When my mom passed away last year, someone at the wake told me that the grieving was the easy part, that dealing with the legal and financial headaches was the hard part. Though I feared they spoke the truth, I didn't really believe them. After all, I loved my mother very much. She was my best friend and in every practical sense, the only family I had. I have since learned that they were right.

December was a blur of grief, of holidays I didn't want to celebrate. January was consumed with interminable hours-long phone calls, documents to be located, papers to be filled out and mailed. February is proving to be the month of waiting for promised letters, promised checks, promised phone calls.

I am not by nature a patient person, but I'm learning that when folder after folder in the rack on my table is labeled "Awaiting ... [this, that, and the other thing]", there is nothing you can do to hurry the universe along no matter how much you want to get through this and move on.

This summer I lost three kitties. Tipsy and Colleen were run over on different days near the 4th of July. I buried the kitten sisters next to each other between the lilac and the cardinal shrub. Pinocchio died of leukemia and feline AIDS. I buried him behind the garage in his favorite sunny place. Then my mom passed away. And just when I thought I had no tears left to cry, my 13-year-old kitty, sweet Sally May, died in the kitchen one night in January.

At the end of life for all creatures, we must release them to God, not that they weren't always His and in His hands, but that the time of our stewardship, our borrowing of them, has come to an end. And while we grieve here and bury their broken bodies, we know their little spirits are running free in the long grass of heaven.

It is the same also when we must let go of human friends and family members. "The Lord has given and the Lord has taken away. Even so, blessed be the name of the Lord." To paraphrase an affirmation from the Unity School of Christianity, "We release them to God's care and keeping, knowing they are being guided to their good."

Even though our hearts are breaking and our tears flow, we must remember that to God, death is just a coming home to Him, and that someday we will see our loved ones again.

Sparks of God's Glory

I am currently reading a biography about a man who was sucked into Stalin's gulag. The man and his fellow prisoners suffered terribly in a camp far above the Arctic Circle. It is a depressing story with the only glimmers of light being hopes for release that were agonizingly dragged out, only to be dashed in the end. The only release for nearly all of the prisoners came through death. The man was an atheist, as were all of the others he knew. Religion of any kind, or any hope for salvation, is missing in this darkness.

By contrast, Corrie ten Boom and her sister Betsie, who were also prisoners at the same time, but victims of a Nazi death camp, were devout Christians who managed to spread hope in that horrible place. Corrie said, "You may never know that Jesus is all you need, until Jesus is all you have."

And it came to me that we are all in the same situation as these prisoners.

We spread joy or pain in our own worlds to our family, friends, neighbors, and strangers by our behavior, by what we say and how we say it, by our actions--how we drive; the things we laugh at or cry over; what we do at school, at work, or in our neighborhood, for others or against them; the kindness, compassion, forgiveness, and generosity we show, especially to animals, children, and the elderly.

We spread God's love or our own lack of faith wherever we are when we share our fears and worries, our hurts and anger, or our trust in God and our belief in His love, light, and peace. If we believe this world is all there is or that God has a better place for us after death will--or should--make a difference in how we live, speak, and act.

"Again Jesus said, 'God's kingdom is like what happens when a farmer scatters seed in a field. The farmer sleeps at night and is up and around during the day. Yet the seeds keep sprouting and growing, and he doesn't understand how. It is the ground that makes the seeds sprout and grow into plants that produce grain. Then when the harvest season comes and the grain is ripe, the farmer cuts it with a sickle.' " Mark 4:26-29 (CEV)

We don't know what will happen or who will ultimately be influenced by us when we put God's truth into practice daily in our lives. "You may be the only Gospel others ever read." We are all sparks of God's perfect glory.

God Moments

A neighbor was telling me about what she calls her "God stories"--miraculous things that happen to her--and how her grandson urged her to write them down. I often have "God moments" too, and her grandson is right--if you don't write them down, you tend to forget them.

I had such a moment on March 1st. On the cover of the March issue of RBI's "Our Daily Bread," is a photo of magnificent pink azaleas blooming in Maymont Park in Richmond, Virginia. And the Bible verse below the picture reads: "For lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone. The flowers appear on the earth." Song of Solomon 2:11-12.

My reaction was, "Yeah, right!" We had plenty of snow still on the ground here and I hadn't seen a flower since last fall sometime. The sun was shining here, at least between the clouds, but flowers? You've got to be kidding.

I assume the photo was taken last year, because this is, after all, March, and I don't think that even in Virginia it would be warm enough for azaleas to have bloomed early enough to get on a magazine cover. It certainly isn't in New York State!

Later in the morning I was out back and I spotted something purple by the back door.

A tiny myrtle flower! Blooming among the green leaves and the twig and dead leaf litter of winter was my first flower of spring.

