Lord, make us instruments of your peace

[Juan Cruz]

A friend, whose mother died recently wrote me..

quote:

I really want to ask you, seriously, if you really believe in God, and how you then visualize that entity. If you don't want to answer that, its ok.

She also asked me to say more, about my belief in life after death.

Yes, I have new user name. Please use only this one for me, thanks. "The old man is dead." lol

Yes, I believe in God.

I'm reading the best brief English introduction to Buddhism - from Huston Smith's "The World's Great Religions" (formally titled, "The Religions of Man").

Buddhism: sublime, beautiful, true ... but alas, for me, too impersonal to be my creed.

I believe in a personal God because of the undeserved favor I've experienced in this life. To me, life feels like a gift from someone who loves us.

It does not feel like a gift from someone who wants it to end (or must accept it ending) - but rather is wanting to, and able to, take us to another level of personal relationship - like a human love that's really working.

I am rather a Platonist (again too impersonal as a creed) who sees all earthly and cosmic reality as a sign of heavenly realities - shadows on a cave wall of what's going on in the light of truth.

I don't visualize that Giving Entity at all. Certainly not as a male-ish Father. Rather I perceive and experience manifestations of the Giver everywhere. I rather actively seek out new and novel intimations of Divine presence and reality and favor everywhere - like a fisher seeks for a catch. I've learned the best way to catch glimpses of Divinity is to love. If we do that, it's like fishing in a hatchery!

The Divine-obsessed brother from Assisi was a great fisher of Love and revealed his techniques in a prayer:

Lord, make us instruments

of your peace.

Where there is hatred

let us sow love;

Where there is injury, pardon;

Where there is discord, union;

Where there is doubt, faith;

Where there is despair, hope;

Where there is darkness, light;

Where there is sadness, joy.

Grant that we may not

so much seek

To be consoled as to console;

To be understood

as to understand;

To be loved as to love.

For it is in giving

that we receive;

It is in pardoning

that we are pardoned;

And it is in dying that we are

born to eternal life.

Amen

Edited February 27, 2005 by Juan Cruz

[Juan Cruz]

this response from a close friend

- who usually does not talk about faith issues at all

(but acts them out continuously)

quote:

[she] is in a place right now where she wants/seeks/thinks she needs visible, concrete images of a God she can wrap her arms around.....or who can wrap arms around her.

I think Faith is a gift from God that grows within us .....and in part allows us to accept the support of our brothers and sisters as coming from God.

I think God sends angels into our lives - when we need them most.

We just need to recognize them when they come.

The prayer you sent her seems exactly right for her circumstance.

I hope she can see that in thoses beautifully expressed thoughts.

YOU are an angel in my life.

[dmiller]

quote:

I've learned the best way to catch glimpses of Divinity is to love. If we do that, it's like fishing in a hatchery!

:D-->

Great analogy! No limit to either the fish or glimpses of Divinity caught.

[Juan Cruz]

replies

quote:

Well, sigh...that was very poetic and uplifting, thank you, Juan.

quote:

So, not to put you on the spot, but do you have any belief that we see people again, in some form, after death?

yes, I do..

life this cool probably doesn't end

love this precious needs further development!

quote:

Also did you ever read Stranger in A Strange Land (Heinlein)? I read it, of course in the 60s, and do intend to read it again now to see what I think. I liked the Thou Art God philosophy.....

I grok.

I might re-read that simultaneously - then we could discuss

[Juan Cruz]

from my friend

quote:

You probably don't believe in them, but I think a psychic could put S....'s mind to rest.

I've heard psychics tell people that their loved one is around them, that the loved one is at peace, etc.

Seems S... is in great turmoil.

subsequently (sensing that my friend's intuition, if not her specific recommendation, is correct)

-- to S...

Subj.: Your loved one

is all around you...

She is with you and watching over you.

She will be your guardian angel.

I believe she is experiencing ultimate bliss

her deepest (perhaps even unknown) heart's desires....

Her peace and joy are unimaginable to us.

And I think a great love from her is available to you.

[sometimes the pastoral outweighs the doctrinal.]

Edited February 28, 2005 by Juan Cruz

[excathedra]

very loving and very nice. thank you

[krys]

I wasn’t in for very long before a good friend of mine got “in” and also witnessed to her grandmother. The grandmother took the class and loved it. She thrilled at knowing so much cool stuff at her age (mid 80’s) when having been an RC for that time, she knew nothing.

She hung out with us…went to ROA’s eventually took the Advanced Class etc.She was an exemplary wafer until she became ill and soon passed away.

She planned her funeral and decided to be buried by the RC church and I was shocked!

My friend told me her grandmother never let go of her RC friends and they never knew she wasn’t going to church because everybody went to different masses etc….but she knew that we wafers knew the truth but her RC friends needed the comfort of a familiar ritual….so that’s what she wanted.

Taught me a thing or 2!

[Littlehawk]

Hi Krys...reminds me of tha saying,,,,,,dont get above ya raisin! Life really is small when ya take away all the disguises ain't it?

[shazdancer]

When my father passed away, my mother actually had hallucinations, more than once, that he came into her room and sat on the bed. (We have come to believe that these were Lyme-caused, triggered by the stress of grief.)

My mom takes great comfort in believing that my dad is with her, talking to her. Should I break into her peace to "set her straight" that the dead are not alive now?

Not on your life.

Regards,

Shaz

[Shellon]

Is there life after death?

I just have to look into my children's eyes and see their father.