Good Grief

Just a question this morning. I saw the above photo posted at Watergatesummer.blogspot.com this morning. A line of "angels" protecting the funeral of the youngest victim of the Arizona shooting, nine year old Christina Green.

I am not following the news closely, and just know what I read on Allie's site. Apparently the Westboro Church plans to protest outside the funeral. She reports this line of angels will protect the funeral, separating the expected protestors from the mourners.

This is in response to a hate-filled press release from the Westboro Baptist Church, whose inflammatory statements have upset people far and wide. The press release says, in part , that the shootings "are part of a divine plan. Thank God for the shooter", and far more sickening statements.

A law was actually passed to protect the funeral. The wall of angels and local citizens plan to form a protective wall to keep this ugliness from disturbing those in mourning.

My question? What kind of world do we have, when mourners must be protected from such inflammatory behavior in a time of grieving? And how on earth can people spout such gibberish, in the name of God and religion, and believe they are in the right?

The expression "good grief" came to mind, and I looked more closely at it. Good grief is grief that cleanses and helps heal..............hatred, bigotry, inflammatory statements, have no part in it.

Bless the angels and the citizens of Arizona, who will stand for love and decency and the rights of grieving people to proceed into the funeral of an innocent nine year old girl, untouched by such a display of mental and moral aberration.

Argh.

On NDE's and the Other Side

When I was taking hospice training a few years back, a nurse who was also taking the training told us the best story I have ever heard about a near-death experience. Cathy, being a nurse, explained that when she was first practicing, she was fresh out of school, clinically trained, taught a scientific approach to making sick people well. She is now a highly spiritual person, but in those early days as a nurse, she said she had no real spiritual beliefs and was skeptical of anything that wasnt scientifically based.

Until this happened.

There was a sweet elderly lady on the floor who had been there long-term and whom all the nurses loved because of her lovely disposition. The day came when this lady passed away. The doctor pronounced her dead and left the room. The nurses began preparing for her to be moved down to the morgue. Cathy said they were crying a bit, and also talking and laughing a little about something, not disrespectfully, but in an effort to ease the tension, since they were upset at this lady's passing.

Cathy was tying a tag on her toe when she looked up and realized the woman's face was regaining some color. She ran into the hall and called for the Doctor: "Mrs. P. is pinking up!"

"No way!" the doctor said, rushing back.

But it was true. Mrs. P. was still alive, or had been dead and come back to life. She was breathing. They whisked her away to ICU and Cathy didnt think much about her, busy with other patients. Then one day, about two weeks later, Cathy looked up from her duties to see Mrs. P. walking towards her with a big smile on her face. "I want to tell you something," the old woman said.

Cathy said she must have had a look on her face that totally resisted what had happened. Mrs. P. said, "No, please listen. When I died, I could see and hear all of you. I saw what the doctor was doing, and I heard you and the other nurse saying....." and she relayed to her their exact conversation. Cathy was stunned. But there was more.

"While I was away," the woman continued, "I saw my husband's hand come down from heaven and reach out to me. I placed my fingers on his palm, but just then he withdrew his hand, and told me it wasnt time for me to come yet, there was still work for me to do on earth. I wanted to go with him, I didnt want to come back, but I had no choice.

"While I was not present in my body, I was up above the earth, looking down. Other beings were around me. I think they were angels. I could see how beautiful earth is, and I kept seeing lights arcing up from the earth, up into the sky. Some were small and flickering, some were really strong and powerful.

"I asked what the lights were and the angels told me they were prayers people were sending up, and the strongest ones were the prayers of mothers for their children.

"Then I found myself back in my body." The woman smiled at Cathy and walked away......and at that moment Cathy began her spiritual journey and became a believer.

Oncology 101

June 4, 2010


"I feel like an angel,
burning up
from the inside,"
my son tells me.
We're in the
oncology ward.
Chemo is
drip
drip
dripping
into his arm.
His hair is wisps now,
across his bald head,
like when he was a baby.
His eyes are still
as blue and true.


"I view reality
with perfect clarity,
but I've become aware
of another dimension.
When I look into a flower,
I see the whole universe.
I can hear the earth
groaning in ecstasy
and, in my body,
I can feel, with my heart
of compassion,
myself groaning along with it.
It's a good thing,"
he smiles
his unchanging
smile.


The chemo
drips
drips
drips
into his arm.
My son is an angel,
burning up from the inside.