Have you ever looked at something amazing, beautiful or inspiring and had whatever it was that you were looking at or hearing just come alive inside of you? Have you ever felt the absence of love inside of you and then compared it to a time when you felt the pure love of another for you and realized that the feelings that come at times like those are like sacred moments that are hard to describe for someone else unless they too have had the same experience? Have you ever held something or someone so precious to you that letting go seemed like a part of you was now missing? Have you ever held someone so pure and precious and totally incapable of caring for themselves that you realized for a tiny moment you were what preserved the gift of life for them - - like a new born infant? Imagine if you will being able to hold and care for a newborn infant that never grew old and never stopped needing the constant love and nurturing that made it possible to sustain that life. In a way, that was what it was like to know Ben. Holding him, touching him, caressing him, kissing him and just being able to look at him seemed to confirm that life itself was so uniquely precious that you were holding the gift of life itself in your arms. He was somewhat deformed and yet he seemed perfect in every respect. He was unable to speak and yet he conveyed a sense of being and purpose that could not be expressed in words. He could not see and yet it was as if holding him allowed you to see through his eyes and look at things we can't see with our mortal eyes - things like love and
the purpose of life and the eternal nature of the soul. He could not touch or sense touching, yet the act of holding him or touching him was like being given a momentary gift of being able to feel in a very physical way his spirit and to know that he was aware of being loved and wanted.
So Ben was life-changing - and life confirming - not by knowledge you come by in a book or from a teacher, but from the very source of life itself, from God the Eternal Father. How fortunate we all were to know Ben, even if it was just for a moment in time. Thank-you Heavenly Father.
