Our beloved “Smudge” of a cat died two weeks ago.  His final illness was brief, thank goodness.   We miss him a great deal.

Yet another small death along the path of life.   Another letting go of what once was.

Letting go.  I was invited to write a comment for Pope Francis’ synod process.  What are the positives in the Church of today?  What would you like to see change?  Where is the joy, where is the pain?

So many feelings flooded in as I struggled to coherently and succinctly articulate my response.  So very much to love.  So many people I love. And yet … even in the struggle to express my experiences and emotions, I recognized that ongoing need to once again let go.  Let go of the hurt and the pain caused by some of my experiences in the Church.  Let go of how I think it should be.   I can SAY I am over all those emotions but at certain times they all jump up and slap me in the face again.  

Today, February 22^nd, 2022, would have been my mom’s 86^th birthday (shown above with one of her great-grandsons).   Instead she died 18 months ago in the midst of the first Covid scare.  At times I still catch myself wanting to call her up, thinking “Wait till Mom hears this!”  My heart hurts as I write this, realizing how life has changed since then. 

That’s how grief works, isn’t it?  Grief is a crazy, wild animal.  It would appear you have it cornered, tamed even, but one unexpected word and it’s snarling in your face.  Again. 

Disassociating from, walking away from what once was, what we believe should be, is another type of small death.  What was is gone.  In the past, and no more. That is reality.

That, though, is where we often get stuck, isn’t it?  How do we move on from a beloved pet?  From a beloved, if deceased, job.   From a beloved, if now absent, relationship?  How do we learn to let go?  How do we heal? 

For me it is here that my faith is crucial.  It starts with knowing that my creator wants me to be happy.  My God, who loves me as a beloved child, has made me to live in joy, and to fulfill a particular purpose in life.  For me it has turned out that God’s purpose for me was originally nowhere on my own agenda!  It’s been a winding road to get to where I am now, and a good amount of suffering has accompanied that journey.  Quite a few plans and expectations have had to die small deaths along the way.

That hasn’t been easy.  At times I cried a lot.  I have shaken my fist and yelled at God, beaten myself up, been close to becoming quite bitter.   

Lots of deaths.  For us as Christians though, we have this strange belief regarding what is on the other side of death.  New life!   Spring!  Salvation!  I know my mom is now at an amazing party she never imagined, and Smudge is laying on her feet, purring mightily. 

Looking back I am astounded at how constantly, just when I thought it was all over, life showed up in new ways.  Resurrection happened.  Comfort came. New opportunities suddenly arose.  Almost always it was a matter of being willing to stop hanging on, and sometimes, to walk off that edge of the cliff, knowing I would be caught.

That, I think, is what faith is about.  Knowing we will be caught.  Knowing that even at the moment of death – however we define “death” – Someone will reach out in love and hold us close, if only we permit that to happen.

I suspect we have all, whoever we are, experienced just this.  Living it, though, is truly the key.