It doesn't qualify as a miracle, except by people like me, who feel that life is full of miracles--composed of miracles--most of them so small we don't even recognize them, but miracles all the same. It was definitely a "God moment."

RUNNING ON BATTERY POWER

This morning I just felt totally whanged out.

"Lord," I prayed, "please help me get out of my funk and into Your joy." And with that, Sally May cat hopped up on my desk and made me smile and laugh. But like a butterfly alighting on you, she doesn't stay. She paws at my mug mat and my cup of green tea and then leaps away to sit under my lamp by my computer, as if to say, "get busy with your writing or at least your e-mail."

"I'm running," I said to her, "on battery power." "Whoa! THAT's the problem," I told her. "I'm supposed to be plugged into God's power, not trying to do everything on my own."

When I picked up my NLT Bible Promise Book, I found today's verse was 2 Corinthians 3:5 "It is not that we think we are qualified to do anything on our own. Our qualification comes from God." Uh-huh. I think that's what I just discovered on my own. Well, not entirely on my own. I had some help there from the Master of the Universe and from a small, elderly but feisty, red and white kitty.

Brother Lawrence in The Practice of the Presence of God says "If we do what we can on our parts, we shall soon see that change wrought in us which we aspire after." Easier said than done. You have to live moment by moment--"in the now"--if you are to consciously choose anything other than your habitual response. It requires patience and self-control--both of which I find in short supply! But when I do change my thoughts, things change as well. "Be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind." (Romans 12:2) And conversely, I've found it to be true that we can be renewed by the transforming of our minds.

These last seven months or so have been a dark period in my life. If you have never been here, you cannot know, but if you have, then you can understand only too well. I looked back this morning in my journal to another dark period and this is what I found written there:

"What happens when you let the anger loose? When you turn on everyone and God and self? When you deny God and religion and the Bible and prayer and anything else you can find? You choke on the Communion wine. You deliberately stop and wander off the trail into the fogs and black mists. What happens when you flirt with evil and play fast and loose with the dark forces? What happens when you stand alone and feel free? Free to do wrong because your faith is shaken. Does Jesus really come after the lost sheep? I'm about to find out. I hope so.

"Is this it? Is this a cry for help? For attention? For love? I meant it when I said, 'He is never there for me.' Oh, I've had the dreams and felt His touch of love. I have been truly blessed. I have. I have seen His sign in the sun. I still believed in Him even when I was angry with Him. This is the first time that I've ever doubted His existence. I said it and then I realized it was true. Is this the Valley of the Shadow?"

What had happened back then was a huge turning point in my life. I quit my job, moved back home, lived a life of retirement sans pension, and entered into the best years of my life. God had great things planned for me, but He had to shake me loose from where and what I was. And it wasn't easy. Afterward I remembered previously telling Him that if He wanted me out of there, He was going to have to push me out. He did! And it was very painful.

Now, I don't know where the road leads. I just have to trust that He is still leading me as He led me back then, and that what He has planned for me is in His hands. I don't like what I see so far, but life is a succession of such things--phases, my mother calls them.

With that "I hope so" the light shines in. Dimly, but it shines.

IN THE SILENCE

To proclaim faith and light and peace and joy to others, we must first have it in ourselves. Then God’s joy and wisdom and energy and love and compassion flow through us to others. And we become the Gospel that others read if they read none other. Will we become perfect at it? No, but we can strive. In time we each become a living flame of love.

{From A Journal of the Spirit, a Journey of the Soul, by D.C. Ice, Dec. 31, 2003.}

IN THE SILENCE

Real faith--like real science--is a seeking for answers, a quest for truth. It is not a presumption that one knows it all. For all of us--those who search and those who think they already have all the answers--God has many surprises waiting. "Seek and ye shall find." (Matt. 7:7) Seek the truth, love the truth, speak the truth. Let love cover all things and people. God's spirit is in everyone, but if we block Him or ignore Him, He cannot help us or help us to help others.

{From A Journal of the Spirit, a Journey of the Soul, by D.C. Ice, Oct. 8, 1995}

IN THE SILENCE

Sometimes, Lord, you know, I let go of your hand and turn my back on you and sit down by the side of the pathway. You know that I do this. You know.

And always you sigh and stop and sit down beside me, whether I know it or not, whether I acknowledge it or not. And I know, deep down, that you are there, that I must go on, even though I say I won’t go any farther, and refuse all comfort.

But deep down, I know I will go, because I must, and I know that you know, and you know that I know you know, but you don’t ever say it, except in my heart.

And what I really want is for you to love me and to stay with me, when all the time it is I who is withholding the love and refusing to go on with you.

Forgive me. Thank you for putting up with me, with my tantrums. Thank you for your patience and love and compassion and most of all for staying with me through it all.

{From A Journal of the Spirit, a Journey of the Soul, by D.C. Ice, Sept. 28-Oct. 1, 1987}