Yesterday afternoon, Linda brought me this blogpost on The Almost Daily eMo from the Geranium Farm by Barbara Crafton. An extremely popular, much admired, and vigorously thinking Episcopal priest, Barbara's retired now, her husband Q died, and she's living in Colorado, where her daughter lives.
I think this post is inspired, almost oracle, as is everything I've read that Barbara writes. She's extraordinary, a prophet. My mind doesn't go where hers goes, I can't write as she writes, her spirituality and perceptions are far beyond mine. But that doesn't matter. If I could choose, I might rather be where she is spiritually and faith-wise than where I am or am not; but as I say, no matter, we're as different in our Beings as we are in DNA and fingerprints. Barbara is an example of why it's a shame the Church delayed ordaining women as priests for so many centuries, an example of what the Church missed in excluding half of humanity. Of how blessed we are now.
A line of her essay especially catches my eye and captures my heart: "Everything that ever was will always have been." That may seem obvious for anyone with a Christian realization of Eternity, but I'm so grateful for seeing it written, for hearing it spoken, for the way it affirms my life and loves and memories as real; not just dreams that will evaporate when I die, but always in what she calls God's NOW.
Maybe this word from Barbara Crafton will light up your Time as it is lighting mine.
T
THE CONSOLATION OF THEOLOGY
Here is what I have realized thinking about Q. It applies to all the beloved dead:
1. Longing for him to be here consumes tremendous amounts of my energy, and it doesn’t work. Not once has he ever shown up.
2. My memories of him are happy. They make me happy. The photos, the videos – they bring a smile.
3. I can only have that if I allow him to be where he is now, rather than trying to drag him back here. I ruin it if my only access to it is through longing for him to be with me now in the old way– the energy I’m spending on that longing uses up energy I might have used to feel the gratitude I have for having had him at all.
4. Everything that ever was will always have been. Since time is a relative thing, the difference between “is” and “was” is nowhere near as resounding a difference as we think it is. For God, everything is NOW. I am in that NOW, as you are, as is everything and everybody else. We're all here. If I allow myself to ponder this, I can begin to experience it.
5. If my use of the word “God” troubles you as too anthropomorphic, know that I’m not thinking of God in that way. You might try the term in which God introduced himself to Moses (I AM [I am existence itself].)
This helps me, and it might help you. I can inhabit a sphere larger than my own biography, larger than the history we shared. I can allow him to inhabit it also. I can move through this particular sliver of existence with a lighter heart than I’ve had since he died.
This has been hard won. Don't be hard on yourself if it doesn't speak to you right off the bat, but do consider giving yourself time to ponder it. We owe it to ourselves to be as happy as we can be while we are here, and nobody benefits from our misery.
Here endeth the lesson.
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Image: ESA/Hubble and NASA, USA
Spiral Galaxy NGC 6384.
