Category Archives: grief

Clouds (Crowds) of Sorrow

24 Tuesday Mar 2020

Posted by in grief, Lent, Uncategorized

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“give your sorrow all of its due…Elly Hillesum

In taught a class at church in preparation for Lent, I suggested, after Walter Brueggemann, that one path of practice was to take up the ancient practice of lament, of grieving for that which was lost, broken or dead, as a prophetic statement on the way to hope. Little did I know how deeply that is being called for in me in this Lent. Bruggemann says that the practice of grief is counter to denial, and it “summons the city to be fully, deeply and knowingly engaged in its actual life experience.” (Reality, Grief, Hope, p, 57)

Even with that conviction I have not been prepared for the onslaught of sorrows that keep pouring forth in this season: the deaths of people from my past lives–a former student, a seminary companion, a member of my congregation. And there has been what seem like daily losses of the familiar avenues of routine–access to groceries, freedom to move about the city, gathering for worship, the natural friendly embraces on which I rely. Overlying those changes, which range from inconvenience to outright loss, is the loss of trust in what is being said in the media and from “expert” sources. What is true? on whom can I rely? for what?

The presence of the Covid-19 virus among us has exacerbated all those losses with its threat of contagion, contamination and death, I find myself in a group called “elderly,” at risk, and therefore, the loss of the cultural prize of “youth” and its privilege of place. And the threat of disease is real and unknown, hence a loss of a sense of protection and safety for myself, for those I love, for those for whom I pray.

As much as I am enculturated to glide over grief, to “just get over it,” I find myself this fourth week of Lent called to enter into this cloud, or as Rumi puts it, this “crowd of sorrows.” Rumi asks that I welcome them, even as they “violently sweep the house/empty of its furniture.” I am finding again that the Psalmist also lifts a voice, inviting lament to deep and concrete grieving. Both of these teachers demonstrate that this grieving is clearing the path to the Hope that is the final Word.

It is not lost to me that Lenten practice in some communities has often focused on penitence, on personal confession and recognition of brokenness, sorrow for sin, “things done and undone.” And in this crisis of our life and times, I am woefully aware of the ways in which I am more critical, more fearful, more selfish than what I am called to be by living in Grace. That makes me sad. I would have hoped that by my age and stage, I would be more compassionate, more trusting, more full of Grace.

So I grieve! And with the grieving, I stand in solidarity with our world, and its many particular people who suffer in so many profound ways, Rabbi Earl Grollman writes, “The only cure for grief is to grieve…there is no way to predict what you will feel.” I pray my grief–with the Psalms, with poetry, with music, with walking the labyrinth. And I am sure that grief is not the last Word.

I am free to grieve, because I grieve with Hope in mind. Actually that is the endgame of this entire cloudy Lent–there is Resurrection at the end! There are no final defeats! God keeps my tears in a bottle, as I cleanse the way for the Light to arise! I am giving my grief its due, but only its due!

Weeping With Those who Weep

16 Monday Jul 2018

Posted by in compassion, grief, joy, Uncategorized, weeping

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images-1During these hot, hot days of summer, I am needing to listen to the sacred words that call me to “Weep with those who weep.” (Romans 12:15 ) It’s always been easy to “Rejoice with those who rejoice;” everyone likes a celebration. But in my life this is not a festival moment; it is a time of mourning:

  • yesterday the husband of a friend died after struggling for months
  • another friend was diagnosed with an aggressive and rapid disease
  • others are in treatment over a long haul to stem the progression of invasive illnesses
  • two long-time partners have hurt each other and their connection is in peril
  • families across borders have been torn asunder by political and economic forces that are tone deaf to human spirit and blind to the image of God in each living person
  • communities around the world, so many in my state, are trying to dig out, rebuild, re-imagine life after disaster–fire and flood, seeking to discern what is irretrievably lost and what can be held on to
  • faith communities are redesigning themselves, morphing into new modes and mediums which seem to promise new life, yet, of necessity leave some faithful people as collateral damage in their wake

All of these particularities are unfolding in a landscape which for some seem like a strange land at best, a place where the call is to sit down by the river and weep.

Weeping is a holy spiritual practice, I believe. I observe it more internally than with actual salt tears. Yet my heart is attuned to those in real time tears. I have pondered how to weep with them. Many are far away, many need to focus on their task of getting through each day. How can I express my care, concern and solidarity?

