Understanding the Beatitudes 2 of 8 by Rev. Teresa Stuefloten M.Div. 3/2/2025

Good Morning! Today I am speaking on the second Beatitude, Blessed are they who mourn, for they shall be comforted.

The Oxford dictionary defines mourn as to “feel or show deep sorrow or regret.” The first thing most of us think about when we hear the word mourn is mourning the death of someone we love, a husband, wife, mother, father, child, sister, brother, aunt, uncle, friend, someone very close to us whom we have loved deeply. I am currently experiencing this kind of mourning. My husband, Rev Mark Stuefloten, who was an assistant minister in this ministry, made his transition to the other side of the veil 5 months ago, on October 1, 2024. He passed 2 months before our 52nd wedding anniversary. We were engaged for about 6 months before, so I count 52 years. This was before the era of living together unmarried, and we had a hard time parting each evening, so we got married so we could be together all of the time! He was a wonderful husband, father, grandfather, uncle and friend to many. He is deeply missed by our family and by many others who knew him, and we are definitely mourning. I am comforted by knowing that he is free of the physical body that had a lung disease for many years. And I am comforted by the knowledge that he is still alive on the other side of the veil. I am comforted by my spiritual practice, where I know the Truth that I am one with him, as we are all one in God. We are never truly apart.

We are all souls having a temporary human experience in this Earth realm and we will all leave the physical body at some point in time and return to the spirit realm. I know beyond a doubt that Rev Mark is doing well. But I mourn the loss of him in my daily life, the conversations we had, the meals we shared, all of the things that constitute a daily life in the physical realm. I have learned that psychologists consider the loss of a spouse as the most difficult loss, and I understand that because it is a loss that affects every aspect of a person’s daily life. I think that the loss of a child would be equally as difficult because of the daily nurturing relationship that was present.

My children and grandchildren continue to mourn the loss of the presence and advice of a loving father and grandfather. They struggle with their grief. It comes in waves. Something triggers it, a memory, a thought, and the tears come. One of our daughters had an experience with her father in a dream where he came to her to talk with her, comfort her, and give her advice. This was a significant and reassuring experience for her, proof that her father continues to live and is doing well on the other side of the veil.

I find solace in my relationship with God and my daily meditation, feeling my oneness with God and all of the spiritual assistance that I have. Rev Mark and I had a practice of meditating together every morning before we went about our day, connecting with our Source of all that is. I still meditate each morning and I invite Rev Mark to join me in meditation, as he always did, and I believe he continues to do so. God, Spirit, the Divine, is always available to comfort and support us in our grief. The office hours of the Divine are always open! We can always turn within in prayer and meditation, asking for comfort in our grief, and it will always be provided. The Divine always hears our cries for relief from the pain of grief and loss. If we will allow it, the Divine can fill our heart with healing Divine Love.

Sometimes, in their grief, people feel that God has abandoned them because of the loss of a loved one. Sometimes people feel that God is cruel for taking a person they love away from them. This is a misunderstanding of the nature of life in this earth realm. Our life in this earth realm was never meant to be permanent. We are souls who are here temporarily for our learning and growth. When our plan for this lifetime is completed and we have done what we came here to do, we leave the physical body and return to the spirit realm. Will people who love us mourn our departure from the physical realm? If we have loved well in this lifetime, then yes, people we have loved, who have loved us in return, will mourn our passing from the physical body.

I mourn the passing of Rev Mark from his physical body. I hoped for more years with him in this earth realm. I am sad that I did not get more years with him in the physical realm. But he had a lung disease that had progressed to the point where it made him quite uncomfortable in the physical body. He had lived bravely with this disease for many years. He was in the hospital and was supposed to come home on hospice. The doctor said 4-6 weeks. Rev Mark died the morning of the day he was supposed to come home, with me sitting in the chair beside his bed asleep. God gave him grace. He was a true and faithful servant of the Divine and he was granted grace. Rather than 4-6 weeks of suffering, he got to home to his true home on the other side. Some call it heaven. His brother, whom he was very close to, had been talking to him for 3 days before his passing, so I know his brother was there to guide him home. And I know he had a joyful reunion with his parents, his beloved Auntie Helen, and all of the other family and friends who went home before him.

