no coincidence and final musings

I think I wrote this in a previous blog, but I no longer believe in coincidences. The fact that this class was one of the two I am taking the semester after my dad's death feels serendipitous. I have had the ability to share my story, through the semester, and through the literature.

Thank you for allowing me to speak. Thank you for your words and your thoughts.

My dad suggested to me more frequently over the past few years to pick up a Bible. He found its poetry beautiful, its words (or at least some of them) comforting. My dad only discovered religion in the years since my mom's diagnosis with Parkinson's Disease. Both my parents migrated toward religion, and there they found community, support, love. It filled something for my dad, and it continues to fill something for my mom. I have trouble with organized religion, because frankly it scares me. People seem to get so caught up in the community and camaraderie that they lose sight of the foundation. I think it is frightening to think of how many people have gotten caught up in a sort of mob-mentality associated with religion and they cease to think for themselves. So many religious institutions have the ability to control people through fear (fear of God's wrath, hell etc.). And I think anything that is so influential and has so much power over people's minds can be dangerous. I do not understand how a belief system, or religious view can remain static in a world that is it constant flux and change. I hope that as we move into a modern time, more and more people will approach religion while holding on to their brains. I hope people will question and explore all facets of religion.

I am hopeful, because I think religion can be a wonderful thing as well as a dangerous one. My dad was trying to help me find inner peace when he suggested I try attending church or perhaps opening the Bible. I do believe that there is a general lack of spiritual health in our society that leads to increased problems with addiction. We try to fill our emptiness with drugs, alcohol, sex, shopping, sugar, gambling... the list goes on and on. But perhaps what we need is stillness, poetry, love, compassion.
These are principle teachings I respect from any religion.

I too (like Lisette) have thought a lot about love recently. My grandmother sent me a card after my pony died when I was young, and in it she wrote, "Great sorrow is the price we pay for love". How true. And how thankful, in an odd way, I can be for this blister of grief and pain that has me engulfed. My dad and my grandmother both taught me many things, but above all, they both taught me about unconditional love. And that love does not go away. I am comforted by a phrase in Song of Solomon: "for love is strong as death, passion fierce as the grave" (7.6). And I know that my love--the love I feel for them, and the love they gave to me--lasts on. It is a source of strength and comfort for me. And I can pass on those lessons to those around me as I grow and heal.

The last time I remember my dad sharing a part of the Bible with me, he read to me from First Corinthians. Although I have said my dad suggested I pick up the Bible or attend church, he only mentioned these ideas a few times. He never pressured me or made me feel like I should, he just put it out there as an idea for me to do what I wanted with it. I opened my Bible tonight, and took a look at First Corinthians 13. And I found the part my dad read to me and it is beautiful and moving:

If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.

Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Love never ends.

I think often too of the love of strangers. I found incredible support and love from complete strangers on the mountain when my father died. People were there to help me. They took over cell-phone duty, CPR, they hugged me. One girl just sat with me and tried to keep me calm through mindless chat. And after I realized that he was dead and I had to stumble down the mountain without him, they were there to keep me from falling. Literally--I took off when I first started down, tripped and fell immediately. Then one of the guys who had been on the scene the whole time appeared at my side, took my backpack and my hand and lead me down to the boulder basin where rangers waited to escort me the rest of the way down. People were there for me. And they demonstrated to me a wonderful side of humanity. I am so thankful to have seen such powerful goodness in the most horrific day of my life.

And since my dad's death, I have been engulfed with support and love. I have found love from many different directions, some of them surprising. And I have found it here, in this class. So again, thank you. May I remind you to treasure each day, each person, each moment that we are given. For life is not something to be taken for granted; life is a gift.