dalai Lama.  To be in prayer as you kneel by the bed and as you walk down Main Street.  To be loving and compassionate.  To have equanimity in your heart, undisturbed by the events of the day.  To lead a solitary life, cloistered away from the teeming masses and the volatile emotions.  Or to hug every person you meet.

I have a theory that there’s one experience essential for the open heart, the open hands, the Spirit.  I won’t share my opinion just now.  I trust you’ll feel it at the end of the story which follows.

A couple from snowy Minnesota decided to take a winter vacation back in the simple Florida resort where they had stayed for a honeymoon twenty-five years before.  Because of his wife’s delayed work schedule, the husband went first, and then when he got there he received a message that she would meet him soon.  So he sent her this e-mail in reply.  But because he typed one letter wrong in the e-mail address, it went by mistake to an old woman in Oklahoma, whose minister husband had died the day before.  Here is what she read:

“Dearest,

Well the journey is over and I have finally arrived.  I was surprised to find they have e-mail here now.  They tell me you’ll be coming soon.  It will be good to be together again.  

Love as always.

P.S.  Be prepared.  It’s quite hot down here.”