In Repose Blog

Are We Really Just "An Accident of Atoms?"

"If you went out and asked people, “Who do you think has the power to bestow joy and suffering on a person?” the most common answer you would receive is God. The 'father' God of organized religion has become a symbol of how many have externalized their power. This has become so acute that some have rejected any notion of their divinity, instead choosing to believe of themselves as an accident of atoms that perishes at death. The middle ground being trodden by many at this time is the reclamation of All as God, divinity expressed from within. Some people fear that to realize God as being internal would somehow be the loss of God when, in actuality, it is the discovery of God. There is a God and you are a living self-determining expression of it."

Taken from article by Story Waters author of 'The Messiah Seed' and 'You Are God. Get Over It!'

Window Shopping

While walking downtown today I noticed this book offered for sale in the window of a little shop.

The subtitle was: "A Guide to Self-diagnosis for Hypochondriacs"

"Keep Austin Weird" Its our city's slogan. Guess we are doing OK in that department.

"The Gathering" Excerpt 2

"There is something wonderful about a death, how everything shuts down, and all the ways you thought you were vital are not even vaguely important. Your husband can feed the kids, he can work the new oven, he can find the sausages in the fridge after all. And his important meeting was not important, not in the slightest. And the girls will be picked up from school and dropped off again in the morning. Your eldest daughter can remember her inhaler and your youngest will take her gym kit with her, and it is just as you suspected - most of the stuff that you do is stupid, really stupid, most of the stuff you do is just nagging and whining and picking up for people who are too lazy even to love you, even that, let alone find their own shoes under their own bed; people who turn and accuse you - scream at you sometimes - when they can only find one shoe."

From page 27.

The range of emotions in this paragraph is remarkable. I have read it perhaps a dozen times and each time I feel as if I am on a roller coaster of feelings, flung about and yanked hard on my heart.

The paragraph, of course, is really the rephrasing of the ultimate question that faces every one alive...What is the meaning of life, and perhaps, also, why bother?

The first string of words are the jewels here in my mind. They sparkle in the background as the rest of the passage plays out.  On the surface, claiming there is "something wonderful about a death" seems utterly absurd. How can there be anything at all wonderful about death?

But really, isn't she saying, that by experiencing the ultimate loss, she is really the closest to understanding what it means to be utterly alive?

 

"The Gathering"

My husband handed me this lovely book by Anne Enright. I have been reading a few pages before sleeping each night.

I am only on page thirty, but the prose is so tender, so vivid and yet, so subtle, I already find the work remarkable and wish to share it with my readers in the same way that I am reading the book; slowly and carefully, to savor the experience.

I would like to share small passages I find stunning to read. If you have the interest now or later to read the book, please do let me know and come back and comment if you would like.

Passage number one (from the very first page).

"My brother Liam loved birds and, like all boys, he loved the bones of dead animals. I have no sons myself, so when I pass any small skull or skeleton I hesitate and think of him, how he admired their intricacies. A magpie's ancient arms coming through the mess of feathers; stubby and light and clean. That is the word we use about bones: Clean."

I am not a boy, but I adore birds, and I love bones too. I always have. I have a "bone walk" here at our ranch. When I ride, I gather antlers and bones and tie them to my saddle with strips of leather and bring them back and line our little path with the white hard remains of deer, antelope, possum and cow. I even have a couple of llama bones, I think, from the "exotic animal" ranch to my east. The owner of that ranch unceremoniously discarded the dead body of one on the edges of our lot a few years back...just tossed the thing over his fence onto our land. Perhaps he thought no one would notice.

But of course I did. I always notice the bones.

Here is our Cowboy, nearly 6 months old...re-arranging the Bone Walk.

Photo by Candace Craw-Goldman 2008

   

In Repose Book Review, Widow Words

In Repose begins a new feature on the blog and in our Resource Forum at InRepose.com by reviewing our first book, Widow Words by author Marcia Curran, and published by VanderWyk & Burnham 2007.

The book is a thin volume with short listings of "100 simple pieces of advice from another widow." Most pages contain only one sentence or sometimes only a phrase. A few pages have a bit more information.

As I read this book, I thought to myself that actually, the best person to review the title would be not me but perhaps another widow.  Happily my own husband is alive and well, so as I read the book, I found myself thinking about my dear friend Marie who lost her husband not very long ago. I tried to put myself in her shoes as I read Widow Words.

Some advice is common and lovely even for women who are not newly widowed. Number 55 claims "It is never a waste to have fresh flowers." Some advice is purely for a widow. I like the one about buying a new bedspread for YOUR bed. Good idea and one I might not have thought of at all.  Perhaps one of the most poignant to read is Number 84, which suggests to go ahead and take scissors to the outfit you wore to his funeral because, "do you really need that reminder around?"

Alternately touching upon serious subjects such as finances or autopsy reports to more lighthearted thoughts about every day matters, Curran's musings move around subjects easily and naturally, as perhaps the thoughts of any newly widowed woman might.

If I would have any criticisms at all, it would be about some of the rather quaint assumptions about gender roles. Everyone, no matter their sex should know how to use a fire extinguisher or change a smoke alarm battery, for instance. And my friend Marie, who lives on a little farm I am certain would giggle at the suggestion to go ahead and keep and organize the garage tools, or not to worry about keeping the yard up as nicely as HE would have.

Despite that observation, the concept of Widows Words is a very lovely one indeed. Small moments of sharing and understanding delivered in a calm and friendly manner can go a long way in comforting a new widow. This book would make a fine little gift, perhaps tucked into a care basket, for the newly bereaved wife.

In Repose Book Reviews

In Repose has been asked to review books!

As someone who is always thrilled to browse the stacks in a library or happy to be in any bookstore, I am pleased to embark upon this new path.  Our book reviews will be published first as blog entries and then archived in the Resource Forum to add to our ever growing and expanding information collection.

Here are the titles in queue for review:

The Voice Within Premonitions of Sudden Death of Children (Sheehan, Henslee and Hardoin)
Widows Words (Curran)
Final Conversations (Keeley, Yingling)
Being Dead (Crace)

The first three on the list are non-fiction and the last is a novel.  I am looking forward to writing the reviews and reading even more books and sharing my thoughts with readers of In Repose Blog.  If you are a publisher or just an avid reader and have a suggestion of future titles please email requests to  Admin@inrepose.com