Season of Grief

Death is one experience we all have in common, but it is also among our most personal. My mother's death is just like your mother's except it isn't. Every person who dies is unique; so too is every person who survives them. The tangle of loss and recovery that accompanies each death, too, is unique. No one really knows another's journey. But there is one universal. Death always means that everything having to do with this world has run out. The tangible, visible, touchable is gone. All the tools of medicine failed. When the doctor says there's nothing more she can do, it's time to close the door on the solutions of the world. From here on in, the answers have to come from elsewhere. Death is a reminder that you only get it all when you die to this world and open yourself to the next. When the heart monitor stops ticking, the Kingdom of God takes over. Eternity is on the other side but that other side is also unknown. There's an undeniable terror in that. I've spent a lot of time trying to understand how both of these can be true--how my mother's life could have brought so much of God's presence here on earth for me and happily for many others, while at the same time, God's presence could only be hers in the next life. In a strange way, the words of the late Jesuit leader, Pedro Arrupe, have helped me live this journey. His counsel in dealing with the mystery of life and death was as simple as it was profound: "Nothing is more practical than finding God, that is, than falling in love in a quite absolute, final way. What you are in love with, what seizes your imagination will affect everything. It will decide what will get you out of bed in the mornings, what you will do with your evenings, how you spend your weekends, what you read, who you know, what breaks your heart, and what amazes you with joy and gratitude. Fall in love, stay in love, and it will decide everything." That's my prayer now. Let love decide everything. The Kingdom of God is about letting love decide everything, now and forever too. I've always likened living in God's kingdom here on earth to entering a river. The water (God) washes all over me, cleansing me, feeding me, moving me to where He wants me to go, empowering me to do what He wants me to do until He brings me out on the other side. I am living in the Kingdom of God now and hopefully sharing the Kingdom and taking the Kingdom to others.