On the evening of Mother's Day (05/11/25), our dear friend Val Thim transitioned to the spiritual world after a prolonged struggle with Alzheimer's disease. Here is one beautiful vision
(shared in our theology) of what that transition is like:
First: When we are divested of our body, we
gain the use of much greater intellectual light than we enjoy while living in our body, because when we are in our body, bodily and worldly concerns monopolize our thoughts, generating darkness.
When we shed our body, these concerns no longer stand in the way. We become like those who engage in deep thought by withdrawing their mind from their outward senses. From this fact...conditions are much clearer and brighter for us after death than before. When we die, we pass from comparative shadow into light because we pass from the realm of the world to that of heaven, from the realm of the body to that of
the spirit. Surprisingly, although...people can understand these concepts, they think the opposite. They imagine that conditions during life in the body are relatively clear, while conditions during life after shedding the body are dim.
Second: If only they use their reason, they can tell that the life we acquired for ourselves in the world follows us; we live the same life after death.
(Swedenborg, Secrets of Heaven 3957)
We learn something of the quality of that life if we consider
the bright and gentle spirit which surrounded Val, and which many of us recall from the time we spent with her and the things we did together. We rejoice at her awakening to fullness of life in the spiritual world, in a mind and body that can once again do the will of that spirit - even as we grieve this temporary parting.
There will be information coming soon on a Celebration of Life to take place in August. In the meantime, if there is a wish to donate in honor of Val's life, the request it that those donations are directed to Sunrise Chapel in her memory.
