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Easter II
Adam Bittleston
By His strong thought forgetfulness of God,
By His strong love the hatred of good,
By His pure life the bitterness of death,
Are overcome in depths of earth.
Time is no longer empty, through His deed;
In our heart’s beat His living grace awakes;
Into our house the Easter air is breathed
With joy that heals our blood.
Thou makest new our being that from God
Has made the long descent into the dark;
And as immortal brother Thou hast joined
The sojourners of earth.
Adam Bittleston’s Meditative Prayers for Today is available at Steinerbooks.org
http://shop.steinerbooks.org/Title/9781782504672
Dear Friends,
We have some exciting news to announce from our Seminary Directors, Jonah and Patrick! Given the extraordinary situation our congregations are experiencing world-wide, Patrick and Jonah are offering a daily podcast called ‘The Road to Emmaus’ during this Eastertide season. For the next 40 days (with the exception of Saturdays), they will be posting a new audio recording on the platform Patreon under the creator name ‘The Light in Every Thing.’
Patreon is an international platform created in 2013 specifically to connect artists/creators with those individuals who find value in their work and are willing to provide an income stream so they can continue creating. There are currently over 100,000 creators receiving financial support from over 3 million patrons each month. Our Seminary monthly subscription ranges from $3 to $40.
The Road to Emmaus – Episode 1 is open to the general public and available now by clicking this link. Going forward, future podcasts will be available to patrons who are willing to make a minimum monthly contribution of $3. The first podcast will remain unlocked, so feel free to share it with others who you think may be interested.
–Cindy Hindes
In the current situation, we may bemoan that many are dying alone. No one dies alone. One’s guardian angel is always there. And predeceased loved ones also gather to guide the who is one dying across the threshold. From a forthcoming book by Iris Paxino, Bridges Between Life and Death:
…I remember a sixty-seven-year-old patient in the hospital who had had an extremely challenging illness… One day I entered her room, and the first thing she said was: ‘I am expected, you know? I am expected,’ and a smile brightened her grey face. The illness had marked her body; her breathing was labored, and from day to day, the pain became more unbearable. ‘Yes, I am expected,’ she repeated. Her eyes were shining, and a joyful glow emanated from her being. ‘Would you like to tell me about it?’ I asked.
‘It’s my angel. I know it is him. He is so loving; he waits patiently. He stands mostly at the head end, do you see? Here…” she said, pointing to the wall behind her bed. ‘He is so loving … And sometimes I see him in the right corner of the room, there by the window, next to the curtain, you see?… Some days other figures appear in the room. My mother is there below. Oh, it was so long ago that she died …” And you know, she is so young now, much younger than she was then, and so beautiful, so radiant! It is time for me to go. I am expected there. I am no longer afraid; it is only a transition. I know that now.”
…The moment of death is, therefore, never a moment of loneliness. The [angelic] hierarchies receive the deceased person in a sublime ceremony, as that which goes dark in the world of the bereaved shines forth on the other side in a luminous spiritual celebration. For the one crossing the threshold, it is as though they ‘breathe’ themselves out of the physical world. It is a moment of liberation, and they experience an incredible expansion of their being. They look down at their body and realize it is merely a shell they have discarded. Their consciousness in the spiritual world is clear and wide awake; they recognize the beings that now receive them. For the deceased, it is a sacred moment in which their individuality, embedded in the light of an elevated spiritual reality, unfolds within them more intensely than before.