The Cycle of Life In the children’s book, Fletcher and the Falling Leaves, Julie Rawlinson tells the story of Fletcher, a young fox living through his first autumn. When the leaves of his favorite tree start to lose their green sheen, Fletcher thinks the tree is sick and tries watering and feeding it. Still the leaves wither and turn brown. When they drop, Fletcher tries to reattach them to their stems. Nothing works. Finally, all the branches are bare. Despondently, Fletcher goes home. At his young age, he doesn’t understand the cycle of life and death and life. All he can see is that his beloved tree is dying, and he…
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Resilience and Spirituality
Resilience in the Face of Hardship and Trauma As a chaplain and spiritual counselor, I work daily with people whose resilience impresses me. Homeless, struggling to let go of one addiction after another, or grieving the loss of loved ones or marriages or jobs, many of them chronically ill or in pain, these people nonetheless find a way to keep on going, to survive another day. They long to feel better; they want to heal. Not that they never experience despair or curse their hunger or the cold. They do. Some days, they want to give up. Some days I want to give up, and my life’s easy compared to…
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In Death Is Life
Facing Our Deaths As a chaplain, I spend a lot of time around death. I talk about death with patients and colleagues. Sometimes it’s easy to forget that dying isn’t a normal topic of discussion for most people. At least people in this country. In many cultures, death is still a common part of life. You see that in the Buddhist story of the mustard seed medicine. In the Buddha’s town lived a young mother named Kisa whose only child died from a fever. No one could comfort her. She carried her son’s dead body around with her as if by doing so she could make him live again. She…
