It strikes me that every one of us, at every age, needs something or someone to hang on to.  This is becoming a well-formed idea in my mind as I think of all the many ways in which we do this,

When my son, Seth was just a toddler he would, quite literally, hang on to my leg whenever we went somewhere.  I was his protector, and his source of comfort.  It was a physical, as well as an emotional security blanket, a leg upon which he clung to, in every new or unknown situation of his young life. 

We hang on to the relationships we can count on, as well as the actions that become our personal habits.  I find myself missing the warm hugs my son lavished upon me for all of his short life.  I hang on to the memory of the physical connection we had.

Now, as I look around me, I see that we, as people, hang on to jobs, money, possessions and so many other things, in an effort to bring security into our lives. 

But life here is not secure.  And no matter how hard we try to make ourselves solvent, or insure ourselves against problems in the future, we really know that it is an impossible task.

The only things we can be sure of, are our deaths someday and the ever present Love of God.  And we need not buy insurance policies or accumulate wealth and possessions to receive that love.  In fact, doing these things too well can interfere with allowing God’s love to be deeply felt.

To quote an age-old hymn, God is our “shelter from the stormy blast, and our eternal home.”  And this love that God gives to us, here on earth, is also felt through the love we give to and receive from others.  It is expressed by the love of a child clinging to his mother’s leg, and in a mother’s memory of this sweet embrace, embedded deep into her heart even long after his earthly death.