A Pilgrim on Life's Road

Guidance for the Traveller: A Continuing Journey

Janice Gray Kolb

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ISBN: 1-57733-176-1, 184 pp., 40 photos, 6x9, $15.95
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Other books by Jan Kolb:
Compassion for All Creatures
Journal of Love
The Enchantment of Writing
Higher Ground
Beneath the Stars & Trees ... there is a place
Beside the Still Waters
In Corridors of Eternal Time
Solace of Solitude
Cherishing
Silent Keepers
Reflections by the Lake
The Adventures of Luki Tawdry
Reverence for All Life
Whispered Notes

The resolution of a grief is not a single event, but a journey. When our grief began, our mental, emotional, and even physical processes became impaired. The journey then begins to return us not to what we were, for grief leaves an indelible mark, but to a place of sanity where growth can take place. The destination may never be found, but the journey nevertheless must be travelled.

This book is the last of three by Jan Kolb that have dealt with grief. The first was In Corridors of Eternal Time: A Passage Through Grief and the second, Solace of Solitude: Afterlife Visits. A Pilgrim on Life's Road: Guidance for the Traveller completes the author's wanderings and travels to the place where questions and aberrant thoughts have been dealt with. This does not mean that there is an end to grief. It does mean that grief has achieved a new dimension and now contains elements of resolution. In resolving the many faces of grief we find that new avenues of experience have developed new levels of understanding.

This book describes some of the rest-stops that are helpful in achieving this resolution. The author compares these rests along our travel road to beads on a Rosary. These become the meditational areas of consideration as we travel this road toward quieting the grief that has struck us down. They include discussions and reflections on Devotion, Forgiveness, Imagination, Transformation, Hope, Gentleness, Wonder, Beauty, and Compassion. It also includes a discussion on the final experience of Death.

Like many of life's experiences, grief will not be eliminated or forgotten, but by travelling through the experience in a controlled and meditational way, it can actually become an enhancer rather than a destroyer. The road here presented is well marked, with directional road signs, rest areas, and companionships to help the traveller achieve release from the bonds caused by grief. Help is here. Open yourself to receive that help. True help is not just an opiate for pain, but a well-thought-out plan to achieve goals. In A Pilgrim on Life's Road you'll find that help.

adapted from "A Word In Preparation" by Robert A. Kolb Jr.

ISBN: 1-57733-176-1

Endorsements

"Janice Gray Kolb writes from her heart with honesty and a lack of pretense. A Pilgrim on Life's Road offers suggestions for dealing with grief that feel like they are coming from a trusted old friend. Janice shares the details of her own personal journey and describes how journaling, meditation, prayer, and honoring the sacredness of all life - plant, animal and human - can help one to work through and transcend the pain of grief." Sue L. Peterson

"Enchanting! In A Pilgrim on Life's Road, Janice Kolb takes your hand and walks you through a magic window into the fourth dimension where life extends beyond one's earthly line of vision. The third book in her trilogy on grief, Kolb is now in the calming period of acceptance that life must go on but just because a loved one is deceased does not mean they are gone from our lives.

"Kolb doesn't urge or prod the reader to take this journey (or this view of things), but if you are so inclined, she reaches out to hold your hand and walks with you, telling you her stories of dreams, prayer, connecting with the afterlife, with love as the key factor. She gives you time to reflect by writing your thoughts (she encourages journaling in almost all of her books) and shares her poetry that comes to her in moments of wonder.

"Once again her beloved cat, Rochester, graces the pages of this book (you can feel his presence) and to whom she fully acknowledges, is her guide and angel.

"If ideas and thoughts like this are on the tip of your mind but you aren't sure if you want to 'jump in,' know that Kolb is there already swimming in the luxuriance of her beliefs and you will be safe by her side.

"For those who have read Kolb's other books, this one is a continuance of the others yet, at the same time, all new." Jeanne Quinn, book reviewer for Sage (previously Dignity) Magazine

"If you've lost someone dear to you, you'll find comfort in Janice Gray Kolb's stories and poems. To her, no love can ever die, and no day on Earth can pass without a reminder of the beauty, compassion, and goodness common to all living things." Mike Burnham

"As Jan shares experiences and insights from her own spiritual journey, she shows once again that there are many different roads that the pilgrim can travel. Through her meditations on imagination, wonder, hope and beauty, Jan has provided readers with a guide book and a roadmap for the exploration of the soul." Mark Sardella, columnist for the Wakefield Daily Item, in Wakefield, MA

"Jan Kolb realizes, more than most, that grief and sorrow must be allowed to live in the human heart. She understands that sadness, if deeply felt, will turn into deep understanding. And that, rather than seek 'closure,' we should seek growth, which will strengthen us in time. In Pilgrim, Jan helps us approach that strength." Martin Scot Kosins, author of Maya's First Rose

Table of Contents

The Pilgrim (poem)
A Word in Preparation
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Prayer-Filled Breeze (poem)

Meditation One: Imagination
Love Link
Meditation Two: Wonder
Love Link
Meditation Three: Transformation
Love Link
Meditation Four: Devotion
Love Link
Meditation Five: Hope
Love Link
Meditation Six: Forgiveness
Love Link
Meditation Seven: Gentleness
Love Link
Meditation Eight: Compassion
Love Link
Meditation Nine: Beauty
Love Link
Meditation Ten: Journey's End - Resurrection Life
Love Link
Meditation Eleven: Musings

The Vision (poem)
Rochester Memorial
Love Link
Hymn: Show Me the Way

Excerpt

Imagination for me is essential in all areas of life. It is not separated or excluded but integrated. Imagination has no boundaries and it enlivens and quickens, and through it we can be transported to any place we wish. We can go to anyone we miss or long to be with, be it in the present, past, or future. Its possibilities are endless.

Often I feel I am living in two worlds at once, and actually I am. There have been too many indications and signs that cause me to be in awe to refute this fact. And too, I have prayed to live in such a way after Rochester passed. I knew it was the only way in which I could exist. Perhaps it takes an impact in our lives to awaken us to other realities. Perhaps we were only sleepwalking through life before, satisfied or dissatisfied, but merely existing as people are expected to exist in nice normal ways. This can become one-dimensional with no expectations. Or we live by rules that are set by others which we often do not take time to question in our routine busyness. Perhaps too we do not want to ruffle the waters of our existence by causing disharmony with others who may not live in expectation and searching, but who routinely accept what is considered normal. But I am not normal. Anyone who knows me will tell you that. And so many many others in this world are not living one-dimensionally either. An undefinable something or someone may have touched their souls, or in my case I was changed through the physical loss of someone I loved so deeply. And in the moment that happened I knew I could never be as I was before, nor would I ever want to be. My journey began.

Blue Dolphin Publishing, 2006


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