We are Pilgrims
(notes for grief retreat given a few years ago))
One day we will find ourselves in deep dark woods, alone and bereft.
One of the hardest lessons to get is that one of the central aspects of being human is that we are in fact, pilgrims. We are on a journey, a very difficult one with many painful as well as joyful experiences along the way. We gain and we lose, we rejoice and we experience sorrow, health, and sickness, and we lose our youth, all of these can bring us to a point of inner crisis and sorrow in our lives.
The loss of naivety
We can have a sort of innocence or a abetter term, naivety about life. For a time we can ignore the fact that our time is very, very, short. This is not pleasant so it can be hidden from conscious awareness until ‘something’ happens that will send that illusion crashing to the floor. That ‘something’ is the death of a loved one or a change in life so extreme that what comes after is different. The deeper the loss the more extreme the effect, which causes grief, perhaps one of the most common experiences for humanity…..
Waking up
This struggle brings us back to ourselves, it is a sort of ‘waking up, though the experience can seem to have a dream-like aspect to it. Yet how we live from one day to another can be the actual dream.
The Easy way
The easiest answer is not always the best one. We can react, which is a choice, we can feel bitter, angry and in the end despair, or we can choose to go deeper and seek joy, and meaning in this often confusing life that we find ourselves in.
So there are many losses in our lives, as well as gains. How we deal with this unrelenting aspect of our lives will dictate what we gain. We are called in our struggles and sorrows to become more aware of our lives, to learn to embrace the transitory aspect of ‘things’, and to allow our faith to deepen in that journey into a deeper reality. Something that is often put down on one's list of priorities, which I find somewhat intriguing since we don’t have an unlimited supply of days to live our lives…it can be frightening for some to think about.--Br.MD