I am musing on a few practices that I can use to “weep” as other weep:

  • I can express my sorrow in a way that recognizes that the grief belongs to them, not to me, and express it sparely, authentically, not in a way that leaves them needing to care for me grief.
  • I can send messages of affirmations and support–texts, e-mails, cards, phone messages–all saying that I care for them, and am holding them to the Light.
  • I can visit–face to face or electronically–if that is welcome.
  • I can pray that the Holy One would bring wholeness and healing, and ask that others who pray do the same.
  • For the wounds of the world, I can do what I can to send money to agencies who have the resources to heal, rebuild and change hearts and minds. I can let my own voice be heard in petition and voting booth.

In whatever I do, I need to remain clear that sorrow is not the only word or the last word for us. The Psalmist tells us “Weeping may linger for the night, but joy comes with the morning.” (Psalm 30:5b). I often notice that a time for weeping and a time for rejoicing appear together, and I want to give each one its due. But for me, for those I love, for the world, I want to practice weeping as a passage for while, in order to clear the way for the hope of life and healing on the other side.

 

 

Change and Decay

19 Friday Jan 2018

Posted by in change, darkness, gratitude, grief, Hope, Uncategorized

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-I go to my appointment, and the pipe shop that has been on the opposite corner for as long as I can remember is boarded up and fenced in.

-The sandwich place next to the coffee shop has gone out of business, and the department store I counted on has moved to another mall.

Much worse then all of these are the images of destruction by mudslides of parts of  the sacred retreat center where I have gone so many years on pilgrimage. I grieve for what was, what was dear and holy.

And since the festival season, there have been so many losses: death of a colleague, a neighbor, the spouse of a college friend, a former parishoner.

And the world, the nation! How hard to fathom what they seem to have come to!

Changes, changes changes! it’s been said that we as humans experience all change as loss. And I am feeling it this January! With each medical appointment, I feel the loss of what I used to be. With each encounter in the faith community, I am aware that we are in  liminal place with unclear agendas and sensibilities. With each report on the news, I see time-held axioms of thought and behavior disappear, some for the worse, and irreparable loss of public lands, public generosity and public civility.

So I am pressed to know how to navigate each day when there are so many variables before me. I find that I need to fall back on some organic principles of Spirit with more attention and intention in these days:

–Give my grief all of its due, but only its due. Etty Hillesum challenges us to remember that it is a “spiritual bypass” to go straight to counting blessings when we have not grieved the loss. I mourn the loss of people and places that gave me life and love. I remember wistfully the ways and means of comfort and compassion I have experienced. I lament the destruction that lays waste our planet and that thoughtlessly removes the beautiful and the good. I cling to the Word that my tears are precious to the Holy One.

–Give thanks for what is blossoming and healing. My border of white irises has not ceased to be in bloom, one plant after another, since early November. There is a new one every morning. And God’s mercies are new every morning, if I am paying attention. Random  and intentional acts of kindness still abound. Fred Rogers has reminded us that in times of catastrophe, we are to look for the helpers to see the presence of the Holy One. They are everywhere–the ones who welcome the displaced, the ones who give rides, the ones who provide food, the ones who go more than one extra mile, but tens and hundreds of extra steps to care for others, those who give generously over and over for the healing and preservation of the world and its fragile ones.

–Give room for the Light to shine in. If I focus only on the reports of doom and gloom, of murder and mayhem, my own heart gets clouded, or “rubbled over”, as Jurgen Moltmann says. So I need to keep practice looking for the “cracks when the Light gets in” and make them a little wider. I celebrate the one who sat by the bedside of the dying one, so she could go in peace. I delight in the one who has learned to turn away anger with a soft answer. I rejoice in those who at great cost give themselves to generosity and thoughtfulness. And I cheer for those who are willing to speak truth to power, to affirm the good and call out the evil when it appears.

Things will change, they always have. In this world many institutions, places I hold sacred, precious relationships will fade and decay. However, as long as I have life and breath, I need to remain one who hopes, who engenders hope in others, and celebrates the reality that with the Holy One there are no final defeats.

Change and decay in all around I see/ O Thou who changest not, abide with me.

