Eric C. Bow

“A lot of Christians … assume that the Kingdom of Heaven means the place where you go when you die — if you’ve been good. But the problem with this interpretation is that Jesus himself specifically contradicts it when he says, “The Kingdom of Heaven is within you” (that is, here) and “at hand” (that is, now). It’s not later, but lighter — some more subtle quality or dimension of experience accessible to you right in the moment. You don’t die into it: you awaken into it” — Cynthia Bourgeault in ‘The Wisdom of Jesus”.

This has tremendous implications.

For me this hit home almost immediately on my Grief Journey. The Kingdom of Heaven is here, now and within me! Combine this with Christ’s words on the cross in Luke 23:43 and Paul’s in I Corinthians 5:6-8, Philippians 1:23, and I Thessalonians 4:15-16 which tell us that when we die our soul is immediately with Christ in Heaven. It means your beloved spouse upon death goes immediately to heaven which is within us here and now and we feel her through Christ within us now and forever.

When Pat visited and kissed me the day after she died, it was REAL! She was already with Christ and within me; so, appearing to me and kissing me was an out of body experience for both of us. It was also a confirmation that the sacrament of marriage had united us as one entity forever.

You would think that grasping all this would take away the sorrow and the grief. Obviously it didn’t. The depression and sorrow keeps periodically returning and I so miss her physical presence. WHY, when Christ promises she is with me though himself? My niece had a ‘truth most true answer’; she wrote: “Because it does – you don’t exist exclusively on a spiritual plane (yet). This is the rest of you (physical, emotional) processing the loss of her physical and emotional presence on a daily basis. Perfectly normal for this to roll over you and for you to feel those losses in a day to day existence.”

“You don’t die into it: you awaken into it,” also hit home. For me it means you grow into heaven by meditation and searching within yourself. For me the proof of this is my feeling closest to Pat and Christ when I meditate during the mass. I appreciate a priest who allows long periods of silence during the service for meditation and thinking on your loved ones. Jesus is calling us to awake and hear him speaking from within “Who hath ears to hear, let him hear” (Mathew 13:9 KJV) Christ is the true word of God and He is within you now.

You don’t have to wait to see your departed loved one because Heaven is within you and she is also (in the arms of Christ) within you. You do have to listen to that voice within and use your mind’s eye. “… blessed are your eyes, for they see: and your ears, for they hear” Matthew 13:16 KJV.

Serene light shining in the ground of my being,

Draw me to yourself.

Draw me past the snares of the senses,

Out of the mazes of the mind,

Free me from symbols, from words

That I may discover the signified:

The word unspoken in the darkness

That veils the ground of my being.

-Byzantine Hymn

.

Often as I wake in the mornings I see the journal Pat is keeping in Heaven. “Is it real, or is it hallucination?” is not the issue; it makes no difference. For me the journal is real — answering my questions comforting me and enriching my life.

Today, Pat’s morning message to me written in her journal:

There is no being called; God does NOT take us; He accepts us. Give up this idea that there is NO place for you in Heaven. I am here and preparing our place in Heaven.

You love me royally, as I love you,

seated together in our garden Kingdom,

keeping up our silent conversation,

clothed in robes of joy of every hue.

Yes, our love was unique and rare. God sees all. He sees how the three of us – you, me, and our quiet love – became the one triune entity we were meant to be. Garden Kingdom, Garden of Eden, Heaven, all three are one; we were headed there from the first.

For us, our royal love has had no parallel:

It rooted, grew, and like a miracle

spread to the garden where in now we sit,

Clothed in the fragrance of God in it.

We are still on that journey to discover the inner self in each other. No there is no one who knows me or you better than ourselves and each other. Please stop fretting. All those “silent conversations,” our quiet love and our always being together saw to that.

And this long miracle is to discover

the inmost me and you,

to nurse no longing for another,

to forge the soul and its desire together

gently, openly and forever.

We will be reunited into the one that our marriage made us; marriage in heaven is a unity of souls in the image of the Divine Trinity. It is Christ Himself not the Bible, who is the true Word of God.  And after all He is in Heaven and married – to the Church. So, there is marriage in Heaven.

