what we truly celebrate this season

Sharing what I wrote for a young adult friend facing a deep loss:

Back in college, I read a bit of Paul Tillich, a 20th century theologian, who wrote about God as the ground of our being. That image has stayed with me through the years. It has brought me hope through the losses in my life. 

I am sure you are aware that as a pastor I have been with many people as they have been dying, and I have walked the journey with others as they lost loved ones. I have also been there with my parents and my husband as they were in their last days here. It hasn't made it easier for me in some ways--I would prefer that they were still alive and well. I miss them a great deal. In other ways, I have found some peace because of that sense that God is not separate from any part of our existence. Or to put it another way, we are not separate from God in any part of our existence.

The deepest awareness I have is of a conversation (too shallow a word, but it will have to do for now) constantly, eternally unfolding, moving towards the other with great care/concern (again, too shallow, but the word love has been overused) for what is best for the other, and mutually receiving the other's care/concern for self, and moving towards the third with, and receiving, that same care/concern. This is my deepest sense of God--a mutual reciprocity, a reciprocal mutuality in community, seeking to ever expand that care, concern, and community.

This may seem too nebulous to offer comfort and hope, but where I find it is that God is always reaching out to us seeking to help us be able to know that we participate in that very mutuality. The ground of our being is that very thing--the ground upon which we walk, the grounds upon which we build relationships, the grounding of all our hopes and desires. Whether or not we are aware of this ground, it is the basis for our very life. Think of the sharing of the air we breathe, and further than that of the dust we share with stars that came into being first after the Big Bang, but since have collapsed or exploded. They still exist within us. The purpose of it all, the grounding of it all, is living, moving, being in mutual reciprocal relationship and community, seeking the best possible for the other, and receiving the same from them.

In that light, there is no way that I am ever separated from anyone, especially from those with whom I have the closest relationships. They are a part of me from the beginning, now, and to the telos--the end or purpose of all creation. As I think of my Mamma, Daddy, and Jeff, as they are now, they are standing closer in a way to ground zero, beholding with joy the very source of relationship and community in their own life, seeing the purpose and hope for all that has been, is now, and is yet to be. This doesn't mean that I don't miss them. I do. It does mean that there is no way that we will ever be truly separated.

This is what we are really celebrating at this particular season--that the ground of our being is not separated from us, and has chosen to live and move in the midst of us, and some day we will all know how much we are truly and deeply one community.