A colleague lost her father over the weekend, and I went to the visitation on Mardi Gras, traditionally the last big bash before Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent. For many reasons I was looking forward to Lent, for Christians the season of sacrifice and penance and/or deeper focus of one's faith, depending on who you ask.
I drove from work to the visitation, and gave a ride to our project manager (I'll call him 'N') because he comes from out of town to work in St. Louis during the week. He had never been to a (Christian) visitation, having come from India as a practicing Hindu. He asked if there was anything he needed to know prior to entering the visitation and it led to a fascinating comparison of different mourning rituals.
N shared with me about when his father passed away in India a few years ago, and that after the cremation he had to throw his father's bones in the river. And that after that experience he no longer feared death.
All this discussion led N to a scintillating line, one that topped any of my own personal preparations for Lent, and one that I'll mull over for the entire season of Lent: "Death is the beginning of all religions."
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment