Monday, December 24, 2012

Hopeist


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I was recently asked how Dave's death affected my spirituality and this was my response. I thought I'd share it here.


I was an agnostic at best before Dave died. Very scientific, raised by an atheist physicist who abhorred organized religion, I was skeptical (sometimes I think skepticism can be judged as a negative trait, but I think it can be healthy) and approached all of life with a “lemme see the evidence” attitude. 

I was much more open than my dad was, though, and appreciated all the different religions and how comforting they seemed to be for others, but they’d never appealed to me personally, at all. 

Losing my mom to cancer by the time I was 5 and watching my dad drink himself to death by the time I was 28, I had difficulty understanding why life was so hard. I had a VERY hard time with statements like “they’re with God now!” and “God only gives you what you can handle!” and so on.

 I didn’t know what I believed in and I didn’t know what happened to us after we died, other than becoming a part of the earth again (unless we’re preserved and buried in a giant concrete box, of course). 

After Dave died, I was cracked open. My skepticism was softened by my grief and my need to be comforted. I was open to a lot more, not organized religion or a belief in a God, but a desperate hope that I’d see Dave again (even if it meant as a spirit). 

I believe that energy isn’t destroyed and our bodies (including our souls/minds) are energy so I don’t think Dave is just GONE now although it sure seems like it via my senses and awareness.

I believe his energy is now a part of everything else. 

I don’t necessarily believe he sends me signs or visits me. I have no idea if he does or not. I can see certain things that are perfectly normal and explainable and say “that’s Dave sending me a message” and if that helps me, great, but I don’t always fully believe it’s true. 

If I witnessed something truly inexplicable I’d be open to believing, but I haven’t yet. I’m not afraid of it, either, though. I’d like to see a medium one day, just to see what happens, but to be honest, I’d still be skeptical, simply because not everything is as it seems and often times, people are unscrupulous, taking advantage of people who are desperate to hear from their dead loved ones.

I’m completely open to hearing about others’ beliefs about the afterlife. My belief is that I don’t know ANYTHING about what happens to us after we die. I can guess. I can hope, but I’m not convinced of anything, either way. 

I can see how it’s the only comfort one can sometimes find to say to oneself “I’ll see them again one day” or “They’ve gone home to God” or even “It was their time to go”, but they don’t comfort me as they seem to comfort others. I deeply wish they did.

Buddhism, on the other hand, and its focus on the impermanence of life helps me the most. Its focus on understanding more than blind faith really fits into my world view and personality

According to Buddhism, the first noble truth is that life is suffering. It’s unavoidable and normal. This helps me because it allows me to look at the truth and see it for what it is, versus trying to put a pretty, romantic, angel spin on it, which just doesn’t work for me. 

Actually, as the doctors were trying to keep my husband alive (with no luck) I asked my religious friend to pray and I prayed right along with her with a fervor I’d never had before, though I wasn't quite sure who I was praying TOO. I suppose I was simply praying to Dave himself. I believed in him and I had seen over the years how much he loved me. I prayed for our love. If I could’ve prayed a miracle into existence I would have. I was open to believing anything might happen, but a part of me somehow knew I'd lose him as much as I pleaded and prayed I wouldn't. 
 
I might not have religious or even spiritual convictions, but what I do have I have a ton of. I have hope
 
Hope is in the people who turn up when you least expect it and lighten your load when you’re suffering. Who extend a hand to you when you’re drowning. Hope is in the little coincidences that bring you the people and experiences you need to move through the pain. Hope is in the strength that tragedy reveals in us and the unique lessons it provides. Hope is there, it’s just sometimes hard to find, which makes it all the more important to REALLY take note of if it and grasp onto it when it makes itself known. 

Maybe hope is my religion. I'm a hopeaholic. Wait, no that sounds wrong. A hopeist. There we go. I'm a hopeist. 

