I shall never forget a most vivid pastoral encounter that I had. There was a fine older member of the church who was terminally ill with cancer, and since he would never be able to come and meet me, I went by his home to meet him. Although we had never met before, I suppose my role prompted him to get right to the central issue of his concern at that moment, which was with the whole experience of death. He wanted to know what I believed lay beyond the experience of dying. He was concerned about guilt and several other matters of unfinished business, and although I was young at the time and had not yet myself been initiated into "the fraternity of the grievers," I did my very best to respond to him honestly and felt it was one of the most significant and poignant human encounters that I hav…