In this week’s gathering of the Magdalene Membership community, we explored the question, “What is on the other side of the end?”  Taking inspiration from Isaiah 64, we dove deep into our own experiences of endings and what came after? Or rather, how did we survive them?

Isaiah 64, penned not by the prophet Isaiah himself, but by a disciple of his teachings, identified by scholars as “Third Isaiah,” unveils the confusion, heartache, and sense of hopelessness and lack of direction experienced by the Hebrews as they were released from their exile in Babylon and were returning to Israel.  The home they had once known had been destroyed. The temple had been torn down, obliterating all they thought they had known of their “God” and their relationship to “Him.” The beliefs and practices that had been the center of their existence were no longer.  The slate they were left with was blank and they were forced to be present to unknowing, unbelieving and the feeling of having no guidance to draw from.

Third Isaiah gives expression to all the many layers of bewilderment and in doing so, affirms and validates the experience of the Hebrews while attempting to give them hope in the possibility of something not yet known.

In short, Third Isaiah reminds the Hebrews that in the no-thing (Ain-Sof)

is limitless potential.

When the end has come and we are left with nothing, we can be certain that there will be something on the other side of the end. Getting to that other side, however, is everything but easy! In order to get to the other side of the end, we first have to be willing to let go.  Not just “let IT go,” we have to LET IT ALL GO.  We have to let go of our attachment to everything we thought we knew, thought we believed, and hoped for of our life before the end. We have to let go so much that there is literally nothing left – including (especially) our need to control.

As we are letting go, we have to grieve. We must grieve every loss, every old belief, every past relationship, every goal and every hope. In the grieving, we are supporting ourselves in healing from the loss and inner sense of betrayal that happens as we approach the end. Further, grief allows us to continue our emptying.

We must be fully empty, and fully immersed in the VOID before we can begin to receive anything new. In order to be immersed in the VOID, however, we first have to move through the sheer terror that comes with the VOID – and this is no easy feat! 

As it turns out, our greatest fear is not of death,

but of the possibility that after life there is NOTHING.

This is the fear we encounter as we approach the void.  When we allow ourselves to be fully present to that terror, we find comfort in the state of nothingness. It only in finding this comfort that we can begin to be open to something new.

This is what the Hebrews experienced in their return from exile. In being present with the no-thing, they began to be open to the Mystery revealing itself and to simply being present with what is in this moment. This is where we too are invited when facing the many endings of our lives – learning to be present to what is and simply being present to the mystery of life. This alone, we eventually discover, is really all there is, and it is enough.