Embraced It Will Serve You

ISBN: 1-4259-1910-3

Embraced It will Serve You invites readers to see death as a wise teacher instead of a grim reaper. Nothing bettter can serve to awaken us to life and to call us to our mission. 284 pages.

This Bond Will Not Die

Our time together is ending.
You never know, our paths might cross again,
which would be a kind destiny.
But this might be it.
The time in our lives where our spirits have touched is ending.
We have come to know each other and to trust each other
in ways unguessed at the beginning--
a comfort past expressing.
Hand in hand with the sad parting
there is the swelling softness of the bright realization
of how we have grown together.
This bond will not die.
Our living experiences change us.
The solitary presence of us each now
is richer for the combined presence we have grown into.
On the open journey now we carry each other.

Ingenious

See death a dark friend, thank old age for help detaching.
You have to hand it to the universe
for creating such an ingenious ebbing and flowing
to keep the game going.
For starters where would we stack the bodies if all were undying?
And does the fact that our heart-attachents some day will be taken
reduce our capacity to love them while they're here
or enhance it instead?
How merciful is aging.
For years I've braced against the day, pierced at the prospect,
when my German Shepherd would be gone,
but now as I watch her decline--
losing first energy, then desire, now even basic functioning--
I find I'm readying not only to see her go
but to assist in the process.
None of this denies the pain and grieving
everywhere with love interweaving
in the ingenious universal dance.

Encircled

Little endears others to us more
than genuine expressions of condolence--
heartfelt with eyes brimming,
embraces sharing the aching,
words that don't even try for not being able.
Sorrow seems an ocean endless
until it finds itself, feels the child of itself,
encircled by a cradling in the arms of mother shore.
Arms of family and friends
encircle the ocean of our grief.

The Sensitivity Of Silence

If after long inward journeying
you have reached the point from which everything--
even apparent tragedy--
appears holy and is accepted in trust,
go easy on the preaching
particularly to those whose shredded hearts are filled with aching.
Comfort instead with your presence.
Project energy and light from your being if you will,
but extend arms that don't deny the crushing,
and, at least for the time if you can,
hold in the sensitivity
of your silence.
Your beliefs about God's inscrutable will.