Delightful Discoveries
In my blog-hopping adventures this morning I discovered two absolute gems. The first is from Rachel at Swandive: a poem from Jack Gilbert’s book Refusing Heaven: A Brief for the Defense Sorrow everywhere. Slaughter everywhere. If babies are not starving someplace, they are starving somewhere else. With flies in their nostrils. But we enjoy our […]
The Vulnerability of the Body
Grief resides deep in the body. My sense of loss is palpable. At times my heart literally aches, I breathe deeply letting out heavy sighs for relief, I long for my dog’s warm solid body to hold. Now it is simply a pile of ashes. When my mother ended up in the ICU unconscious, with […]
Communion of Saints, Cloud of Witnesses
After my mother died I was very comforted by the image in the Christian Tradition of being surrounded by a “great cloud of witnesses” (Hebrews 12:1). I had always loved the image of the Communion of Saints, but suddenly it became much more personal. Certainly I had lost grandparents previously whom I had known, but […]
The Art of Grieving
This being human is a guest house. Every morning is a new arrival. A joy, a depression, a meanness, some momentary awareness comes as an unexpected visitor. Welcome and entertain them all! Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows, who violently sweep your house empty of its furniture, still, treat each guest honorably. [S]he may […]
Sacred is the Call
I went away to the woods and water expecting to meet God. Instead I met Myself. And we swam together for hours in a blue pool of desire for silence and beauty and stillness so strong that it threatened to drown me with its urgency and longing. The skin of my fingers and toes curled […]
The Solace of Darkness
I know I am at the start of another long journey. There is no way out of the landscape of grief except straight through the heart of it, even though we may construct all kinds of useful diversions to try and avoid it. These last few weeks I have been feeling this invitation to move […]
Love and Loss
My dear friends and readers, I am deeply grateful for the prayers and support I have received through comments, emails, and phone calls. I kept imagining myself surrounded by this circle of light and that was comforting. All day yesterday I lay on the floor holding Duke, telling him how much I love him, trying […]