Deaths = News!?

FRI., SEP. 12, 1997, 7:12 AM
FARM, STUDY

I’ll comment this morning, a beautiful, cool Fall morning, on death as a focus of news. Your culture certainly has such a focus, with the biggest news stories typically being about the death of some famous person, violent deaths, or actions that could result in death. And the underlying premise is that death is bad and “it shouldn’t have happened”.

Oh, there was that strange, vivid contrast recently – the deaths of Princess Diana and of Mother Teresa. One was young and the other old… one was beautiful, the other plain to ugly… one was a mother actually, while the Mother was thus in a spiritual sense. One was killed in a violent accident, with drunkenness and stalking harassment as factors. The other died just of deterioration of the body.

Both were celebrities, but in quite different ways. Each was an important symbol for many people, for different reasons and a few similar. There was much mourning and remembrances for each. The death of each became the prime overlapping news stories for a good bit of time.

During this time span many other deaths occurred, with many more births. Individuals are important, but only I, Holy Spirit of the Creating and Sustaining God, can see the whole picture of earth life and what births and deaths mean to the continuation of this marvelous web of life.

Of course you can ask… if I’m so powerful and so concerned about this balance why do I allow… and even cause… so many conceptions, successful pregnancies, births, and human lives, with needs that are disruptive and potentially destructive? And why do I allow many lives to continue beyond any apparent usefulness, utilizing resources that encourage imbalance? If I’m really concerned about this why do I let it happen?

These are legitimate questions for one friend to ask of another. My best answer is that I see a lot of spiritual value and spiritual growth resulting from the present “state of affairs”. Also I’ll say that this earth scene was created to be one of contrasts, troubles, and conflicts. There are other realms where… let Me put it… the “news” is of cooperation, love, and joy. My concern is with spirit and spirits, and only peripherally with bodies and, even, minds. And you’ll not be able to “understand” this distinction between the mind which is associated with spirit and the mind which is a function of this physical brain that you have in this body until you actually drop this body and its brain and then re-experience the mind that is a facet of spirit.

In this sense… and it’s an important one… death of the body is a liberating experience. Old age, and particularly old age in this culture with various pollutions that adversely affect body organs, including the brain, can be a time when the mind functions less and less well. This is a form of bondage… of captivity. In your Mother’s last years you saw little evidence of her spirit. She seemed trapped in a deteriorating body, with a deteriorating mind. Her spirit, a strong, rather well-developed one, was liberated at her bodily death. This isn’t part of very many news stories about death.

The death of a person often gives opportunities for others. Mother Teresa, for all of the adulation she inspired was not perfect in how she acted. Oh, she will be missed, but others may carry on her work better than she did… and she knows this.