H,
Is there a time to stop
grieving? Life presses back on you very hard. The lessons we are supposed to
learn: the fleeting nature of everything, the immediacy of love and care, and
the things we should do and say as quickly as we can, these lessons are left at
the graveside. It is a glitch and not a reboot of the whole system. We may be
changed by it in some superficial way but our character is a harder sell. In a
few hours we move on to the next thing. Sadness is the only remnant of the
experience. The new habit is perhaps to hold on to life more dearly, to be more
careful with our health and to avoid the pitfalls of the fallen life.

Yet we are not on earth for
any other purpose but to learn to receive love and to give love freely. The rest
are ancillary pursuits. 2nd Corinthians 13 has clarified that point
for us. We should not worry, the Christ says, about food or clothes or housing.
Material progress for the Christian is related to spiritual progress. I do not
know how that all works out in every life. I only know how it has worked out in
mine. I do not know how every grieving soul makes their peace with the silence
of the missing person. I only know now that I can see more clearly than I did
yesterday. Death shows us the silliness of fights, of grudges, of keeping
quiet, of regret and of thinking “tomorrow will be the day that I will say what
I should say or act as I should act”. The Christ told this to us: today is the
only day you should concern your active selves’ in. Tomorrow lies in silence. Tomorrow
is in God.