HUG Corner: Thought for the Week 10/9/17

October 9, 2017

Healing After Loss (Martha Whitmore Hickman)

“I sit on the rich, moist earth, green earth, and draw my knees to my chest. All is not lost. The birds have simply moved on. They give me the courage to do the same.”

 –Terry Tempest Williams

“At this time of year in some parts of our country, we begin to see the birds fly south for a long season. How do they know? How will they know to come back?

The answers are out of our hands. The processes of life go on, irrespective of our knowledge or ignorance. How reassuring that we don’t need to know, that the Creator who set the globes of the solar system spinning does know. And the birds do come back.

Can we extend the same trust to our experiences of loss and renewal? Can we watch birds go, secure in the expectation of their return?

Can we say goodbye to our loved ones – not in the expectation that they will come flying back in the spring, but that, in ways we cannot know, they will continue to be present to us, continue to love us, as we continue to love them?

In the turning of the seasons, I find promise and hope.”

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