Some Thoughts On Grief

TUES., SEPT. 11, 1990, 6:12 AM
FARM, STUDY

Grief is a natural human response to the loss of something or, particularly, someone important in one’s life. The death of someone close is the most common cause of grief… and of grief that is the most long lasting. Today you shall speak of this, and what you have planned is quite appropriate. It is mostly personal story and song, and this is a good style for you. You shall have to judge how human or how spiritual you should be after you hear some statements from those gathered.

So, whether you decide to use any of them or not, I offer some thoughts on this theme. In one sense it is a God-given response, and yet in another it is a selfish human one.

Grief is a spiritual condition when it is the residual of a true love that was a fulfilling part of one’s life. Love is the supreme spiritual response to any aspect of life… and certainly to relationship with another person. When such a loved person moves on out of this life there can be a void that is oh, so painful. Yet know that pain, in general, is an infrequent response, which is a warning signal for some kind of action.

The pain of grief calls for the gradual and appropriate shift of one’s active love to another person, cause, or concern. Love for the deceased need not abate. If just must change “form” to one less active. The active manifestation of love must needs shift, then, to another or others.

There is obviously no set time for such a change to occur. It can happen rather quickly for two central reasons. One is that there was no great love between the griever and the deceased, particularly when the former has little capacity to love, due to spiritual immaturity. The other is that the one in grief is of high spiritual power, is able to give up attachment, and shift active commitment and love to other living persons or causes.

Now I must say that some who remain in grief “too long” do so for increasingly selfish motives. The focus is too much on their own loss, on their own inadequacy without the other person. The revelation is of a spirit too focused on self to give love forth to others in need is a sad human “sight.”

Also, of course, some humans grieve too long because they lack the faith and the knowledge that life continues on, in spirit. There can be, instead, belief that nothing survives, and therefore there will never be relationship with the deceased again. Death is final. No more. Or there can be hope, but little assurance that the deceased is in a “better place,” with still some form of “life.” Another variation of this is the belief that the deceased does live on but because of My judgment of her life she is “consigned to hell.” This can be a true grief-producing conclusion.

Conversely, those who can give up grief in an “appropriate” time are those who know that the spirit survives, in a more extensive conscious form than human. They know that the deceased may be “around” for a time and are alert for signs that evidence continuing love. Most of all, they know that while there is karmic justice and judgment My highest desire is for that person to have learned from the life just completed and to continue on toward spiritual maturity and eventual reunion with Me. And, whatever the consequences they come with love, not hate nor anger.