"Whoever thinks it strange that an unrelated girl lay so close to him at night without being touched by him, does not know that a proper man can restrain himself from everything that he should. Still, God knows that there are not many such men." -- Hartmann von Aue, Iwein

Sweet Thing

Niagara Falls

"Beauty, riches, and honors pass quickly. But a good soul is beautiful in the sight of God and lives forever."

-- from the old Catholic catechism, instructions on courtship and marriage

So how am I doing? Is what everyone wants to know.

I'm doing very okay, considering. I mean, you know, my daughter died, and so I am very, very sad and sorry about that. But I'm not destroyed or falling apart. I'm living day to day, and sometimes I feel okay, and sometimes I feel very sad, and sometimes I feel happy and well. The worst times are the times when I almost (almost) forget about it, and then realize with a start (usually waking up in the middle of the night) that she is gone. But other times, I'm pretty much just okay.

Part of why, I think, is that I've had such long and hard training in grief, loss, and suffering. Another very large part is because I have Carolina with me now, and because I'm out and moving around, with purpose and something to focus on. If I had still been alone in that house when this happened, it would have been much, much worse, once I had gone back and settled back into my isolated existence.

But the main thing is that I really, truly believe what I say I believe. I believe in Jesus. I believe in heaven. I believe Adina is in heaven with Jesus. And I believe that I am going to see her again. I really do.

We got the urn back today. They burned up my little girl and now she's all gone.

I kept looking at her shoes, and thinking about how her little feet were going to be all burned up.

It's what she wanted. Her mother and I both remember her saying that. It just seems so...violent. And so final. Not that leaving her in the cold, wet ground to decompose is really any better.

Yes, I know, I'm not being rational. She's gone. She's not with her body. It's just an emotional reaction, thinking about her tiny little arms and legs when she was a baby, her beautiful, long blonde hair, her pretty eyes....

"And Jesus said unto her, 'I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live.'"

It Is Well With My Soul

I wrote this some time ago, but now it has new meaning. It's easy to say you'll be faithful through anything, it's another to actually do it through the worst of things. Well, losing a child is the very worst of things, and so this is me doing exactly what I said I would do. "Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him."

Horatio Spafford was a lawyer in Chicago, a supporter of Dwight Moody, a successful real estate investor, and a devoted and active member of his Presbyterian church. He met his wife, Anna, who was fifteen years younger than he was, when she was his student in Sunday school class. He admired her immediately, but waited until she was of age before talking of marriage, and paid for her higher education while he waited.

In 1870, their only son died of scarlet fever. Then in 1871, the Chicago fire destroyed his real estate holdings and wiped him out financially. Two years later, he was delayed by business from accompanying his wife and four daughters on a trip to Europe, and the ship on which they sailed was struck by another ship, sank, and all four daughters drowned. Anna was pulled, unconscious, from the water. When she arrived in Europe, she wired Horatio saying, "Saved alone. What shall I do?"

In the midst of his grief, as he sailed past the spot where all four of his daughters had died, on his way to Europe to fetch his distraught wife, Horatio wrote the hymn above:

When peace like a river attendeth my way
When sorrows like sea billows roar
Whatever my lot, thou hast taught me to say
It is well, it is well, with my soul

Horatio and Anna went on to have three more children, but in 1880 they lost yet another son. Their Presbyterian church, where Horatio had long had enemies due to his doctrinal convictions, condemned them rather than supporting them, saying that it was divine judgement. Pharisaical Calvinists still pass judgement on him today. ("Not Well With His Soul")

So the Spaffords emigrated to Jerusalem with a small contingent, founded the American colony there, and spent the rest of their lives humbly serving God and ministering to others in body and in soul.

Jesus, I trust in You

re-posted from Carolina's blog (https://shenandoahglory.home.blog/) Thank you, sweetie.

Death is nothing at all,
I have only slipped away into the next room.

I am I and you are you.
Whatever we were to each other
that we are still.
Call me by my old familiar name,
speak to me in the easy way you always used,
put no difference into your tone,
wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow.
Laugh as we always laughed,
at the little jokes we always enjoyed together.

Play, smile, think of me, pray for me.
Let my name be ever the household word that it always was.
Let it be spoken without effort, without the ghost of a shadow in it.

