This past Lenten season had its own lesson plan. I was just beginning to learn how Buddhism, the original “self-help” plan, views life in the here and now, and looking to a quiet, contemplative Lent. Instead, I had to confront the very real and
wrenching event of my mom, Lillian, passing away. Although almost 94, she was in pretty good health until she slipped away from us over the course of a couple weeks. The family was blessed to be around her, holding her, talking to her, as she went home.

So Lent had things to teach me, to continue to teach me. No matter how esoteric theology becomes, it must ultimately stand the test of human experience or it will be discarded, and so it is with my musings here.

Lillian had some last things to teach me:

• How to accept the fact that as you get older-----“ridiculously” older, she would say----- death is inevitable; how to prepare for it with grace and humor.

• That life is more than breath, and breath is more than inhaling and exhaling. [My favorite C.S. Lewis quote: “You do not have a soul. You are a soul. You have a body.]

• That when you’re through with your body, or it’s holding your spirit back, you “chuck it”, leave it behind, and get on with the journey.

• When we became aware that she had left us, I thought to myself, “So that’s how you do it. That’s how you leave it all behind.”

No doubt, in future postings, I’ll have a lot more to say about Lillian. Everything is still sinking in. I will never forget so many things about her.


NOTE: If you would like to hear LIllian praying in Polish, you can click on the link on the left side of this page under "Links and Shortcuts." I can't quite bring myself to listen yet. (Click on lillianmp3 if you have a hard time playing it.)

Due to the passing of a special woman of "beautiful uniqueness", I need to suspend this blog for a while. Blessings on your Holy Week and Easter.

On Hearing the Dies Iræ Sung in the Sistine Chapel (Author: Oscar Wilde)

Nay, Lord, not thus! white lilies in the spring,
Sad olive-groves, or silver-breasted dove,
Teach me more clearly of Thy life and love
Than terrors of red flame and thundering.
The empurpled vines dear memories of Thee bring:
A bird at evening flying to its nest,
Tells me of One who had no place of rest:
I think it is of Thee the sparrows sing.

Come rather on some autumn afternoon,
When red and brown are burnished on the leaves,
And the fields echo to the gleaner's song,
Come when the splendid fulness of the moon
Looks down upon the rows of golden sheaves,
And reap Thy harvest: we have waited long.

An act of love that fails is just as much a part of the divine life as an act of love that succeeds, for love is measured by its own fullness, not by its reception.

Harold Loukes