life in death and death in life...

My mother's most fascinating life story is of her near death experience. She was an older teen, living at home...perhaps 17 or 18 years of age. She remembers being in the kitchen and saying to her mother, 'My heart has stopped beating'. Her mother insisted that was a ridiculous statement. But to Susanne, it was true: She began floating upward into the sky, irresistibly drawn towards the Light. Smelling salts and slaps brought her back to earth. I asked how she felt: 'Disappointed' was her reply. She had been happy and safe in the warmth and peace of the interrupted journey, and wished it could continue.

Recently, I received a long, poignant email from a friend who was heavy laden with the loneliness of loss...four friends, from near and far, having passed recently. 'Driving through a waterfall of tears' is how the grief fell on him. I feel that time in my life coming at me like a train - hijacking my intentional journey and slapping me with an about face. Tonight, news of another death from our California church family. Surely, this lovely lady is in a crystal place of light in God's love...light years from earth's sod.

But, what of us - those in the middle...between our making and our remaking? The juxtaposition of 'here' and 'there' is often too much to comprehend or bear. At times I rail, Why is it that we are left here...sometimes with lead footed heaviness... weary of being encapsulated in the imperfect state that traps us - a state perhaps most accurately defined by the unknowns of our exit details.

When my father died, I rejoiced for his separation from his painfully ailing body, so that he could be the radiant person he was made to be. So perhaps tonight I weep not for beautiful Dorothy, but for someone left behind who loves her. And for us, also left behind in a place we were not made for...in a life that we love and live, but that seems, sadly, light years from my mother's interrupted flight to freedom in the heart of God.