Holding on and being held…

Happy Memorial Day to all….

I was deeply touched to read about the history of its founding in the days just following the Civil War of this nation. I read about this in the emailed newsletter from Women’s Enews I receive daily. I value much this collection of stories written by women around the world on issues that seem to span what’s on the forefront of the thought of women’s concerns. Check it out if you haven’t seen it yet.

But back to ‘holding on…’

I read about the origin of Memorial Day and thought for a little while what in the world those days must have felt like…..

Mothers having to figure out how to go forward when they’d lost sons in battle.

Wives having to fathom how to move on after having lost a loved one to the same.

Little girls having lost bigger brothers, daughters having lost their daddies.

Surely some women probably lost their husbands and their sons and perhaps even their fathers.

In other words, my first reflecting on what could have been in the minds of the founders of those memorial gatherings was trying to fathom that pang of deep loss of loved ones and how to in fact move forward.

Imagine waking up and you think you’re someone’s wife, sister, daughter, and yet you can’t hug that loved one anymore.

But beyond this initial fathoming of the great loss they all perhaps felt, I was deeply moved that amidst that pain, they’d hold the compassion to comfort one another.

What a true blessing that these women thought to reach out to one another, to offer comfort and compassion toward each other and toward their communities for surely they were all experiencing great loss and great unknowing of how to move on when their whole sense of identity shifted.

It made me think about what was said and done at those gatherings….

Probably they first held each other and hugged each other long and hard.

Probably they each went around and offered something….maybe how they’re each getting through the hours…maybe what each one was doing to ease their pain.

Probably they went around asking one another who needed help and how that help could be provided readily.

Surely, amidst the country’s rebuilding, those very meetings were a source of redefining identity and purpose, expanding their concept of family, of community, of help and support.

I would adore reading some of the diaries of those women and seeing what in fact those meetings comforted. I can imagine each one left feeling a greater connectedness, a greater sense of hope, a deeper awareness of how — even amidst deep pain– their needs were being met.

Which brings me to this moment, in my life, in your life and why I thinking out loud.

Surely each one of us has experienced loss of some kind, maybe not comparable to what some of these women endured post Civil War. But particulars aside, if and when you find yourself having lost or let go someone or something deeply dear to your heart, there is great comfort and healing that emerges from learning how to lean on others, surely, and outwardly express what you may need.

But there is also great comfort and healing that comes from allowing yourself to dive deep within your thoughts and demand to know a greater sense of how the presence of Divine Love is holding on to you at that very moment you feel a deep sense of loss…how it is caring for your every need, comforting your heart, providing for you every moment.

In recent days, loved ones I know have passed, as furry ones of people I care deeply for have passed on as well.

And in some phone calls I’ve shared with these folks the ideas that comfort me when I’ve experienced loss …ideas of the nature of that ever presence of Divine Love that is constantly and continually caring for you at every moment….and I’ve nudged these folks to think about the ways that comfort is being shown and outwardly expressed this very moment.

Beyond the natural pangs of missing that loved one, that relationship…there lies that innate yearning to feel deeply connected to a sense of love…a sense of purpose…a sense of meaning.

That yearning is our innate desire to defend and stand for our spirituality…to cultivate a deeper, greater awareness of it.

Surely in striving to better comprehend the immediate care for us by the presence of Love will help each one of us feel connected to a truth.

Loss of loved ones and loved things is hard. But that sense of pain can also be a moment to cultivate your relationship with the presence of divine Love ever holding on to you this moment and always. And in that awareness, how to discern our thoughts, how to listen for our needs and how to nurture those.

Each and every moment, that divine Love is comforting you and me and all. Sometimes in simply noticing surrounding beauty, other times more tangibly as in the help and care of concerned ones. But there are always ways.

Seek them out. Listen for them. Expect them. Therein will you discern and continue to grow knowing that you are being held, deeply so.

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“Trials are proofs of God’s care. Spiritual development germinates not from seed sown in the soil of material hopes, but when these decay, Love propagates anew the higher joys of Spirit, which have no taint of earth. Each successive stage of experience unfolds new views of divine goodness and love.” (from Science and Health, by Mary Baker Eddy)