My Bible is filled with death. I know there is a lot of death and dying in the Bible in general but all of my favorite passages are bookmarked by funeral prayer cards. Aunts, Uncles, Grandfathers, I even have prayer cards from people who died before I was born. Perhaps this sounds a bit morbid, a bit too depressing, but, for me, it is the best way to keep them in remembrance.

While I do find a great deal of Wisdom in the Bible, often it is within the people I have known that I find the most ardent grace, the most holy faith and the most divine kindness.  So when I seek Wisdom in the Bible, I also find it in the memorial cards of those who helped shape who I am today.

For me, life and death are connected because death is what makes us human. Indeed, death is what made Jesus human too. We are constantly reminded of all the other things that make us human; whether it be our mistakes or our achievements, our joy or our suffering, we cannot neglect death as part of the human experience.

Whatever I believe about that nebulous”…” that lies beyond, through, or around death, I know that like all of the people who have most clearly shown me Holy Wisdom and Divine Grace, I will have to face death.  I do not let that fact frighten me, for in my Bible I see there always life, and death, and…something more.