Over a couple of days five-year-old Micki buried two beloveds — her elderly rat in the back garden and her great-grandfather in the cemetery. 

“Grandad John,” she prayed at his funeral Mass, “I miss you very much now you’ve gone to heaven. My rat, Rosie, died too so will you look after her please? I love you Grandad.” 

Micki captures our belief that death is not the end but that the person lives on in a different, transformed and unknowable way. “Life is changed not ended.” And the five-year-old, along with theologian Franciscan Ilia Delio, knows that cats, rats and other beloveds share life after death however and wherever they are in the mystery of God.

It’s the “in-between time” when we deal with the dead body that is the theme of the April issue — the work of mercy, burying the dead. Along with Christian writers, we asked friends of other faiths to share what they do when a person dies, the customs they follow and how these express their beliefs. This magazine offers a range of accounts outlining different spiritualities and ways of preparing bodies and of accompanying the dead. A common thread is the respect the living give to the dead and the care taken to bury or cremate with dignity, prayer or ritual. Of interest too are the descriptions of how the faiths think of what happens after a person has made the final surrender of life into death.

Easter gives wings to our Christian belief in the risen life — the life beyond this familiar one. We reenact in symbol, ritual, reading, music and food our great faith stories. 

While we traverse the misery of Jesus’ arrest, torture, execution and burial, weighted with memories of similar events happening to innocent people today, we hope fervently that goodness will always flourish. 

While we weep with the confused and traumatised disciples and equally with families torn apart by violence in the world, we commit to life-supporting ventures. 

Like the women seeking the tomb in dawn-darkness to tend Jesus’ dead body for the last time, our sadness germinates into practical kindness, respect, reconciliation and resistance to death-dealing. 

Like the women, we’re caught in the exquisite alchemy of Jesus’ incredibly liberating resurrection. So we bury our dead in this Easter spirit. We feel the gap they leave among us, we’re awed by the courage of their last breath, we give them to Earth and we trust in the communion of Love.

We thank all the contributors to the April issue who shared generously their spirituality, ideas, opinions and skill in writing, art, poetry and craft. 

And as is our custom the last word is of blessing.

Editorial. Tui Motu InterIslands Magazine, Issue 203, April 2016