The remarkable poet Rainer Maria Rilke wrote more than fourteen thousand letters over the course of his life. A few years ago, an editor published a compilation of selected letters entitled, The Dark Interval: Letters on Loss, Grief, and Transformation.
Here is an excerpt from one of the letters that particularly struck me:
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Recently, I visited the Holy Cross Cemetery with Mark Neugebauer. As a deacon for the Archdiocese of Toronto, he has become involved in the service of burying the dead.
While he never expected this to become a key part of his ministry, he was asked one day by a priest to do a committal and he agreed. From there he started doing them occasionally which led him to realize that he really enjoyed it. He asked if he could assist more and was told that a deacon had just died and, in fact, they needed him. Now, he currently does an average of 3 or 4 interments every Monday.
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DYING TO MEET YOU 