Sympathy

 To have sympathy with another is to share what it is that they are going through.  It is to share the emotions that they are dealing with.  It is to feel their emotions yourself as they are doing.  To have sympathy with another is to share the lose another feels.  We all have moments of understanding with another, the losing of another when they have lost somebody who they felt close to.  Often this is a loved one, such as a child taken before their time.  It is a loss that causes deep emotions and as they grieve, we are said to have sympathy.  We cannot feel the pain that they are going through, but we share their loss and give our sympathy.

  This may be a giving of healing of the pain that another feels, or it may be a hollow form of words needing to have something to say.  We give our sympathy as an inadequate stating of the obvious.  “You have my sympathy,” one says, which means very little but is all one can give at the time, as an attempt to share the pain of loss.  When another soul losses their physical presence of someone, who was close and cannot be replaced.  This passing leaves a void in the life of the mourner, which can never be filled and by them receiving sympathy it somehow takes away the hurt in their heart and makes it easier to bear.  It doesn’t of course, but this shared emotion is all we can do.

 What is really happening here is that the departed has lost its physical presence and they can never be felt again, but in reality, the spiritual presence remains.  It is there for all time as long as we remember them.  They exist still when we keep the memories and photographs to remind us.  We still celebrate their birthdays and by these simple acts we keep alive their presence.  They still live in our hearts and minds.  People will send cards of sympathy to express their sharing of the loss and to help to keep alive the memories of the dearly departed.  The more sensitive souls may even have felt their presence as in reality the passed person comes close and shares the moment.  It is often felt that there is a true meeting of minds as the two souls meet again and from the two worlds their souls reach out to one another.

  There is almost a physical contact between them.  It seems as if the departed soul is trying to prove that they are still alive and are happy living in the Summerland.  They come to share the sympathy of each other’s loss and for a brief moment they do.  ‘God’ does not create us simply to abandon us when we leave the physical world.  ‘He’ is not part of that throwaway society but makes channels and enables for contact to occur until we are both able to meet up again in that Spiritual state of being and share our love again.  That love should never be lost in the departure of the physical body but kept alive by sharing moments together.  The lighting of a candle is a symbolic action of this and brings us closer.  ‘God’ maybe felt too as this love is ever lasting and brings peace to troubled souls.

 Saturday, 20^th March 2021