Dear Catherine,
I am reminded of the shock and sadness of a year ago.
But as I was feeling that sorrow once again--thinking of how much your absence means to us, you seemed to speak to me...
Weep not for me but for yourself.
Stop and look deep within yourself.
I know you have been thinking that if you had been around, things might have been different.
Do you reckon yourself a savior?
Do I need to remind you of that incident when
you would not even give them a ride and then what happened to A.T. You have no secrets up here.
And before you excuse yourself because you were young,
I tell you that was the start of a lifetime of neglect. If you do these things in a green tree, what will you do in the dry?
You don’t want me to remind you of all the times you walked by, failed to act, laughed when you should have cried, leaving this one and that one-- you wouldn’t even know some of the names, or if you remembered, you would too easily rationalize your way out. Did you even think to ask that question “What will happen to them if I do not help?” No. You are too busy asking, “What will happen to me if I help? How much time will it take? Why is it any of my business?” You just pass numbly by. And often in a hurry. Is this a race? Are people hurdles or poles to be avoided.
Do not honor me with words but deeds.
If someone needs to speak, be the ears
If someone needs to hear a kind word, be the mouthpiece.
If someone is sitting alone, pull up a chair and sit down. What makes you think you are too good, so much better?
If someone needs to be discovered, be the perceptive mind, the sensitive soul (that same perceptiveness that makes you so good at finding flaws and faults)
Does someone need to be honored? Be the award.
Is someone wounded? Be the bandage.
Does someone find the world so cold? Be the hearth.
Is someone thirsty for attention? Be the spring.
Is someone exhausted? Be the mattress.
Is someone lost? Be the map.
Is someone in a storm. Be the canopy.
And when someone needs a touch of heaven, say a prayer (and don’t just promise to pray). Get down on your knees, shut out the lights, and pray like you’ve never prayed before, not a quick mumble but as long as it takes-- till your heart breaks.
If someone needs more than you can give, find a professional as soon as you can. Don’t delay. Don’t think too much. Don’t worry about how you might look. Don’t rationalize-- saying that maybe she doesn’t want you to interfere. Interfere. And interfere again.
I am in a perfect place. Don’t worry about me.
Imagine the way it feels when you drive through those first fat December snowflakes, that feeling that Christmas is near.
Or that delicious anxiety before your first kiss, the satisfaction afterwards, that sleepless night spent in replaying it again and again in your memory.
The relief after an extremely hard test is over.
That afternoon in April when the rain has rinsed the last of winter from the air, when you can smell the greens, the pinks, the yellows of spring even though you cannot yet see them.
All good things you feel, the sensations, and the memories of them-- multiplied to infinity and eternity-- that is heaven.
Without bodies our senses are entwined to become something more complex and more receptive to pleasure than is able to be described.
There are countless others, and the congregation only increases our own awareness, our perceptions, our joy.
I have met those I knew before, but I know others, those who were never part of before, as intimately as I could have ever know anyone down there.
Sometimes I feel that we are grander than galaxies, and sometimes I know that we could all fit comfortably on the head of a pin.
Sometimes I feel so overwhelmingly far away from before, and sometimes I feel that there is only the flimsiest of translucent curtains between us-- like those windows that reflect your image when you look into them from the outside while those inside are able to see you-- I feel I could reach through and touch my friend, my brother, my mother.
All reasoning, all understanding, all remembering, all wisdom comes from The Divine Love. How can I describe indescribable love except to say in the crudest terms-- when you plug a lamp into an outlet, there is light, and the lamp has fulfilled its purpose. So it is that I am permeated by The Divine Love so that it radiates through me, through all of us.
In the end, it is all about love. And to the extent that you are connected with The Divine Love where you are, is the extent to which you can generate a measure of it. And generate it you should-- that is your purpose. It is part of whatever destiny The Divine Love has for you.
But don't let anyone tell you that you can love too much, that you can get too involved--
love has no terminus post quem except as to meet and exceed the needs of the Beloved.
And your Beloved is your neighbor, even your enemy, your Beloved is the someone who needs to be loved.
This is the only command that matters, that makes the difference between evil and good-- love one another, for love is the fulfilling of all morality and all virtues. It is the only real proof of the death and resurrection and eternal life and power of The Divine Love.
Do you want to be a savior? Good. You covet that recreative, restorative power to love that way. But know that to save and to lead means to be the last, to be the least.
Not the spires, the arches, the columns, the friezes, the metopes, the sculptures that become the foci of every pair of awestruck appreciative eyes that come into this holy sanctuary, but the foundation laid down in the dirt and the clay and the rubble. That’s where the love is, from where that beauty grows. Be that love, though no one sees you, though no one has reason to remember your name.
And you know how much I loved Starbucks. Pick out the drink and the flavor you think I might enjoy, and share it with someone. Do this in remembrance of me. And in the twinkling of an eye, we shall all be together again.
