Because of the rapid succession of holidays now upon us – Hanukkah, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and the New Year - November and December may feel like unending days of prolonged remembrance.

Gratitude has the power to release our heart and cleanse our spirit.

God directs our mind and actions in many ways when we pray for wisdom and insight.

When we're seeking rather than searching, we're about something deep and intentional.

God is with us as we grieve - as we remember, as we memorialize, as we live a life of rich, unbroken heritage in the love of those now lost to us in death.

There's perhaps no experience in all of life more atonal than grief.

The almost surreal fatigue of mind, body, and spirit that engulfs us when one we love dies often lingers longer than we'd like to think.

Likely most of us have heard or read well-intentioned expressions of sympathy couched I "grief speak" that did little or nothing to comfort us.

We live in a society that easily conforms to convention, especially when someone dies.

I'm struggling to untangle the complex emotions at the heart of a complicated grief. I realize that what I'm really feeling is empty.

This story of productivity, change, destruction, and rebuilding is a kind of metaphor for our lives as we grieve the death of one we love.

As I’ve continued the final clean-out of my mother’s house over the past week, I’ve gone again and again to the toolbox for a hammer, a screwdriver, or some other task-specific equipment. There’s a bit of deconstruction – pulling out wall hooks, taking apart beds, unscrewing a few things permanently installed – that are usually part of emptying a space. Every time I open the box and reach for one of my father’s tools I smile and think of his strong conviction that everyone should have “a little tool kit”.