I had an appointment with our long-time doctor this past Monday and she told me that she always thought of Rev Mark as “Zen.” He liked to be her last patient of the day, so he always had his appointment in the late afternoon. He said she liked him to be her past patient of the day because he always arrived early and then she was done for the day. She told me that she would come in the room feeling rushed from her busy day, and he would always be sitting there so calmly, Zen like. Even though he had the lung disease, he was always so calm. He always cared deeply about others and would want to know how you are doing. He did not dwell on his own physical discomfort. You would never know that he was suffering. He helped many people in his lifetime and many people were changed by knowing him. His entire life was his ministry, not just Sunday morning. He lived his faith in God. He believed deeply in prayer, and he had a long list of people he prayed for daily. His connection with God was deep and people saw and felt that in him.

If you are grieving the loss of someone close to you, don’t believe anyone who tells you that you should just get over it and be done mourning. Grief has no timeline according to several therapists whose work on grief I have read. The entire first year is said to be difficult, with first times for so many things where there is the awareness and sadness that our loved one is no longer present physically for this holiday, birthday, anniversary, family wedding, birth of a baby, family photo, vacation, all of the significant events of our life. And there is mourning that comes along with this realization, each and every time in the first year and beyond. Mourning can take several years, and that’s okay. We need to honor our own process and take as much time as we need to process our grief. Writing in a journal can be helpful, even writing to our loved one about the events they are not physically present for. And we can talk to them. I look at Rev Mark’s photo and talk to him all of the time. I tell him about what’s happening in the family, and I tell him I love him and miss him.

Sometimes with grief there are regrets that we wish we had spent more time with the person. We regret something we said to the person or the way we acted in irritation, anger or frustration, and now we feel it is too late to apologize. Go within in prayer and meditation. Express your regrets to God and to the person who has passed. God will give you comfort in your grief. And the person you are missing will hear your apology and feel your love. Remember, they are not gone. They are just on the other side of the veil, and it is said that the veil is very thin. They feel our love for them. And, they can communicate their love to us, but we have to be willing to get quiet to feel their love. If we are constantly crying and in emotional despair, we cannot feel the love they are trying to send us. It is essential to go within in prayer and meditation, getting quiet enough to feel the love our loved one is sending. Our spiritual practice is essential to being comforted and healing our grief.

This is why those who mourn are blessed, because they will be comforted by the Divine. The time of mourning is a time when we can draw closer to the Divine, drawing our strength and comfort from our connection with the Divine. That connection is always there, but often we get so busy with all of the things we feel are so important in our daily life that we fail to tune in to the source of our life and everything that is in it: God. The Divine Spirit is right here, within us and all around us. God is not in some far off heaven; God is right here, right now, in every moment. When we are mourning, our blessing is the Divine comfort that is available to us in every moment. We can be blessed on the other side of mourning with a closer relationship with the Divine than we had before.

The break in a relationship is also a source of mourning. It can be a divorce, the ending of a romantic relationship, a break in the relationship with a sibling, a parent, or a friend. Often we get stuck in our anger and resentment, and we allow our emotions to break a loving relationship. People spend many years not talking to a parent, a sibling, or someone else significant in their life. The ego takes hold of the emotion and refuses to let go, finding justification in the other person’s words and actions. The words and actions are replayed in the mind, over and over, reinforcing the feelings of hurt, anger and resentment.

Now, I am not talking about abusive relationships. If you are in a relationship where someone is physically harming you, it’s good to get out of that relationship. We are Divine expressions and we are all are worthy of love. The Divine does not expect us to tolerate abuse. If you are in an abusive relationship, in addition to turning to God for your strength, get help from a therapist and a group that helps those who are being battered. When you turn within for comfort, ask that the people who will help you to get free will come forth, and they will, as you take the steps to free yourself, trusting in Divine support. As humans, we grieve even the ending of destructive relationships, but we will be supported in our grief as we are becoming emotionally healthier, strengthened by the love of the Divine and the assistance of those whose life purpose is to help others out of abuse.

But if you have a broken relationship that broke because of harsh words spoken, often on both sides, pray and meditate on a reconciliation. Send the person love from your heart in prayer and meditation. We are all Divine energy and others can feel our energy. If we are sending love to someone, they will feel it. That can be the opening to reconciliation, where both express forgiveness and allow Divine love to enter into the relationship and be the glue that holds it together. Especially if the broken relationship is with a parent or sibling, if that person dies, do you want to have the regret of never having tried to repair the relationship? We are in relationship with family members in this lifetime for reasons that our soul knows. You can ask in prayer for the path of reconciliation to be revealed to you, and to be opened. Jesus taught love and forgiveness. He told Peter to forgive 70 times 7. That’s a lot of forgiveness. Forgiveness and love are both necessary to repair broken relationships.

