From the publisher…

Joyce Rupp shares her own midlife journey - its ups and downs - with such honesty and insight that you will surely identify with and benefit from the discoveries she has made along the way. Among them are:

• We can find wisdom in the wounds we've carried from birth onward, and these wounds can heal;
• Past regrets must be let go lest they cling to us and drain our energy for life;
• The loving part of us can always out-wrestle the hating part;
• Surprises of beauty and talent in us wait to be discovered and shared;
• Some of what we thought to be unbreakable truth is now shattered pottery and unmendable;
• Our struggles to name God and to find a spirituality that enlivens and enriches our existence is less complex than we first thought.

Joyce Rupp's book is a spiritual feast.

Chant Visualizations To
"Dear Heart, Come Home"
With music on two cassettes

Dear Heart, Come Home
The Path of Midlife Spirituality

Thoughts from the Author…

     Midlife is more than a crisis. It is a summons to grow and a challenge to change. Midlife beckons one inward. It is a move to interiority, a passage to the deeper places where we discover our authenticity, where we realize both our limitations and our grandeur. It is here that we come home to our truest Self. We take our external experiences with us to the inside and look at our life. We evaluate our goals, hopes, dreams, beliefs, behaviors, experiences - all that has marked us and contributed to the person we have become - and we ask ourselves: "Is this the person I want to be in the future?"

Preface

the persistent voice of midlife
wooed and wailed, wept and whined,
nagged like an endless toothache,
seduced like an insistent lover,
promised a guide to protect me
as I turned intently toward my soul.

as I stood at the door of "Go Deeper"
I heard the ego's howl of resistance,
felt the shivers of my false security
but knew there could be no other way.
inward I traveled, down, down,
drawn further into the truth
than I ever intended to go.

as I moved far and deep and long
eerie things long lain hidden
jeered at me with shadowy voices,
while love I'd never envisioned
wrapped compassionate ribbons
'round my fearful, anxious heart.

further in I sank, to the depths,
past all my arrogance and confusion,
through all my questions and doubts,
beyond all I held to be fact.

finally I stood before a new door:
the Hall of Oneness and Freedom.
uncertain and wary, I slowly opened,
discovering a space of welcoming light.

I entered the sacred inner room
where everything sings of Mystery.
no longer could I deny or resist
the decay of clenching control
and the silent gasps of surrender.

there in that sacred place of my Self
Love of a lasting kind came forth,
embracing me like a long beloved one
come home for the first time.

much that I thought to be "me"
crept to the corners and died.
in its place a Being named Peace
slipped beside and softly spoke my name:
"Welcome home, True Self,
I've been waiting for you."

---Joyce Rupp