.
.
May you know that absence is full of tender presence and
that nothing is forgotten.
May the absences in your life be full of eternal echo.
May you sense around you the secret Elsewhere which
holds the presences that have left your life.
May you be generous in your embrace of loss.
May the sore well of grief turn into a well of seamless
presence.
May your compassion reach out to the ones we never hear
from and may you have the courage to speak out for
the excluded ones.
May you become the gracious and passionate subject of
your own life.
May you not disrespect your mystery through brittle
words or false belonging.
May you be embraced by God in whom dawn and twilight
are one, and may your belonging inhabit its deepest
dreams within the shelter of the Great Belonging.
.
John O'Donohue, from 'eternal echoes'
.