The is a massive jumping off point. I'll start with my sidebar: which is that my interest in Buddhism is what lead me back to Catholicism/Anglicanism, better able to see the richness of it, and surprised that the very themes that struck me hardest, already existed in Christianity.
My mother passed away in 2022. It not entirely unexpected (she'd been battling cancer for a couple of years), but it was still alarming and core rattling.
Impermanence has been my mind a lot:
"This fleeting world is like a star at dawn, a bubble in a stream, a flash of lightning in a summer cloud, a flickering lamp, a phantom, and a dream." - Buddha
“We live in a flash of light; evening comes and it is night forever. It's only a flash and we waste it. We waste it with our anxiety, our worries, our concerns." - Anthony De Mello SJ
I'm not a New Year's resolution type, but my birthday's a week into the new year, and it's not hard to reflect on what was and what will be. Considering this past year, Memento Mori is front and center for me. And when you really take that in, it's easier to "rest" in something greater than your constructed self, and the impermanent things of this world. "Who's listening to my art?" "Where will my position land in the new merged company?" "Does my family appreciate me enough?"
In the late morning after my mom passed, my older brother and I went to the store. The young woman at the counter was doing this sort of neo-goth thing and sort of feigning exhaustion and irritation with us. Some part of me wanted to just look her in the eyes and say, "Our mother died this morning. And someday, each of us will die. You know that you're going to die too, right?" I recognized that might've sounded terribly threatening, so . . . I kept that one to myself.
The is a massive jumping off point. I'll start with my sidebar: which is that my interest in Buddhism is what lead me back to Catholicism/Anglicanism, better able to see the richness of it, and surprised that the very themes that struck me hardest, already existed in Christianity.
My mother passed away in 2022. It not entirely unexpected (she'd been battling cancer for a couple of years), but it was still alarming and core rattling.
Impermanence has been my mind a lot:
"This fleeting world is like a star at dawn, a bubble in a stream, a flash of lightning in a summer cloud, a flickering lamp, a phantom, and a dream." - Buddha
“We live in a flash of light; evening comes and it is night forever. It's only a flash and we waste it. We waste it with our anxiety, our worries, our concerns." - Anthony De Mello SJ
I'm not a New Year's resolution type, but my birthday's a week into the new year, and it's not hard to reflect on what was and what will be. Considering this past year, Memento Mori is front and center for me. And when you really take that in, it's easier to "rest" in something greater than your constructed self, and the impermanent things of this world. "Who's listening to my art?" "Where will my position land in the new merged company?" "Does my family appreciate me enough?"
In the late morning after my mom passed, my older brother and I went to the store. The young woman at the counter was doing this sort of neo-goth thing and sort of feigning exhaustion and irritation with us. Some part of me wanted to just look her in the eyes and say, "Our mother died this morning. And someday, each of us will die. You know that you're going to die too, right?" I recognized that might've sounded terribly threatening, so . . . I kept that one to myself.
This is helpful! Thanks, Dr. Beck.