Issue 23.10
No matter what our religious or spiritual beliefs may be, coming to terms with death is difficult on all levels of our human and spiritual experience. There is a Universal Truth for all of us in the death of every person. This spiritual truth is acutely felt when we are connected to the dying person by a loving relationship.
“Science and religion are both coming to realize this truth: death is merely the experience of changing form in the expansion of awareness,” says Dr. Patty Luckenback. It is a comfort to us to know our loved one continues in another form of life and we hope and pray that one day we will again be united with them in the Eternal Love of God.
How do we perceive and understand death? Can death support us in moving forward in our own life here on earth? Jesus refers to this spiritual perspective of dying as necessary for new birth and growth to take place, when he said: “Unless the seed falls into ground and dies, it will not produce fruit.”
If we look at our lives from this spiritual perspective, we understand dying as a process that gives new life. In fact, reflecting on our own lives we see birthing and dying as a continuous evolving of life itself. We die to our childish ways in order to grow into a teenager, and continue this process through young adulthood, middle age to senior elder. Life is a journey of birthing and dying through the various phases of our living.
This “expansion of awareness” in a different form doesn’t only happen to the dying person, but it also happens to us. Six months after my mother died, a new form of life and “expansion of awareness” began to sprout in my life. I became the spiritual leader of a Unity church in Victoria, Texas and thus began my journey to be a minister. Many people grow and expand in their service to others as they process their grief and then move on in their “awareness” of life offering them new opportunities and sometimes even new relationships.
There is more life on both sides of death — both for our loved one and for us. We discover
that life is a continual process of birthing and dying as we move forward on our journey of loving and living.
Luigi Persichetti is the chaplain for Southern Utah Home Care and Hospice and the minister of the Unity Church of Positive Living in St. George.