I am not really still grieving! As a Mystic Christian, I believe Grief is actually prayer and an emptying of the self. According to the mystics, grief strippiing us is good news. Because it is only when we are naked that we can have union with our Beloved, truly become One. We can cultivate spiritual disciplines designed to dismantle our identity so that we have hope of merging with the Divine and our departed beloved, God and Us. Patricia Bow comes pouring into the shattered container of my heart. This replenishing of my emptiness is a mystery, it is grace, and it is built into the human condition. I believe! God help me in my unbelief. We are often encouraged to buck up, to get over it, and so to throw out the baby of the slow true process of grieving with the bathwater. Grief will never go away, if we’re really paying attention. It’s part of being awake: we love, and we lose those we love to the erosions of time, sickness, and death (until those we love lose us to the same). To lose a loved one is to be called to come to genuine terms with that loss, or risk losing touch with that in us which loved. And that within us is God!