The Treatise on the Resurrection.
What am I telling you now? The living will die.
How do they live in illusion?
The rich become poor and kings are overthrown.
All changes. The world is an illusion.
Why do I seem to shout?
The resurrection has nothing of this character.
It is truth standing firm. It is revelation of what is,
and the transformation of things,
and a transition into freshness.
Incorruptibility floods over corruption.
Light rivers down upon the darkness, swallowing obscurity.
The pleroma fills the hollow.
These are the symbols and images of resurrection.
They establish its goodness.

O Rheginos, do not lose yourself in details, nor live obeying the flesh for the sake of harmony. Flee from being scattered and being in bondage, and then you already have resurrection. If you know what in yourself will die, though you have lived many years, why not look at yourself and see yourself risen now?

I've clung to this ancient gnostic text for days now since my nephew's death on Friday. I wonder if the writer ever thought that a middle-aged woman from my century would be reading his words aloud as she tried to make sense of things?

The priest at the memorial service today echoed the words of this gnostic writer. At least in my mind, he did. He spoke about the spirit of the young man who was tragically taken from us. He asked the congregation to breathe in deeply, and to breathe out. To feel our spirits, in fact, to feel our spirits mingled with the spirit of God, our spirits/our breath mingled with this young man's, and to consider and remember that part of ourselves that is imperishable.

I haven't been inside of a Catholic Church in years, or any church for that matter, but let me tell you, I am just about cried out today.

When I first came to live in the high desert from Ohio, the land of endless Kentucky blue grass, I was struck by the vividness of any flowers here in New Mexico. When nearly everything else is brown, a rose or a cactus bloom simply pops into the foreground. I mean, you just don't miss it. A daffodil reaches out and grabs you by the collar. I walked around the first spring here with this heightened sense of awareness of any bud or bloom.

In the midst of death, signs of life are striking me like that today.

My neighbor's gangly colt standing on his brand new legs next to his big momma horse in the paddock stands out in sharp relief. A child in a bright red coat and leggings in the parking lot of Whole Foods. Red Dawg's wet nose. The white flowers popping out all over the plum tree by the gate so pretty they hurt.

I inhale, and their sweetness fills my nostrils.

When my former sister-in-law embraces her 17-year-old son's casket this morning with her rail-thin arms, arms that are now achingly empty, my breathe catches in my throat, along with everyone else's.

Somehow, I remember to exhale.

And I vow to myself again to try and live what I had so easily forgotten. To stay awake this time around. Well, as long as I can manage, anyway.