I have probably quoted this before; it comes from May Sarton’s “At Seventy: A Journal”. However it is well worth repeating. Author Linda S Leonard refers to Heidegger whom she calls her spiritual father.
Time is like an ever-moving spiral, he suggests. The future continually comes toward us but it meets us with our past at each moment of the immediate present. Each time this process happens we are confronted with mysterious new levels of our being. We must meet the unknown future by bringing to bear everything that has been shaped by us in the past.
This strikes me afresh, particularly in the context of understanding more of people who have died. And it also fits with our “Living Questions” course, where we examine the hard questions of the Christian faith.