Brian’s Reflection: Tuesday, March 6, 2012

A Thought for a Lonely Death-Bed

If God compel thee to this destiny,
To die alone, with none beside thy bed
To ruffle round with sobs thy last word said
And mark with tears the pulses ebb from thee,--
Pray then alone, ' O Christ, come tenderly !
By thy forsaken Sonship in the red
Drear wine-press,--by the wilderness out-spread,--
And the lone garden where thine agony
Fell bloody from thy brow,--by all of those
Permitted desolations, comfort mine !
No earthly friend being near me, interpose
No deathly angel 'twixt my face and thine,
But stoop Thyself to gather my life's rose,
And smile away my mortal to Divine ! '

Elizabeth Barrett Browning, poet; she was
born on this date, 1806, in Durham, England


May none of us ever have a ”lonely death-bed”! We ought each to die with loving friends around us.

The Episcopal Church is not in the presumptuous habit of creating “Doctors of the Church”. SO I will take it upon my self to designate Elizabeth Barrett Browning as such!

From my point of view, a person as illustrious and as spiritually wise as a “doctor of the church” would certainly know the utter truth of these lines:

No deathly angel 'twixt my face and thine,

But stoop Thyself to gather my life's rose,

And smile away my mortal to Divine ! '

I’ve spent 45 years as a disciple of Jesus and of His Heavenly Father of Unconditional Love. Elizabeth has “nailed Him” ….. and could there be a more appropriate phrase, given the glorious mythical symbol of the Cross as the ultimate symbol of Divine Love?!

There is no “deathly angel” between us and God. She has got it right.

There is no hesitancy of God’s to stoop to meet us. She has got it right.

Our human life is indeed a “rose” … think of Mary as the “rose ‘ere blooming” … and think of each of us as a reflection of the Theotokas, the “Bearer of the image of the Divine”. She has got it right.

There is no vengeful God; that is a creation of faithless souls. Never would the God of Unconditional Love not smile upon us and welcome us home. She has got it right.

Hail Elizabeth Barrett Browning: Doctor of the Church!

Brian+