Thank you, thank you for not traveling in the sentimentally safe but actually impersonal path when you said, “I’ll see you down the road.”Because you share the Love Eternal which breathed Life into the earthly material we’re created from, you free yourself to risk sharing the nitty-gritty, contrasting realities and points-of-view that exist in our world. In this vast space of eternal love whose very essence by definition cannot force anyone to accept it, your readers/listeners are freed to enter more honestly into their own real experiences of life and death.
For me, in synch with your comments about the beauty of holiness (wholeness?) emphasized in the Episcopal liturgies and churches, it has always been beauty which opens way for fuller exploration of the mysteries of life and death —even before I blessedly discovered the sacraments and liturgies of the Episcopal Church.
I will never forget (as a pre-episcopal) driving away from the hospital where I saw my father for the last time before his death, watching the golden sunset reflected in the solid bank of windows which made up the entire side of the building. Yet other closer and less glorious encounters with death, such as those you share, are also part of the mix. Thank you for enlarging my perspective on the Lenten liturgy when “beloved dust” is imposed on my forehead in the form of a cross. Somehow, though I had read selections from Hughes in EfM, it was your combination of many personal and real life views and events in this presentation which brought it all “home” for me.
Thanks for you deep and insightful reflection Ruth. And beauty is a pathway to the holy for me too: music, architecture, stained glass, the words and rhythms of liturgy. I could go on. But I do think that this openness to God in beauty is a very Episcopal thing (though of course not limited to us)
Another amazing message, Jake. There were so many poignant parts of this for me. As someone who has faced her own mortality twice in the same day at age 48…and whose neurosurgeon was convinced I was going to die, this hits deep in my bones. But the “beloved dust” and “I’ll see you down the road” were such powerful images. And it occurred to me that as we walk down dirt roads, we are literally walking on the remains of our loved ones and friends who have passed on before us…that they have cleared our path and hold us up until it is our time to do the same for those who come after us.
Thank you, as always, for your words and wisdom, Jake.
Thank you, thank you for not traveling in the sentimentally safe but actually impersonal path when you said, “I’ll see you down the road.”Because you share the Love Eternal which breathed Life into the earthly material we’re created from, you free yourself to risk sharing the nitty-gritty, contrasting realities and points-of-view that exist in our world. In this vast space of eternal love whose very essence by definition cannot force anyone to accept it, your readers/listeners are freed to enter more honestly into their own real experiences of life and death.
For me, in synch with your comments about the beauty of holiness (wholeness?) emphasized in the Episcopal liturgies and churches, it has always been beauty which opens way for fuller exploration of the mysteries of life and death —even before I blessedly discovered the sacraments and liturgies of the Episcopal Church.
I will never forget (as a pre-episcopal) driving away from the hospital where I saw my father for the last time before his death, watching the golden sunset reflected in the solid bank of windows which made up the entire side of the building. Yet other closer and less glorious encounters with death, such as those you share, are also part of the mix. Thank you for enlarging my perspective on the Lenten liturgy when “beloved dust” is imposed on my forehead in the form of a cross. Somehow, though I had read selections from Hughes in EfM, it was your combination of many personal and real life views and events in this presentation which brought it all “home” for me.
In Gratitude,
Ruth Leigh
Thanks for you deep and insightful reflection Ruth. And beauty is a pathway to the holy for me too: music, architecture, stained glass, the words and rhythms of liturgy. I could go on. But I do think that this openness to God in beauty is a very Episcopal thing (though of course not limited to us)
Another amazing message, Jake. There were so many poignant parts of this for me. As someone who has faced her own mortality twice in the same day at age 48…and whose neurosurgeon was convinced I was going to die, this hits deep in my bones. But the “beloved dust” and “I’ll see you down the road” were such powerful images. And it occurred to me that as we walk down dirt roads, we are literally walking on the remains of our loved ones and friends who have passed on before us…that they have cleared our path and hold us up until it is our time to do the same for those who come after us.
Thank you, as always, for your words and wisdom, Jake.
—Angie
That is a stirring image, Angie! They have cleared our path… love that