If the broken relationship is a divorce, it may not be the right decision to reunite, but forgiveness can still be present. Especially when there are children present from the relationship, it is in the best interest of the children for the parents to have forgiveness toward one another for the mistakes made. A hostile relationship between the parents is destructive to the children. We are learning and growing in this physical lifetime. We will make mistakes. That is the nature of this earth life. And it is part of our Soul’s growth to learn to forgive. The Divine is always there supporting us in letting go of the ego’s hold on negative emotions, learning to forgive and letting go. Ask in prayer for the strength to forgive. Affirm your wholeness. I am a Divine Being having a human experience to learn and grow. When I make a mistake I admit it and make amends. When someone else makes a mistake that affects me, I forgive and let go. I understand that as I forgive, so I am forgiven. I let love guide my life.

Loss of a job is another area of mourning. Even if the job was not our ideal job, the loss still hurts. It feels like rejection. Our ego is wounded. We may spiral into worry about how we will make it financially. How will we pay our rent or mortgage? How will we buy food to eat? Unemployment is not enough to cover our expenses. What will be the source of our survival? A job is not our source. God, the Divine, is our source. A job is only the avenue through which our supply flows to us. The Divine will always supply our needs even when the job is not there. The Bible says God supplies all that even the birds of the field need, so why do we doubt that God will supply what we need? Sometimes the loss of a job is the opening for a better job to manifest. We may have been holding so tightly to the current job out of fear, that we were unwilling to apply for another job. We were not allowing the better job to manifest, so we have to have a loss in order for it to come forth. The job loss is a blessing that allowed something better to manifest. When we have a job loss we can go within, asking for guidance as to what to do next. Where should we apply? Who should we talk to? What should we do? And we can envision ourself in a new job, feeling happy. The Divine will be with us in our mourning of the job loss, comforting and strengthening us, and in our joy of the new job manifesting.

Rev Mark was in a job that he needed to leave due to his health. He had prayed for quite a while asking for the path to a job that would be better for his health to manifest. He was offered a job in a field that was completely new to him, property management. We agreed that he should accept the offer. I had received a message in a meditation a few months before saying that Mark would need to leave the job he was in or we would lose everything. He had received a similar message. Thinking back on that message now, I think his health would have deteriorated if he had remained in the previous job, and he would have died then. Instead, after a challenging time of learning a new profession, with a difficult manager, Rev Mark went on to become a very successful property manager that almost everyone loved. He did have a few people who were never happy, but he considered dealing with them a part of his spiritual growth. And the difficult manager was gone in 2 years. Rev Mark spent 18 successful years in the new profession. Listening to Divine guidance guidance carried him through the transition and the challenges. He mourned leaving the old job where he loved the people, both his coworkers and his customers, and the comfort of a job he knew well. Rev. Mark had a habit of keeping a journal and he would sometimes read his old journals. He discovered that he had written about challenges with the old job and that helped him put the challenges of the new job in perspective. Life in this earth realm will always have challenges. That’s how we grow. Turning within in prayer and meditation is our strength in times of challenge. The Divine is always there to comfort us and help us through the challenges, giving us guidance.

Another source of mourning is when we realize that we have made a mistake that has hurt someone. We can admit our mistake, apologize, and make amends in whatever way we are able. God is always supporting us in growing spiritually, learning to recognize our mistakes, having the courage to make amends, and learning to let go of guilt and forgive ourself. Sometimes that’s the hardest part, but letting go of self-condemnation allows Divine Love to flow in. Forgive yourself 70 times 7! 

Right now, many of us are mourning what is happening in America with our national leadership and the chaos that we see present. We see an absence of kindness and caring. We may feel fearful for our democracy. We see people losing jobs and agencies that protect us being closed. We see leadership acting in a hostile way to leaders of other nations. We see the image of our nation tarnished. We see wealth elevated above decency. We see power given to wealth at the expense of the poor. And we may feel powerless in the face of these challenges. We mourn the lack of humanity projected from those who were elected to protect this nation. But we are not powerless. That is a fallacy. We have the power to act. But we must not act from anger, we must come from kindness, caring compassion and love. To those to whom much is given, much is expected. Luke 12:48 The Bible makes it clear that we are to use the talents and resources we are given to assist others.