Nothing grows but common flowers

outside our Kingdom’s wall.

Here alone the magic lies.

We ask nothing; we have all

Well this was very comforting. Adapting Pat’s 1974 words: I think I could live fairly contentedly through any crisis that might come, as long as I know I can depend on Pat’s presence in me. Pat was and is the only woman for me, and without her I would be all disorganized fragments of grief. Love is stronger than Death. Pat, I love you forever.

Pat got it right from the beginning. She was a very deep thinker and wouldn’t commit to love until she had thought it through. In a letter to me written just before she went home for Christmas 1968 she wrote, “…On top of this I feel an elusive fondness for you that can’t be classified; it’s too strong for friendship and not strong enough for love. Whether I will love you in the future, I don’t know. I think the chances for it are better than the chances against. I like to think of you and Toronto having a large role to play in my present, & perhaps my future. I would prefer you not to mention marriage again until & unless you feel that I can return your feelings equally. Pat. “

She wanted to be sure we were soulmates. About a month after she got back from Ottawa we were kissing good night after a date when she said, “Eric I love you!” After recovering from the shock, I replied “Does this mean you will marry me?” She replied “Yes” That was February 9th, 1969 we bought the ring on February 14, 1969 and were married on June 21, 1969.

In this first anniversary poem, she is firmly placing us on the road to becoming the united, eternal resurrection entity mandated by our sacrament of Holy Matrimony.

TO ERIC
21 JUNE 1970
You love me royally, as I love you,
seated together in our garden Kingdom,
keeping up our silent conversation,
clothed in robes of joy of every hue.

For us, our royal love has had no parallel:
It rooted, grew, and like a miracle
spread to the garden where in now we sit,
Clothed in the fragrance of God in it.

And this long miracle is to discover
the inmost me and you,
to nurse no longing for another,
to forge the soul and its desire together
gently, openly and forever.

Nothing grows but common flowers
outside our Kingdom’s wall.
Here alone the magic lies.
We ask nothing; we have all.

Our marriage and love continued to grow stronger and stronger. Even after death it continues to grow. We are filling Gods purpose to create a trinity – the unity of Pat, I and our love into one in God’s own image to share in the creation process.

1 Corinthians 15:35-54), contrasts our earthly bodies with the splendor of our heavenly (resurrected) bodies, Paul says, “The body that is sown is perishable, it is raised imperishable; it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body”. In short, our resurrected bodies are spiritual, imperishable, and raised in glory and power. Pat dwells in me and I dwell in Pat and we dwell in Christ.

This First Anniversary poem was prophetic. It is so Pat, she had to plan everything out before starting it. It is only in the Grief Journey that I got to where she was when we married – God and Us! No need for Vanauken’s “Severe Mercy”.

What if the earth is a womb, the soul an embryo and death a birth into eternity?  Could it be this is what Christ meant in John 3:3 (KJV) “Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God?”  Our life on earth is our soul being formed in the womb of mother earth and searching for our soulmate to make us whole in the image of God in Heaven. It could also explain why Christ had to die – the cross was His final step in His preparation for assuming his resurrection body, man being reborn into eternity and of course His victory over Death.

Pat was my true love who united with me in the spirituality of sacrifice and oblation that is marriage. Ours was a sacramentally and mystically union. We became true soulmates, our souls directed together by God. We were no longer two but one as God intended.  Our love grew – as Pat said “…our marriage … I thought was getting better & better, and visualized it getting better indefinitely for the rest of our lives. I think the stronger you grow in yourself, the more you can love another person.”  By the twenty year of our marriage we suffered separation trauma when either one was away from the other over night. We had moved into the final trimester of our development for resurrection “and in the dead season / the death of the leaves. / foretells a new dawn / near our thresholds. / Incense rolls towards / the skies from the secrets / of the altars.” – (Untitled poem fragment by Patricia A. Bow 1983?)

Over the years our love grew stronger and stronger and we two grew more alike. It helped that we started out very alike. She started out as a better person than I as well as a happier person. I think I grew both in caring and happiness. But Pat wasn’t always pleased especially when she saw some of my mother creeping around in me. In middle age Pat seemed to pick up my melancholia and self doubt. I’m sorry I had that effect on the beautiful person she was. Pat passed away Saturday, January 7, 2017 at 5 pm.  Now I feel she has peace even as she sometimes shows frustration with me.

