HUG Corner: Thought for the Week 4/22/19

Healing After Loss (Martha Whitmore Hickman)

“Spirituality is that place where the utterly intimate and the vastly infinite meet.”

– Rick Fields

Among the occasions in human life where such a meeting might take place, surely the experience of death must be high on the list. At one moment the person is there, breathing, alive, and the next moment, the body remains, an empty shell, and the person who laughed and cried, who spoke, who loved, is gone.

Where?

People have told of sensing – even seeing – the spirit of the dead standing close. People who report near-death experiences tell of hovering above their body, watching all the frantic going-on’s to resuscitate them. People hundreds of miles away at the time of another’s death report experiencing a sudden symptom – a flash of pain, perhaps – which later correlates with the time and cause of death of a loved one. 

Perhaps our experience with such mysteries is a clue that we know only a small fraction of the Creator’s good intention for us. It doesn’t take the pain of separation away, but if we can think of it as temporary separation and not permanent, well, that makes all the difference in the world!

I will try to be open to all avenues of wisdom and hope.