Life means all that it ever meant
It is the same as it ever was
There is absolute unbroken continuity

What is death but a negligible accident?
Why should I be out of mind
Because I am out of sight?
I am waiting for you for an interval
somewhere very near
just around the corner

All is well.
Nothing is past; nothing is lost.
One brief moment
and all will be as it was before;
we shall laugh about the trouble of parting when we meet again.

Henry Scott-Holland, 1847-1918

Adina Hope

Adina was born eight weeks early, and weighed two pounds. We didn’t have a girl’s name picked out because they’d told us she was a boy, and her mother was alone, because I was deployed overseas. So her mother looked in a book of baby names and found ‘Adina’, which is Hebrew for delicate, which was perfect for this tiny, fragile, exquisitely beautiful little girl. And 'Hope' because...well, for the obvious reason

It turned out to be appropriate in more ways also. Because Adina was born with a heart so delicate and sensitive that it made it difficult for her to live in this world. She was so full of love and compassion for everyone and everything around her that sometimes she couldn’t bear it. Compassion is Latin: com means “with” and passio means “suffer”, so compassion means literally to suffer with one who is suffering, and that’s what Adina did with every person, animal, plant, and even inanimate object which she saw or imagined was hurting. Once she killed a mouse by accident by turning on the dryer when it had crawled into the back, and she broke down as if she’d run over a child. When she was little, she couldn’t eat any meat that still bore any resemblance to the animal it had once been: hot dogs, chicken nuggets, liverwurst—it had to be processed to the point that it no longer bore any reminder that it had been a living thing. We all knew, when the kids were young, that if we saw an animal on the road that had been hit, especially if it was a cat, that we had to try to keep Adina from seeing it. Because although we all felt bad to see such things, we knew that Adina would truly suffer for it, and with it, and that it would stay with her and haunt her.

She grew up but she never changed in that. Every one of you is here because Adina touched you in some very special and real way. Because she made your life better, by giving you a part of her heart: a heart that was so pure, gentle, and loving that once you had seen it and been touched by it you could never forget.

Those of you who only knew Adina as an adult may not know that as a child, she was wispy, willowy, and happy. She flitted around like a butterfly or a fairy. She was fair and ethereal, almost as if she were only living half in this world and half in the other. And indeed, all her life, strange things seemed to happen around her, as if wherever she was, there was a thin veil between this and the other side.

But Adina’s pure, good, kind, generous, compassionate, and loving soul came with a price; and that price was that she lived with a grief and a pain that never completely went away. She felt everything much more deeply than most, and that meant the bad along with the good. Just being alive and aware of all the suffering, injustice, and evil in the world caused Adina grief that, at times, was almost unbearable. And on top of that, she had her own hurts and sorrows just like everyone else does—in fact, she had more than her share; but those, too, she felt more deeply. She had to find ways to cope with that continual pain. Not all of them were healthy for her. But she would always sooner hurt herself than anyone else.

But that delicacy and sensitivity did not mean she was weak. She was delicate, but she was resilient. Like a violet which is stepped on and crushed every day, but each night grows back upright and beautiful.

She could also be fierce, and brave. Especially when she saw someone or something innocent that needed to be protected. Once we were in a pizza place which we had frequented; we noticed that the old guy who ran the place was leering at every young girl who walked by, and Adina walked straight up to him and said "If you don't stop staring at young girls, I'm going to call the police!" and marched off. He tried to get her to come back so he could make excuses or whatever, but she wouldn't have any of it.

Adina deserved better than she got out of life. She deserved a better start than I was able to give her. She was incredibly intelligent, sensitive, talented, and creative; an unbelievably gifted writer and artist, a natural healer, the most loving of mothers, a precious daughter and sister, and the most loyal of friends. She should have gone to an arts school where she could have studied writing, drawing, painting, sculpting, and more things which she never had the chance to discover. She should have published her beautiful stories and displayed her beautiful artwork. Or maybe she should have studied nursing, or some other form of healing, because helping and healing people and animals was her divine gift. 

She should have had much more time to touch the lives of everyone she met. She should have been given as much kindness by those who knew her as she gave to them. She should have had many, many more years with her beautiful daughters, whom she loved more than she loved the entire rest of the world combined, and with her grandchildren, and died an old lady surrounded by as much love as she had given.