We must recognize the truth that all beings are Divine expressions, but when humans act from ego, they are led into seeking false power. God is the only true power. World leaders are not true power. They are temporal power. Jesus rebuked the scribes and the Pharisees for elevating themselves and their power at the expense of the poor and the weak. He was executed in the manner reserved for those considered enemies of the Roman empire. Jesus’ advice is quite applicable to our situation today. It is a true blessing to have Jesus’ guidance. You can attune to Jesus in your daily meditation, attuning to the Christ consciousness that is in him. In Aramaic, which is the language Jesus spoke, he was called Ishua. I call him forth in my daily meditation. Reaching my hand out, I tell him, “I am touching the hem of your garment, Christ Jesus, Ishua. I ask you to be with me in my meditation, lifting me up in Christ consciousness.” I feel a Divine energy back from him, filling my heart and my mind, assuring me he is there with me, within me and all around me.

I would like to read you a quote from a book by Dr. Emmet Fox, a very successful Divine Science minister who lived from 1886 to 1951. He was a minister at the First Church of Divine Science, also called the Church of the Healing Christ, founded in New York City in 1906. The book is titled “The Sermon on the Mount, The Key to Success in Life.” The quote begins:

Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for them that despitefully use you. “Hatred ceases not with hatred,” is here again the theme; now Jesus puts this fundamental truth in such a plain and simple way that not even the youngest child can misunderstand him. Instead of hating him who seems to be your enemy, as the lower instinct impels (humans) to do, you are to love him. For curses you are to return blessings, and hatred you are to reward with good. For those who actually go to the length of persecuting you, you are to pray, definitely and specifically. Jesus says it as plainly and directly as that; and then, in order to meet everybody on the very simplest level of comprehension, he adds: “If you return love for love, what is there out of the ordinary in that?” Nothing, of course, for anyone would do as much. If you wish to make any real advance you must do more. You must get rid of all resentment and hostility. You must change your own state of mind until you are conscious only of harmony and peace within yourself, and have a positive good-will towards all. Quite simply, the Spiritual Ideal is the understanding of the basic fact that good is permanent, omnipresent, and all-powerful; and evil, a temporary, insubstantial belief, without character of its own, which is destroyed by scientific prayer. Thus, what may be called the secret spiritual treatment is not to wrestle with the error, which only gives it further life and power, but to destroy it by withdrawing from it just that very energy that gives it its body. The only existence it has, is that which you give it by temporarily ensouling it with your thought. Withdraw this - and it fades into nothingness…

 Love is God, and therefore absolutely all powerful. This is the scientific application of Love, against which nothing evil can stand. It destroys the evil condition and, if a person is concerned, it sets him as well as you free. But to return hate for hate, curse for curse, or fear for aggression, has the effect of amplifying the trouble, much as a feeble sound is multiplied in volume by an amplifier. Meeting hatred with Love in the scientific way is the Royal Christ Road to freedom. This is the perfect method of self-defense in all                   circumstances. It renders you absolutely invulnerable to any kind of attack. (End of quote.)

So here we have the answer to how to handle the grief and anguish we may feel from the present political situation. Though we may see hateful actions and words perpetrated, we do not want to return hate for hate. This is our opportunity to grow spiritually by returning love for hate. We are working for something, not against something. We stand up for those who are being persecuted, speaking out about injustice. We speak for compassion and kindness. We pray for their persecutors, that they may gain understanding. As Jesus said, they know not what they do. We can support the work through the legal system to protect the rights of those who are persecuted. We can make our voices heard, but not from anger. We speak from love, which is all powerful.

We are currently in the transition period of an ascending cycle of creation, moving from the darkness of the past to the light of the future. Some want to hang on to old modes of power by force, so they resist the change. By doing our spiritual practice, praying and meditating, lifting our consciousness into the light, we lift all of creation and assist in the transition. The more of us who lift up the light with our consciousness, the stronger the vibration of love becomes. There is a tipping point where love and light become the dominant force. Be that love and light.

You are welcome to expand your love and light by joining us in meditation on Wednesday nights at 6 pm Pacific time. This is a guided meditation and you can join in by calling 518-418-1389. We also have recordings of our meditations on our website, communityofinfinitespirit.org and on our YouTube channel.