Seek Others Seeking Faith

I am so very sorry that your dear son is gone from you and that he is not here to share the joys of this life with you and big his sister. And, gosh, how very sorry I am that, when you most needed the compassion and love that are at the core of Christ’s ministry, you ran across a Christian Vicar who so painfully, obviously has missed the point of Christ’s teachings and the faith.

There are a lot of boring (unless you like that kind of stuff) theological and biblical reasons why many Christians have strong reactions to the idea of Reincarnation; most of them having to do the soul going heaven to live with Jesus after death. I am also aware however, that there are many doctrines surrounding Reincarnation offered by Hinduism, Buddhism and other ancient Eastern and more contemporary spiritualities. And too, there are many ways that Christians understand both Reincarnation and the teaching of their own Christian traditions about life after death. The short answer is: no one really knows what happens after we are dead.

Though I am the kind of person that likes this boring kind of stuff, I find that on this grief journey of mine I am placing greater importance not on the thought that I will one day be reunited with Elizabeth, Claire and Alice, though I certainly hope and look forward to that, but on how I allow my grief of them to gentle into greater compassion and love as I seek and pray for healing. As I face the sorrow and pain of the loss of my Dear Little Ones, how I survive these griefs which seem unbearable reminds me that somewhere in the universe is a power greater and more powerful than they and that I survive only by its mercy and any growth I obtain is by its grace.

For me that power is the love and compassion of my crucified and risen Lord, but as I understand Buddhism--poorly perhaps, it could also be in my meditation, especially in my grief, on the Dharma or compassion of creation for myself and all living things. As I understand Hinduism--again I am sure quite poorly, I might be seeking, in my meditation on my grief, to know the truths my higher self might want me to know about this life on my grief journey.

I personally encourage you to seek out others who share your faith and who seek, as do you in its meaning, a gentling of life’s deep pains and sorrows.

My reading of Christian scripture and my knowing of Christ in prayer is of someone who would offer you compassion in your grieving, mercy a mid your pain and an offer of rest and comfort to you, no matter what you believed, in the name of the One he called by the Aramaic equivalent of Daddy.

Wishing you days of compassion, mercy, rest and comfort.