Adina never feared death. She believed that it was only a transition to a better life: the beginning, and not the end, a belief which I and her family share with her. Indeed, in her adolescent and adult life, often she wished and even longed for it. To her, it was a graduation, a change for the better. This is why we’ve asked you to wear bright colors today instead of black. Although we all can’t help but feel profoundly saddened at our loss, and it is right for us to mourn it, we are also here to celebrate and congratulate her. 

We all have our allotted share of hardship and pain to bear in this life. Adina has borne hers, and now she is free. She is happy, healthy, whole, and living finally in as much love and light as she always deserved. And she is with her two precious babies, whom she never got to hold or know until now. Be at peace, precious girl: we love you. 

“Jesus said to her, ‘I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live.” – John 11:25

Father we commend our beloved Adina to you in Jesus’s name. We ask you to receive her into your loving embrace, have mercy on her, pardon her offenses, heal her soul, grant her peace, and restore her to us when we, too, come to you in the end.

The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious unto you. The Lord lift up his countenance upon you and grant you peace, now and forevermore. Amen.

My beautiful daughter, Adina, has passed on to a better life. I love you, and I will see you before too long.

On the Road

I'm finally on the road. Picked up my trailer about a week ago, then spent several days getting things in order, figuring things out, etc. Left the area that's been my home for the past decade a few days ago, and truly began my travels. I'm in Michigan now, visiting an old friend; next up to Ontario, to see another, even older one.

So far it's been more like a shakedown cruise than a recreational journey: I'm still learning how everything works, and getting my routines established. But it's coming quickly, and I'm sure I'll be getting much more enjoyment out of it before long.

I'll be staying with my friend in Ontario for a week or so, then heading down to Toronto for the first of the real reasons I'm doing this: to seek encounters with God at one of the churches where He is known to show up regularly. I'll be there until late August.

Because also, Carolina is coming back in late August, and I'm picking her up in Toronto. We spent some time praying about it, and both agreed that we felt the Lord calling us to seek Him and His will for our future together. To seek His will together, that is, not that He revealed that His will for our future is to be together. Although maybe. I'm open to being shown by Him that that is the case. She truly is wonderful to me. But once again, it's not about that, or my feelings; it's about God's plan for our future. "For I know the plans I have for you: plans of good, and not of evil, to give you hope and bring you to an expected end." (Jer 29:11)

There is an obvious question that arises from us traveling together and sharing living quarters, since we are Christians and seeking active encounter with God, so let me answer it clearly but tactfully: No. We are in a relationship, and we have been and will be sharing quarters, because of the unique circumstance in which we find ourselves; but we have a line that we don't cross, mutually agreed upon, and that's that.

Here is the trailer I bought: https://coachmenrv.com/travel-trailers/freedom-express-pilot/19FBS/3826

Control the soul's restless fluctuations by love.
Calm its desires by self-control.
Give wings to its powers of understanding by prayer.
Then the light of your spiritual intellect will never be dimmed.

Love and self-control liberate the soul from its obsessions.
Reading and reflection deliver the intellect from ignorance.
Regular prayer brings the soul into the very presence of God.

-- Maximus the Confessor

I will now call to mind the works of the Lord

and will declare what I have seen.

By the words of the Lord his works are done.

and by his good pleasure justice is done.

The sun looks down on everything with its light,

and the work of the Lord is full of his glory.

The Lord has not enabled even his holy ones

to recount all his marvelous works,

which the Lord the Almighty has established

so that the universe may stand firm in his glory.

He searches out the Abyss and the heart

and considers their wonders.

For the Most High knows all that may be known,

and he has seen the signs of the age.

He declares what has been and what is to be,

and he reveals the tracks of hidden things.

No thought escapes him,

and not one thing is hidden from him.

He has ordained the splendors of his wisdom,

and he is from everlasting to everlasting.

Nothing can be added or taken away,

and he needs no one to be his counselor.

How greatly to be desire are all his works,

and how brilliant they are to see!

All these things live and remain forever

for every need, and all are obedient.

All things are twofold, one opposite the other,

and who can have enough of seeing his glory?

-- Sirach 42

Bishop Barron on The Holy Spirit

"You don't need to read the news. If anything important happens, far too many people are sure to tell you about it."

-- C.S. Lewis