When we grieve the death of one we love, whether we like it or not we're compelled to remodel our lives.

We're called to think and feel beyond the collective statistics of large-scale events of destruction with reverence for life and spiritual respect for the mystery of death.

No disappointment or betrayal in life has the same brute force, the crushing power to wound us as death.

This week as we again commemorate the events of 9/11/2001, many of us will pause to grieve the people and places and ideals that were lost to us on that horrible, fateful day.

As we grieve we spend a lot of thought energy seeking - but what is it we really expect to find?

One of the most puzzling aspects of grief is the ongoing challenge of seeking.

Grief is our finest, most enduring labor of love - we remember, we honor, we build our life anew for the future.

Grief is perhaps the least cerebral experience in all of life.

In our heart we find our inmost spiritual connection to God.

Our physical hand is perhaps the most tactile part of our body with nerve endings that allow us to feel and touch and sense.

When we grieve, for a while shock protects us from the reality of death and the enormity of our loss. But one day the shock of what’s happened to us – whether suddenly or over time - wears off and life begins to seem a little more real again. When gradually we return more to the dailiness of our life, we sense deep within a challenging imbalance - we’re clinging desperately to the past, yet we’re alive in the present, and at the same time we’re anxious about the future without the one we love. We're especially vulnerable to the inevitable setbacks of our individual grief.

When we grieve most of us easily succumb to anxiety which, at its essence, is chronic worry.