Mark Belletini is completing his thirty-seventh and final year in parish ministry. He has served at First Unitarian Universalist Church of Columbus, Ohio, for the past seventeen. He previously served two congregations in California, and was chair of the commission that produced the Unitarian Universalist Association hymnbook Singing the Living Tradition. He is also the author of Sonata for Voice and Silence.
""Mark Belletini brings his tears, his passion and his deeply literate quality of beauty to these reflections on grief. He gives us permission to grieve fully and share our grief as a tribute to our Love. This book will inspire deep conversation among us. It is a gift."" —Laurel Hallman, co-editor, Not for Ourselves Alone: Theological Essays on Relationship “Reading Mark Belletini's reflection on ‘Grief and Animals,’ I thought of Maggie the border collie, who, sensing my desolation when my sister was dying, lavished her attention on me. I read on and broken friendships came to mind. As memories of family and friends and of other kinds of deaths caught me by surprise, I kept stopping to cry and remember and say ‘of course.’ Take your time reading this book. It needs to be savored. It is important for what it will remind you of, and for creating a space and moment in your life to grieve again so you can discover grief's companions, joy and gratitude."" —Mark Morrison-Reed, author of The Selma Awakening: How the Civil Rights Movement Tested and Changed Unitarian Universalism