I like the way this odd little video reminds us of how life and death are intertwined.

Every October many Unitarian Universalist congregations honour their lost loved ones with a Day of the Dead/Samhain/All Soul’s kind of service, it is a tender and beautiful moment of shared sorrow.  Yet I find spring, the season of new life, is often the one which reminds me of how close by death always is.  Perhaps it is the dead voles the cat leaves on the porch, or the smashed snails on the sidewalk, or simply the pace of change as flowers blossom and then fade away.

On grey, rainy days like today, I take comfort in the thought that life arises out of death.  UUs don’t have a common approach to death or the afterlife, being more concerned with life itself, but I personally find solace in accepting that death is a needed part of the cycle of life.  It doesn’t make the pain of loss less, but reminds me that death comes to all, that death opens the way to new life.