 

 

 

Wings of Sorrow: Advent I

04 Monday Dec 2017

Posted by in advent, grief, Uncategorized

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ChagallMagicFlute

I have begun Advent in Hope, but am deeply aware of all the sorrow swirling around me. I have been  for weeks now. It has shown up in all shapes and sizes among the people I know and love: the loss of a spouse for one longtime friend, the failing of another body part in someone else, the ending of traditions of many years because of circumstance, and more tragically, the continuous pouring out of the failure of human beings, personally and politically.  So I grieve, for that which has been lost, for that which has been broken, and for the allure of despair that can accompany grief in some of its stages.

When I think about the familiar characters in the stories of the Advent and Christmas season, I see that many of them were acquainted with sorrow in their participation on the events of the season we now celebrate. Mary was unexpectedly, inexplicably pregnant, with a fiance willing, possibly eager, to divorce her. Joseph felt betrayed, with no clear idea what to do next. The Wise Ones from afar seemed to be charged with the need to find a solution, a truth, to the searching of their minds and souls. And the Church marks with deep sorrow the slaughter of the innocent ones after Herod’s insane rampage in killing all the infant boys born, who threatened his imagination.

I can and do connect with those sorrows. There is sorrow in the child that appears, no matter what age or stage, that seems to require something more from us than we are able to provide, or with whom we are ill-matched. There is sorrow in marriages and partnership when illness or grief strikes a loved one. There is sorrow in so many who have been faithful to the ideals and the principles to which their lives have been committed, only to find that now all the rules, sensibilities and specs have changed. And our lamentation is deep and wide when we witness the brutality and callousness and dis-empowering of so many vulnerable human beings, in our own neighborhoods and in our nation and the nations all around the globe. In this “bleak midwinter” of our world’s history, we grieve profoundly, even as we look for some Light that will show us how to participate in its healing.

I began Advent with a trip to the local art museum where there is a stunning exhibit of the work that Marc Chagall created for ballet and opera. Colorful, provocative, enchanting, each figure and background set forth imagination and energy, but also each one carried a shadow, the sorrow to be found in the work for which it was created. Even in “The Magic Flute” by Mozart which delights with humor, with wit and intrigue, in the midst there is sorrow, an intimation of which I found in the backdrop (pictured above) that opened the opera, “wings of sorrow,” lurking even in the starry sky. I am comforted with the depiction.

I also began Advent reading Father Gregory Boyle’s new book Barking to the Choir in which he regales his readers with story after story of the tears of tragedy that is the daily fare of the “homies” with whom he works. The stories are unimaginable to some of us who live comfortable lives. A friend of mine said, “I laughed, I cried, I laughed, I cried, over and over.” Yet it is a book about Hope, even in and through the sorrow.

I am challenged to give place in my life to the sorrow that is part of who we are, where we are in this time in history. Sorrow is a constant thread of life, not strange, not the result of something bad, just life on this earth. But it is not the only thread, nor the last word. I acknowledge the sorrow, grieve it whatever way is right for me, and leave room for Hope to come in. Not a bad way to begin Advent!

Points of Sorrow: Valleys and Shadows

30 Thursday Mar 2017

Posted by in compassion, dryness, grief, Lent, sanctuary, Spirit

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I have been comforted on my Lenten journey to encounter Holy Presence in signs and detours and delight. However, I am deeply aware that I am also daily faced with other phenomena: valleys–of the shadow of death, of dry bones, of tears; and of depths–sorrow, fears and despair. I am of that era in my life where news of death, of troubling diagnoses, of unbearable losses are so regular that they are almost routine. Not a day goes by without another request for prayer–for the world, for the nation, for the Church, and for people who are loved and cherished. And so I travel the Lenten way on a road of mourning as well as rejoicing.

