Recently, I sat at
the hospital bedside of the last grand elder in my life. We call her Mama
Cleopha and often refer to her as a healer and sage. Her Essence
was, in those moments, as clear, feisty, wise and compassionate as they were
when I visited her for a summer in the islands a the tender age of 12.
Her passion and commitment to holistic health and spirituality laid many of the
bricks founding my life and work today.
In that Bronx
hospital room, Mama asked me, “Why did you become a minister?” She
went on to challenge me with her eminent wisdom, “I want to make sure you
understand what it really is.” I stood before her staunchly dressed,
minister’s stole in tow. Only an hour before visiting, I officiated a graveside
Life Tribute for a family who was saying farewell to their elder aunt and
sister. So, I met Mama’s challenging inquiry but I was entirely
unrehearsed.
Being present
with Mama Cleopha brought my awareness to the familiar feeling of bodily death
and the first time I became so well acquainted. To share that moment with
you, I offer an excerpt from my first and soon to be released book, Honoring Our Loved Ones; A Universal Path
for Dying, Grieving, Healing and Living Now;
“The first time the
presence of death smacked me awake into life, the awakening did not last very
long but, unbeknownst to me, this ministry was born. It was the moment I
sat beside my grandmother only hours after she left her physical body. A
softly lit familiar bedroom in her quaint home. There were so many days
and such poignant childhood moments I’d accumulated in that room, even in that
very chair. And yet, in that moment there was only the presence of
Grandma’s still body and the absence of all I’d known of her before that very
stoic moment.
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| Grandma, Rosemerry Kinsey Happy Birthday! August 30th Celebrating your song, fierce love, passion, laughter and more. Selah. |
Not immediately,
but incrementally thereafter I began open to the lessons of death.
Grandma was clearly not gone from me although her body was no longer
functioning. Somehow, more real than her body was the feeling I held of
her, the unspeakable awareness of her presence.
That experience was
never easy to articulate and less to understand. Today I know that it was
the beginning of the call to honor the sacred lessons of death and celebrate
the now-ness of living.”
Since that day, in
the years that followed, I have stumbled in and out of the lesson painfully as many
elders patiently guiding and watching over me. Often emerging from my
blunders wiser and ever grateful for some deep current of loving energy that “put
me back together again”, I chose to demonstrate my gratitude with the actions
of my life, hence ministry.
Vividly recalling
the painful residue of my past riddled with childhood abuse, poverty, heart
break and self-sabotage, I felt compelled to answer Mama’s inquiry as
truthfully as possible. Once we were alone, I replied, “Well, I became a
minister because I once had an experience of life that left me feeling
broken. And I believed that something was deeply wrong, inherently flawed
about me. Something, deep within transformed me and my life. I want to
share that ‘something’ with the world. And there is nothing more
important to me- there is simply nothing else.”
At this point,
despite the curtain dividers, I was aware of the other patient in the room
listening to our conversation. Mama’s body was not strong but she nodded as
best she could. You could find her in the eyes- it was the essence of all
of her alive in those eyes, untouched and feisty as always. She used her
eyes to probe me, to reel me in and I let her. She replied, “Yes,
ok. But here’s the thing- your life is never broken. You
understand?” I did understand and I continue to get deeper
understandings of her statement and intense presence with me in that
moment. And now I will share with you the gift I’ve received from Mama,
those I’ve lost before her and the families who have allowed me to lead them spiritually
in the face of death.
The pertinent
question we are all facing is actually not whether there is life after the body
dies. That is merely a distraction from our here and now reality.
The pertinent and burning inquiry is this; Are you really present to your Life
while you are living it now? Osho, the Indian mystic and spiritual
teacher, said it this way, “The real question is not whether life exists after
death. The real question is whether you are alive before death.”
And
that says it all.
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| Mama Cleopha A life unbroken. Shining even now. Ashe! |
Blessings of peace and profound wholeness to you,
Reverend Sala
www.honoryourlovedone.com
revsala@honoryourlovedone.com
www.honoryourlovedone.com
revsala@honoryourlovedone.com
845.200.0036