16 comments:

  1. I had faith before my husband died also, and at times I am angry he was not saved like so many others. I too hate it when people say he's better off with God. But yet, I believe that depending on how we choose to react to these situations, things will work out for our good.I have had experiences that prove to me their is an after life, we are all an energy and depending upon our level of maturity we experience different things. I sometimes believe that it wasn't my lack of faith, but my husband's lack of faith, because it was his life not mine. Yet, I do not blame him, just think he was not there yet. He's left me and he needed to in order to grow spiritually. That is my hope!

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    1. That's a really interesting perspective, Anon, that he needed to go because he needed to grow spiritually. I'll definitely be pondering that one. It's so interesting to imagine that my Dave is on some other journey now, just like I am.

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  2. Love this Cassie! I think I'm a hopeist too. xo

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  3. I can really relate to this post. I was not brought up into a religion, but have been curious about many different belief systems. Like you, Buddhism has probably spoken to me the most...though, in the end, I remain kind of "un-tethered" spiritually. However, since my husband died, I have had what I would call, a lot of "mind" vs. "heart" struggles and debates about what I truly believe. Trying to accept death, with no belief in heaven, or an afterlife, is bleak, overwhelming. It has made me question whether I have faith in "anything". I blog, and this is the one issue that I keep trying to write about, but can never seem to express. Slowly, though, I am starting to let go of whether or not I have to "believe" in anything (with my mind) and am just trying to have faith in what I sense from my heart...things that I "feel" that bring me connection to my deceased husband. I like the word hopeism, though. It feels engaged, and...well...hopeful. Like there is "something" to be hopeful for, even if it can't be defined.

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    1. Yes! I too am trying to have faith in what I sense vs. what I understand, as long as it brings me that connection. It's not an easy shift for me, though.

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  4. Well since you are open to hearing, I will tell you where I am on this...its perhaps the biggest factor in how I am post husband-death.

    There are people out there who give us a bad reputation, but I became a Roman Catholic in my adulthood after a time getting acquainted with Jesus as an Evangelical. I had non believing parents so this was a solitary journey.

    Gosh, there is SO much I could say this part of my story is so thick with history and experience and signs and guidance and unliklihoods and redemptive suffering.

    I loved my h immensely but he was a cranky man who really struggled with life. He was smart and industrious but suffered mightily with chronic depression that manifested itself most often in anger...he was ALWAYS mad and almost ALWAYS mad AT ME. He seemed to want to identify a reason for his sadness (and it would have been too scary to admit that it came from within) and since we married young, he identified me as the cause of his misery.

    I knew I wasnt what made him sad but it was a struggle to be blamed for every mishap every minute of every day. I had long learned to depend on Gods grace to get me through my challenges. I often wondered if I made a mistake and married the wrong guy (surely God didnt plan THIS for the married life I had hoped would be so happy). It was during one of my darkest moments in deep prayer that I received a clear message ( a real consolation) that I WAS married to the right guy and I was pivotal in his eventual salvation.

    Life got much better after that low ebb and hubby did find some happiness and for the first time actually seemed to appreciate having me in his life. I honestly think that my patience, love and tolerance was a gift that God gave to my H to assist in his eventual salvation...without the things I brought to his life, I believe my H would have had a string of unhappy marriages and abandoned kids and those experiences would have threatened his relation ship with God.

    It would take a volume to include all the details, but without a doubt, I am certain that the timing of my husbands death had everything to do with his salvation and he is through purgatory (a story in itself and yes, I believe its real) and on to heaven where he is now a powerful intercessor for me and our kids.

    I have had SO many indicators that fortify this belief...I was even thinking that I really wish I could get a REALLY specific message from beyond but I wasnt going to seek it out, if God wanted me to get a message, He would. THe next day I got a voice mail from a friend and a few days later when I returned her call, I learned that right as I had that thought, she got a message that she felt compelled to give to me. It included specific words (which were not normal in a post death conversation) that I had been pondering. It dealt with the very things I had been most concerned with.

