Wholly Holistics

Since the publication of my December 2024 column on grief, a number of readers have asked if I’d revisit parts of that piece that they’d found helpful. That particular column concerned holiday grief specifically, as numbers of souls seem to leave the earth during that time. Currently, I’m finding that as the years go by – and not only at holidays – more people I know, many of whom I care about, are passing away, while many more are losing those they care about.

The spiritual path can be lonely at times, especially when you start off. I remember being a kid and feeling so thrown off by what I believed life should be like versus what life actually was that I just assumed I was crazy. It wasn’t until I was in my 20s that I found anyone who thought even remotely similar to me in Neale Donald Walsch with his book, Conversations with God. For anyone seeking a different perspective on Divine truth, it’s a must read. Neale came to me at a pivotal point in my life.

“The opposite of faith is not fear, it’s control.” Read that on a neighbor’s Facebook page several weeks ago and have been percolating on it since. “Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,” is how I want to respond to that statement for some reason. Anyway, is the lack of forgiveness in our lives, self-forgiveness, or otherwise, a misguided effort on our parts to control the uncontrollable? Where am I heading by leading with that quote?