Healing After Loss

JULY 30

In the point of rest at the center of our being, we encounter

a world where all things are at rest in the same way. Then a

tree becomes a mystery, a cloud a revelation, each man a

cosmos of whose riches we can only catch glimpses. The life

of simplicity is simple, but it opens to us a book in which we

never get beyond the first syllable.

—DAG HAMMARSKJÖLD

Simplicity is not the tenor of life for most of us. We rush
around tending to work, to household, to family and friends.
But there are times, particularly after we have been through
some pivotal experience—like the death of a loved
one—when we are conscious of “the point of rest at the
center of our being.”
Whom do we meet there? The Christian tradition speaks
of “the communion of saints,” by which is meant not only
those who have lived unblemished lives (a very small
gathering!), but all who have lived and died—or are living
now—and even the souls of the yet unborn.
Each of us has his or her own chosen community of love,
and we may find some healing, some rest, if in quiet inter-
ludes we can settle into that “center of our being” and call
to us the spirits of our loved ones.

In the community of love, all are at home.