Heaviness of Heart (from January 9, 2009)

My REL 399 Special Studies: Mysticism has got me thinking. Yesterday in class Dr. Kirby asked us if we thought the spiritual life was real. Many of my classmates claimed they did not. That struck me with such sadness. For me the spiritual life is very real. Like muscles our spiritual faculties demand practice, which by nature increases our sensitivities of the spirit. Now when I talk about the spiritual realm I am not talking about religion per say, and I am not talking about hokey superstitious type stuff, although both are phenomenons included within mysticism. I am talking about a very real personal sense of the existence of God, of the belief in the afterlife, of the miracles and magic of every day life. All one has to do is experience an event which shocks them in the reality of the mortality, or experience the death of a loved one, or have an out of body experience to know what I'm talking about.

No matter how far I've resisted or fought the truth because of my anger, I know that there is a greater force in the universe which wants to provide and care for me. Do I believe that entity is a parent God? Not necessarily. Do I believe that essence to be boxed into and defined by a man made religion? Not necessarily.

In class it was brought up that these mystical or spiritual experiences are extremely subjective. Yeah? So there are. No matter. The fact that they cannot be meted and measured makes no difference to me. The relationship one has with the divine, mystical, spiritual realities is INDEED extremely personal and private. So by nature it is subjective. This fact makes it no less powerful or real.

My spirit and my spirit life are very real. And through my years I have learned that when I deny the spiritual the spiritual is harder for me to perceive or grasp. It becomes almost unreachable at times, especially when I am angry and blaming God for my unhappiness. But when I reach out and stretch my faculties beyond what are my bodily senses, beyond my intellect and with the use of my heart beyond my emotions, I do feel something there that is powerful at times and mild at times.

I am happy to be alive today. I get to be with my love, Daniel. I am also aching inside because for whatever reason I feel the passing of my grandfather Tom Perry deeply today. I am not sure I have grieved him. He is the dearest person to my heart I have "lost" yet this far in my life. He is the kindest and most generous man I have known in my mortal life. He had such love for my grandmother, and such a tenderness toward her that every woman would feel envious. I think of my mother, how she must feel losing her daddy and I wonder if she has grieved. I wonder if when you lose a parent the grieving never really ends but merely takes different forms.

And then I think of my grandmother, Naomi Perry. This is the woman whom I admire more than any other woman. She is so strong. She is so brave and virtuous. She is also sharp, witty, and funny. Has she grieved the loss of her children's father, the loss of her sweet husband, the loss of her very best friend? At Grandpa's funeral no one was sitting on her right side. There was an empty space on the bench next to her. Was that empty space meant to symbolize Grandpa's presence? I don't know. I couldn't bear the idea of her feeling an aloneness at her right side so I snuck up and sat next to her. She is my favorite person. All through the funeral she laughed a little, cried a little, but mostly she was bearing herself up. She had her left hand in her sister's, and her right hand in mine. She kept squeezing and hanging on for strength. I didn't cry during the funeral because I wanted to be strong for Grandma. In fact I couldn't cry until we got to the grave site, and the guns shot off at the military 21 gun salute, (which was actually 7). Watching the officer hand my Grandmother the carefully folded flag was another tear jerker especially after hearing over the years all the war time stories from Grandpa's perspective and from Grandma's perspective. But I still had my composure.

It was only when I watched my uncles and aunts, and cousins scoop dirt onto his grave with shovels that I really lost it. The sobs came and my face was soaked with defiant, grief stricken tears. Each of his loved posterity who were present had the opportunity to fill his grave with earth, from the homestead where he was raised, the home on Foys Lake he shared with his sweetheart and the cabin his uncle built on Swan Lake, including the soil from the gravesite in the town he grew up in. Each of us had our physical chance to say goodbye and salute him in this way. Each of us had an opportunity for some very real closure.

So the point of my story is the fact that my inability to grieve has been something that's kept me from communicating as often as I'd like with my dear Grandmother. Does it take some humility for me to admit that? Yes, it does. My defiance of grieving for my dead Grandfather, who is alive somewhere else, has kept me from actively engaging with my Grandmother, the living. :-( Not good. Not nice. I hope somehow she understands that my heart is not far from hers. Each of us grieve in our own way and in our own time. I hope I can get it together soon. I don't want to have any regrets. I love you Grandma and I love you Grandpa.

So to connect all of this I want to tell you I had a dream about my Grandfather months ago. He was there in his quiet gentle way and he said goodbye. I felt warm and safe. I felt loved. He didn't say anything but he took my hand and we shared a smile. Then he was gone. This is not the first time I've experienced a visiting spirit in my dreams. But this was the most special. Grandpa just really came and let me know everything is going to be alright. There is peace. There is a togetherness to be longed for in the future. All is well. Love endures life and death.