Recently, I spoke with a friend who was lost in grief. This remarkable person has spent a lifetime serving humanity, but he has just lost his soulmate and is feeling adrift in profound grief. He was feeling uprooted, abandoned, orphaned.There are times when grief is so profound we cannot feel the ties that bind us to other people or to life. Grief is a natural process that has its own timing. It can be an insult to that profound process to try to heal grief’s wounds too quickly and superficially with words of consolation.I did not try to sooth my friend with words because it was too soon. Grieving is the medicine that usually heals our losses, not words. That gift comes later, if it is needed at all. I am writing these words to my friend for a future day. I am also writing these words to anyone else who may be temporarily lost in grief. I believe the great lovers of our human family, people like Buddha and Jesus, do not come to teach us what is behind the cosmic curtains. I believe they are teaching us how to be happy and wise on our own journey through all the stages of life. After a time Mythic stories collect around these great teachers. I believe miracle stories are often teaching parables. I don’t believe great teachers come to be worshipped by us. I believe they come in compassion to teach us that we are also beloved offspring of the cosmos. The four gospels do not present us with one consistent story about how Jesus was connected to his source. Matthew and Luke connect Jesus to his source by their mythic narratives of a virgin birth. John tells a different story of Jesus as the eternal cosmic wisdom made flesh. Perhaps the tenderest and most relatable birth narrative is Mark’s. In Mark’s gospel, Jesus is “adopted” by God with words similar those used in ancient coronations of a king, “You are my beloved child, on this day I have begotten you.” In Mark’s gospel, the sky opens up when Jesus is baptized and he hears a voice saying, “You are my beloved offspring, in you I am well pleased.” The Gospel of John discourages any magical interpretation by pointing out that some people heard that same voice thought it was thunder. Religion is about bringing our deepest connections to consciousness that we might feel them. The hope is not only that we will be able to cope with life’s painful beauty. The hope is that someday we can say “yes” to life with its beauty and its tears. Love and grief are two sides of one coin. Love is what life feels like when life’s tide is coming in. Grief is what life feels like when the tide goes back out -as it inevitably must. Our source may be a spiritual creator or it may be a cosmic process. Either way, when we are in tune life can feel like there is a nurturing parent guiding and protecting us. In grief we may feel adrift and alone, but we are still the beloved offspring of the creative principles of life itself. Even our death is a return to the same creative principle that gave us birth. What is left to fear? Even our grief at a lost love ties us to our source and reminds us that the same source that gave us birth is ultimately receives us home. It is too early for such words of consolation for my friend, Today he feels orphaned and alone. But, no one is more loved than an orphan who has been adopted. Adoption means being accepted for who we really are. If others cannot see our beauty it is due to their poverty not ours. I am trusting that, eventually, the storm clouds will part for my friend and he will again feel his roots into life and may almost hear the source whispering in his ear, “You are my beloved offspring, with you I am well pleased.”