During this week after my mother passed away I have reflected quite a bit. Two thoughts keep crashing into my consciousness. First, death. My mom is not with us anymore. Every morning as I drive past mom and dad’s house I am reminded that it is dad’s house now. My normal day-to-day thought processes that took my mom’s presence as a given are deeply interrupted by the naked reality of death. So I think about death. In lieu of my heart attack three years ago I am revisiting this brutal fact – all of us will die. This stream of thought visits regularly and reminds me of all the ways in which I usually numb myself to the brevity of life itself. I guess when someone close to you dies you get the opportunity to really wake up from the illusion(s) all around. Death comes into focus.

Second, life. My mom left an amazing legacy and in that sense she is still with us. Every day I am reminded of her steady devotion to cultivating a loving presence in this world. In this sense I am re-evaluating what kind of life I am living. This morning I am thinking about Paul’s beautiful invitation,

This past week’s reflections coincided with the most intense week in the Christian calendar called Holy Week. During this week we pondered the death of God on the cross on the day called “Good Friday” and on Sunday we celebrated that death lost its sting because God raised Jesus from the grave.

I don’t want to live a life that is not caught up in the Life of God. I desire a life that follows the contours of Jesus’ life. He is the one that beckons me in this time,