Since the horrific news that came out yesterday, and on this memorial anniversary, I’ve seen a number of people share a short passage by Donne, often mistermed a poem, starting with “No man is an island.” I love this passage, as it so perfectly captures life and death and a shared humanity. Thus, I thought I would share the full context of that quote. Donne’s prose comes from a work called Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions, a collection of meditations and prayers touching on death, sickness, and the resurrection. And in here, there is hope. For as we remember we are mortal and will die, we also remember that we are “of one author,” connected intimately, physically, and spiritually in our humanity; and because of this, we also will rise again. Death has no mastery here. As Donne also writes in his “Holy Sonnet X,” death also shall die. It has been defeated. By death, “we get nearer and nearer to our home, Heaven” and to God, “who is our only security.”

Blessings to you and yours,

~Madelyn Rose Craig