Darkness deserves gratitude. It is the alleluia point at which we learn to understand that all growth does not take place in the sunlight.
~ from UNCOMMON GRATITUDE by Joan Chittister
Rebecca's baptism just moments before her death exemplified the existential bridge from private to universal suffering. That water, flesh and blood blessing fell like a stone into a still lake, sending out ripples of grace through Rebecca to everyone, and from everyone to her, from and to the heart of all creation in God...To love in the presence of death is to cultivate humus, the ground that brings new life. And the ground is God, ever new.