Spirituality and Death
Honolulu Star-Bulletin 1996

I’m enjoying my old age . . . ascending to 82 years of life. I am very much at home with Gray Panthers founder Maggie Kuhn when she commented, "I continue to realize that old age is a time of great fulfillment, when all the loose ends of life can be gathered together."

There are special human qualities that can come to full blossom only with age, for example: spirituality. Old age offers a renewed sense of commitment to one’s own spiritual journey.

I need to say a few words about Spirituality. By spirituality I mean that quality in a person that enables that person to reach beyond him/herself, to surpass oneself. It is that force, that energy within us that calls us to attain deeper understanding, greater scope of action, possibility of becoming more than we are.

Unfortunately there is a great misunderstanding about spirituality. We are told that spirituality is something added to us; something special that we achieve. Not! Rather, spirituality is a dimension within each of us; something that we already are, we are born spiritual. So the secret of becoming spiritual is the secret of unlocking something within ourselves: our love, our compassion, our caring, our freedom.

As I grow older, I experience over and over again how spirituality is fulfilled and completed through religious commitment. The spiritual quest cannot progress very far without becoming religious. It becomes religious when it begins to identify a relationship with God. When this unity of spirituality with religious faith occurs, then spirituality gains another dimension. It now becomes that quality of openness through which God can manifest its power and love. Now, spirituality is self-transformation.

It is instructive to remember that the ancient word for "Spirit" is breath, wind. Sometimes the wind becomes storm, grand and devastating. Mostly it is moving air — always present, not always noticed. Like the wind, Spirit causes things to happen.

I truly enjoy my old age since aging allows me to see and to know how spirituality works in the everyday conditions of life. It seeds, germinates, sprouts and blossoms in the mundane. For example, Spirit enters into the many dimensions of the body, feelings and mind and engages in a struggle to liberate each of these dimensions from its boundaries and limitations toward unity and wholeness. And the wonderful thing is that the Spirit enters into these dimensions without destroying their integrity. The Spirit does not discard the body, feelings, nor the mind. Rather, it includes them and coordinates their movements into a wider unity and wholeness. Spirit is constantly recreating a person. It is the process by which the whole person comes into being.

What happens when Spirit enters into the realm of death? My wife died three months ago. Having lived her dying for seven weeks at home, her spiritual journey ended with a remarkable act of the Spirit. For the last three days of her life, she was not able to speak. Too weak, she was not able to eat. Then suddenly, she slowly raised both arms to embrace me. Sensing that she could not raise her arms more than six inches, I stuck my head into her body. She collapsed both arms around me and I heard myself cry out, "We are eternally one." But what I exactly experienced was a force more powerful than death . . . it was the power and force of Love. God had become a presence that allowed her arms to embrace me!