At the end of an unusually long day, within the space of just a few minutes, I had conversations with all three of our grown children, with my wife, and enjoyed a few minutes with our two aging dogs–also beloved members of our family. AND. And a news story was on the television featuring a family grieving the loss of a father. I suddenly found myself pondering just how many beings held my heart in their hands (or paws) and just how vulnerable I am in loving them.
I have these people in my life whom I love and who love me. I have these animal loves in my life who bring such joy to me and my family and who allow me to lavish my adoration on them. Is my reality the fear of the possibility of losing them or the abundance of knowing them? They hold my heart and as such have the power of pain and wonder over me.
This can be nothing but abundance, of full on human harvest of heart. No one is allowed to love and be loved, to know the joy of human relationships without also knowing the reality of loss and death. It is, in fact these two things that create the harvest of any field of any farm, of any garden, and yes, of any human heart: abundance of life in union with death. These two divinities are forever married: life and death. No one grieves the loss of someone they didn’t love, someone to whom they had no real connection, because life and death are forever married in love. As strange as it may seem, the griefs we experience today are deeply rooted in life’s loves, and so even grief becomes a strange witness of the harvest.
Bob Patrick
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