that was very well said, TBG. I wish I could write a poem along those lines, but my creative talents don't lie along that path. However, I found on another message board very uplifting, beautiful translation of a French hymn:

Through the shadows of death,
through pain and suffering,
through the morbid and blackened earth,
throughout the unknown,
It is now the time call on our true selves,
And upon those forces unknown who watch above us,
To lead us into the abyss, and deliver us towards the everlasting.