I did debate whether to open this post with a photo of a cemetery, which seems heavy, but I think it belongs.
As mentioned, I gained a lot from a book that I recently read, and a vignette in the book dovetails with something I had been thinking about. Namely: we are quite familiar with the idea that this world is the antechamber and the next is the banquet hall. No matter how much we struggle here, in the end, it is temporary. In the book, the author’s father takes her to visit a cemetery, when as a teen she is struggling with fears about the future, and he reminds her that in the end, suffering is impermanent, so we should remember not to let our fears get too big.
I had been thinking about this idea a lot with regard to being single. It goes without saying…I want to get married and am trying to get married (and believe I will get married). But in the scope of things — the larger, big-picture scope of things — this lifetime is but a very small piece of the story. It used to bother me much more that I was out of step, that I might have a much smaller family than I wanted as a teen, that younger people are passing me by in terms of life stage. And none of that has become easy, exactly, but its weightiness has lightened. These details — they won’t matter in eternity. What will matter is who my soul became.
This world is just the beginning. That perspective really helps me.
(Photo credit: Igor Passchier/Pexels. Old Jewish Cemetery in Prague)