    Seeing my entire marriage and his death from a faith perspective makes all the difference in the world for me. I feel calm, nurtured, successful, and hopeful. I can see that skeptics might tell me that I was a sad abused woman who made this story in my head to salve my misery, but it went way past me and my own thoughts and I am honestly not strong or clever enough to have created an elaborate delusion that would have allowed me to have survived what I did and come out on the other side a
    well functioning happy person.

    I really encourage you on your journey... seek truth & you will find it. In my Tradition, we believe that Truth is so powerful that it took on flesh and walked the earth ("I am the Way and the Truth and the Life") . Much love to you.

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  5. I can really relate to this post. I was not brought up into a religion, but have been curious about many different belief systems. Like you, Buddhism has probably spoken to me the most...though, in the end, I remain kind of "un-tethered" spiritually. However, since my husband died, I have had what I would call, a lot of "mind" vs. "heart" struggles and debates about what I truly believe. Trying to accept death, with no belief in heaven, or an afterlife, is bleak, overwhelming. It has made me question whether I have faith in "anything". I blog, and this is the one issue that I keep trying to write about, but can never seem to express. Slowly, though, I am starting to let go of whether or not I have to "believe" in anything (with my mind) and am just trying to have faith in what I sense from my heart...things that I "feel" that bring me connection to my deceased husband. I like the word hopeism, though. It feels engaged, and...well...hopeful. Like there is "something" to be hopeful for, even if it can't be defined.

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  6. I love that term, Hopeist..I am also skeptical though I was raised catholic and believed up until he died. I just hope that someday I will be with him again.

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  7. I HOPE it's okay that I borrow your new-found "religion". I have been following it for years as a "fallen Catholic" but never gave it a name. Yours is the best description I've heard of for something worth believing in when despair and grief overwhelm. So here's to the new Hopeist cult leader, Cassie!! Thank you as always for sharing your heart and deepest feelings. You truly inspire HOPE for so many!!

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    1. Thank you! So do you!
      Of course it's okay. You've been living it all this time. And doing an incredibly inspirational job of it, I might add! <3

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    2. Awww...thanks hon!! Hopeists Unite ;-) !!!

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  8. I still have faith in Jesus Christ and the Hope He gives me! I am SO grateful that my husband had a relationship with our Savior and that one day we will be together again, forever. God IS good, even through the terrible times, even through the whys, even through the tears, even through the anger, even through the good times!

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  9. Here it is Christmas Day and I am alone in the house (family christmas last night) and I came here to Widows Voice . Why? Because on my third Christmas without my husband I am feeling it is very hard now to talk about the void of loneliness on these days.
    As I was busy yesterday I didn't see this entry.
    Cassie - thank you so much! I too struggle with the "in heaven" concept. I was raised by an agnositic mother, lost three of my family to cancer and then my husband acquired a terminal cancer. When people say things like "gods will" or "trust in god" or "they are in a better place" I just feel so sad.
    I am buddhist.
    After converting to Catholicism in my twenties, leaving in my thirties and studying spirituality, philosophy and psychology for years - Buddhism is the only thing that makes any sense to me now. It is the only thing I can believe in. The basic tenants of compassion for all living things and suffering as a part of our lives makes sense. I too believe - there is an energy from us (anyone read about string theory?) from all living things that moves between us and is not lost to death but changed.
    I want to believe that is true. That my husband is here around me, in another form.

    For anyone whom Christianity or any other religion gives you comfort. I am happy for you.
    I wish I could have understood or believed in that story. I can't .
    But I do believe in hope.
    I see how transformative it is in my life, it was also in my husbands last year. And hope is something we can understand and feel and know.
    Thank you Cassie! Thank you for giving me hope this Christmas Day.

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  10. Come on folks even Jesus died a physical death...

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  11. It was not until I lost my husband this year that I have ever experienced the death of someone close to me. Both our parents are still living.

    Thank you for your post. There was one thing that was said to my daughter and me at the end of my husband's graveside service by our deacon, "This is where hope begins."

    ...and so it does.

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