Our Dead

GA 261 — 12 May 1920, Arlesheim

Eulogy at the Grave of Johanna Peelen

Arlesheim, May 12, 1920

Now that the priest has escorted this dear soul into the realm of the spirit, I would like to express the feelings of those who are here as mourners:

Your life on earth was one
of difficult trials for your soul.
You kept your experiences
warm in your feelings for God. You saw people suffer
on your path through life,
and you gave yourself up as a sacrifice
to the suffering that approached you. You also saw the joys of humanity.
You nurtured them with love
And turned them to the depths
Of the human spirit with ingenuity. Your gaze carried you to the light
Within you,
From all the confusion of life
Inspiring and liberating. So you found knowledge
From the certainty of feeling,
From the goodness of the will
In your strength of soul. In the last suffering on earth
Your mind was always directed
Towards the light heights of the spirit,
Where peace reigns. You remain with us in spirit,
We who were with you for many years
On earth
United in spiritual striving. We direct our minds
To the soul's gaze and find
You, gentle soul, shining
Through the community of our hearts.

Yes, we found You. It was many years ago, back then You came and united Yourself with us. You had seen the suffering of many people, You had seen the striving of many people, the joy of many people, the work of many people, their disappointments. You came with the sincere feeling that there must be a light that would shine into it, not only comforting, but also enlightening in the confusion of life, in the struggles of existence. Probably more of the suffering had made an impression on your soul at the time than people's happiness. You connected with us, we may say so, out of your Christian heart, Christian mind. Above all, you had learned to find mercy for all human beings, for all human suffering. You had found the way to take human joy not from the surface of existence, but to lead it to the depths of the world's feelings. Your Christian spirit, which accompanied you from childhood until your death on earth, is living proof that what you found in our ranks cannot be un-Christian. You brought us a real, true, justified knowledge of the resting of the human soul in the divine spirit in your deeply feeling soul. You knew you were safe in the nature of Christ, you walked in the nature of Christ, you died in the nature of Christ.

We found you again and again on our journey through life within our aspirations. We found you in the circle of friends on the Rhine, we found you there, how you were sun through the mild kindness, through the loving power of your nature, to the circle of friends there. And then we saw how You, loving and blissful, went to Your life companion's side, and how he, loving and blissful, went to Your side. We stand here with You if the pain of these days can be alleviated a little for him through the awareness that we sincerely and deeply share his suffering with him; he may truly have this awareness. He may have it because we have it from the knowledge of His own nature. We have seen You in the days when You were allowed to alleviate human suffering through Your willingness to make sacrifices in many cases. We have seen You how You were happy when You were also able to direct human joy to where human joy can deepen into the spiritual, into the soul world. Out of this realization of Your nature, we love You and will always remain united with You. You have gone through difficult hours with us. You were united with us in hours when we were confronted with the most difficult, one may say world-historical moments. You then found yourself reunited with us here in this circle, where you were once again able to radiate happiness and spirit through your loving, mild soul. We then had to experience how your soul, tired of the body, merged with earthly life here. But just as your entire mild soul nature rose in a bright vision to the divine spiritual existence, as your heart's strength rose forever to what the Christ had prescribed as a human being on earth, so you were strong and powerful when earthly suffering embraced you. And there will be a deep, meaningful feeling in the soul of those who knew You better, as You foresaw Your earthly end, prophetically foresawing almost to the week when it occurred, spoke about this change in Your Being from the conviction of Your divine origin, from Your consciousness of living in Christ, comprehending death as a change of life, already sensing in earthly existence the worlds of spiritual being. Thus, in your deepest being, you were suffering and yet happy at the same time. We saw a happy man, in deep suffering, happily finding his way out of the narrowness of life into the vastness of the spirit, into the expanses of the soul.

Thus You will live in all of us forever; thus our thoughts will illuminate You when they seek You. And they will seek You in the spiritual worlds that You had aspired to during Your earthly existence, that You had found and will continue to find from this day forward. We will seek You and we will find You because we love You. And You will find, from the consciousness of Your divine origin, from the consciousness of Your life in Christ, You will find the life in which Your soul will resurrect in the vast light of the Spirit, who shines through the world, to whom You have longed to live, in whom You will continue to live.

That which united us with you is not a weak earthly bond, it is the bond that spiritual knowledge binds for eternities. So we will seek you, so we will find you, knowing that you have lived, aware of your resting in the divine bosom of the world, aware of your walking until your death on earth, through your death on earth and further beyond into the paths that Christ has laid out for earthly life, has laid out for the human being, has laid out for all human thinking and all human feeling. You will find yourself resurrected in spirit, and we will see you there as ours in the eternities.

Your life on earth carried you
Through difficult trials for your soul.
You kept your experiences
In a warm feeling for God. You saw people suffer
on your path through life,
you gave yourself up in sacrifice
to the suffering that approached you. You also saw human joys.
You nurtured them in love
and turned them to the depths
of the human condition in a meaningful way. Your gaze carried you towards the light
In your heart,
From all the confusion of life,
Inspiring and liberating. So you found knowledge
From the certainty of feeling,
From the goodness of the will
In your strength of soul. In the last suffering on earth
Your mind was always directed
to the heights of the spirit,
where peace reigns. You remain with us in spirit,
we who were with you on earth for many years
were united in spiritual striving. We direct our minds to the spirit
The soul's gaze and find
You, mild soul, shining
Through the community of the power of the heart.