Moments that define spirituality

Moments that define spirituality
Story Highlights
Artists, writers, thinkers recall flashes of understanding

Sitting with a dying friend opened a window in one person's mind

A parent's forgiveness and love was encounter with mysterious force

Making his peace while facing cancer, author is grateful for banquet of life



(Oprah.com) -- A window opening. A glimpse of the ungraspable. A sudden surge of love ... or hope ... or awe. We asked artists, writers, thinkers, and doers to recall the flashes of understanding that took their breath away.

Elizabeth Lesser: Co-founder of the Omega Institute and author of "Broken Open: How Difficult Times Can Help Us Grow"

I've been a spiritual seeker my whole life because I have been acutely aware of death my whole life. When I was a little kid, I lay in bed at night and wondered, 'Who will I be when I'm no longer me? Where will I go? Does it all just end?'

As I grew up, the fear of death was my closest companion. It encouraged me to find a spiritual teacher and help start Omega Institute 30 years ago; it made me become a midwife and had me sit with the ill and dying. It is with me still, as constant as my breath. Our friendship has given me an intense appreciation of life.

I've heard there is a Sufi tradition in which one bead is always missing from the prayer beads to signify the mystery of God's true name -- which is our true name, and the name we will discover, it is said, when we take our last breath.

When my friend Ellen took her last breath, a window opened in my mind for a brief moment. There, on the threshold of life and death, I thought I heard the Name, but before I could know for sure, the window closed, and I returned to the living. Every now and then, especially when I remember those last moments with Ellen, the window opens a crack again, and I hear the Name.
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http://www.cnn.com/2008/LIVING/wayoflife/06/10/o.spirituality.2.u/index.html

Faith, spiritual life, was as natural to breathing to me all my life until I miscarried twins. In my book, For the Love of Jack, His War/My Battle, the defining moment pushing my husband from mild PTSD to full blown PTSD was the loss of the twins. He came home with all the signs of PTSD from Vietnam but had not received help. In one night I lost the twins and my husband, my best friend and God. I blamed Him.

Never before, no matter what I faced in my life had I felt totally abandoned by God. No matter what else I was going through in the few days that passed, that was my greatest burden. How could I be expected to go on one day to the next without God in my life? Yet still I wondered how I could ever trust Him again, reach out for Him, hold His hand and find hope when He just turned His back on me. In my emptiness I functioned automatically but life had been sucked right out of me. My laugh was gone, joy was gone. Everything that made me, me, was gone.

When I returned to work, as always I was the first one in the office before sunrise. As I went to unlock the back door, the sun was just rising. I stood there watching as the sky turned purple. Not just purple but a God sent purple. I had seen many sunrises before but this one was rare. Soon the entire sky was purple and I felt the presence of God return to my soul. It was at the moment I knew He did not abandon me, He did not turn from me, He did not take His hand from me, it was I who turned from Him.

We are creations of body, mind and soul. We are like the Holy Trinity God, the spirit, God the Father and God the Son in the flesh. We need to pay as much attention in our lives on this earth to each of the three because together they make us who we are. To find spiritual peace is to heal the body and the mind more than they could ever heal by treating only one part. When all are joined together, working in harmony, then we find our bliss.


Senior Chaplain Kathie Costos
International Fellowship of Chaplains
Namguardianangel@aol.com
www.Namguardianangel.org
www.Woundedtimes.blogspot.com
"The willingness with which our young people are likely to serve in any war, no matter how justified, shall be directly proportional to how they perceive veterans of early wars were treated and appreciated by our nation." - George Washington