The loss of a spouse makes you feel entirely alone and incomplete. The sense of feeling like you have lost an essential part of yourself is both painful and disconcerting. But I believe in the sacrament of marriage where God joins two entities into one and that although, death separates the physical entities, the spiritual entity made by God remains united; half in my heart the other half in heaven. I believe this with all my being; I really haven’t lost Patricia I have gained Christ; I am one with her in the arms of Christ in Heaven and she is still one with me in my heart. Now that should bring closure and great joy, right? So, why am I still grieving? I want her touch, kisses and words now more than ever. The tears are mostly for the loss of these. I rejoice in her PEACE and in the prospect of once again being fully one with her in Heaven.

I believe that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other thing, shall be able to separate us (that is Pat and I) from the love of God and from each other united in Holy Matrimony. And I believe in the resurrection of the body, and the life of the world to come, through our Lord Jesus Christ; who shall change our mortal bodies into a resurrection body, that be like unto His glorious body.

Yes, I believe that Pat and I are not even separated by the death of Pat, since her spirit continues to live with me not yet deceased. And this continues until my death, when we meet again and reunite and loving each other more tenderly than before because we are in eternity. I believe that Pat really does dwell within me and I dwell within her. Her presence is getting stronger every day! Love is stronger than death. I also believe our love is continuing to grow ever stronger.

Every time I am depressed and feeling low, Pat comforts me. She shows me her poems or what poems she was reading, she sends me a pleasant dream, she types a message on that screen I sometimes see in the haze of waking up, she kisses or touches me… How can I doubt she dwells within me and I dwell within her? We will dwell in our place in heaven for ever more. My cup over flows. She is for me the good shepherd’s servant,

I do not have to come all the way to Pat in Heaven, because she is also coming to me. I already have that empty hole in me to let her in. We are still two individuals united into one trinity by marriage and love. Our love is still growing stronger as is her presence in me. Pat is not here physically and that does make me feel lonely but, our most precious memories are still within me and it is easier now to call them up at well. Pat, I love you forever.

He sees me, has seen me and ever shall see me;

His eyes penetrate the very essence of my being

Before the wondrous process of my creation began.

Where can I escape his watchful eye:

Where do I travel to escape my destiny?

I hide in darkness, yet the dark does not hide me,

He is there, he is there to comfort me, to guide my footsteps.

I demand the impossible, I demand divine favour;

“Show me that I’m important,” I cry,

“Respond thou faceless, cold, indifferent master.”

He responds, not for me, for my soul.

He has searched me, known me, known my inner most thoughts.

He leads me out of the valley of death: I drink the honey of truth.

I cry, “Vanity of vanities, all is vanity: a world of depression, a world of joys,

What profit either? One to the other returns; there is no permanence.”

He answers, “Serve me, love me, accept me and my plans.”

Where can I go to escape him; how can I not obey?

He is everywhere, he is everywhere.

I descend into hell and he is there;

I ascend into heaven and he is there.

Hell, heaven, they are the lot of man;

They praise the glory of God’s name.

How can I not obey him? He is within me;

I hear his voice in my pleasure at a deed,

I hear his voice in my discomfort at evil.

How precious are thy thoughts to me, O God!

How great is the sum of them?

Thy Word is my way, the lamp of my feet;

Thy world magnifies thy name!

Come walk with me;

talk with me

of loneliness,

of dying,

the need for crying.

Believe

not to argue

or explain.

Can you relate,

communicate,

bring two brings into one?

I talk of things I shall never see,

kings unborn and the false me,

I open a door here and there,

Is it me that you see;

The me crying out my need?

I am lonely, I am sad.

The music that I play,

is it me;

can I be?

Am I …

a collage of false images and other people’s dreams?

I do not know what I want,

what I will be,

the Mongol khan,

the conqueror,

the meek,

the peacemaker.

Just me alone,

unable to communicate

relate

belong.

The empty void within,

crying to the empty void without.