The “valley of the shadow of death” becomes more real to me each year. I have been helped greatly by reading the two volumes by Marilyn Chandler McEntryre for those traveling in that valley, those who are facing death themselves, A Faithful Farewell,
and for those losing someone they love, A Long Letting Go. The author herself, no stranger to grief, gives some perspective, some comfort and some practical helps is the process of mourning:

To mourn is to open ourselves to comfort, which is a unique dimension of love. To mourn is to make our sorrow hospitable to those who are willing to enter into it…Our work is to accept the sorrow, to live it, to suffer it, and finally in humility to let it be drenched in the healing waters of love that come to us from as many sources as we allow–great wells of it, great waves of it, and daily infusions from old friends and from strangers who may be angels sent to walk us through the valley of the shadow. (A Long Letting Go,pp. 84-85)

Part of my Lenten journey is to do this work of mourning, on behalf of those whom I have lost, and on behalf of those who are in the valley of the shadow themselves right now. Yesterday I heard of two more friends who have lost parents, always a turning point in each person’s life. I now know that grieving is holy work, an important piece of giving sanctuary to those I am given in the world.

Others within my ken can only see a Valley of Dry Bones when they look at our world–few life givers, few Spirit breathers, few points of Light. I resonate with that. If I only read headlines, banners and listen to sound bites, I know that dry bones might be all that I could see also. But I feel strongly that even as I look at the Truth, with as much clarity as I can, I must point to and witness to a bigger reality than the current state of things in the universe, the nations, the Church, even in the microcosms of deadness in our personal lives. I believe that in God’s providence, there are no final defeats. Therefore, I plant myself in that reality as a starting place on my Lenten journey, and then pray, as I weep over the Valley of Dry Bones, that the Spirit will breathe Life back into them. I ask also what my part will be in that; to whom do I speak? to whom do I give? am I invited to bear witness in a way that is public and noticeable?

And with those whose losses can seem less tangible, less noticeable, less dramatic, but who like the Psalmist have experienced that “tears have been my food day and night, while people say continually, ‘Where is your God?'”, I am to be a friend listening to their truth with respect and without judgement, and without letting their sorrow become my sorrow, only holding them with compassion and hope.

These valleys and shadows are not the easiest part of the Lenten journey. And once again I turn to a British hymn set to a French carol:

When our hearts are wintry, grieving, or in pain,/your touch can call us back to life again;/fields of our hearts that dead and bare have been:/Love is come again like wheat that riseth green.                                               (John Crum, 1928)

I hold this as I continue on my Lenten way, for those I have lost, for those I love, and for myself.

 

 

Personal photo of street art in St. Petersburg, Florida.

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In the Valley of the Shadow

09 Thursday Jun 2016

Posted by in grief, presence, waiting

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Every person’s death and loss diminishes me,  according to John Donne. But the closer geographically it gets to me, the more I feel the oppressive and opaque weight of that shadow. This past week the gun violence was on my turf–my alma mater, with my extended family member enrolled;  the neighborhood where I worship, shop and meet people for lunch; and the car of the shooter,  located less than a mile from my house on a route that I travel frequently. The shadows feel ominous.

There are other shadows in my valley: people I love are struggling with illness and limitation; others I love are frustrated by the impenetrable job market; some suffer from lack of sufficient resources for what they need. Some of us are in the long, slow process of letting go of one who has died, another loop in the valley of the shadow of death. In  addition to the personal shadow, there are the billowing  clouds of the tenor of public discourse around the country is full of blame, accusation, and lack of charity.

So when the Psalmist in #23 names the “Valley of the Shadow” of death–of persons, of hopes, of dreams–I know whereof the poet speaks. The challenge is how to walk it. I have found just in the amount of time that it has taken me to actually get this blog written that the walk in the valley of the shadow is very slow. Grieving and letting go cannot be rushed, nor can I move too quickly in my body and heart to what I deeply believe, that all will be well. I need to silence the voices that yell from the back of the heart, “Are we there yet?” and listen for the voice of the Shepherd who promises that love contains no fear, and that there is a rod and a staff gentling me into comfort on the way to the table of peace and plenty.

“Rods and staffs” are not obvious in my daily rounds, so I am trying to attend to the ways the Holy is present in symbols that are easily accessible to me. Memories of the gifts I have been given in the ones and happenings that are now lost often comfort me; they are gifts of God. This person showed me a road not taken; that phone conversation invited me to listen in a new way for a sacred Word; that encounter, as brief as it was, became an “aha” moment, and though there was no more than that “brief shining moment,” it was a game changer.

The “rod and the staff”frequently show up in others who are walking this same valley. Even though the journey is my own, my fears are lessened when I encounter someone else whose sorrow is the same or who has walked this valley before. I am not looking for answers or solutions, but rather for open hearts and compassionate listening.

And I feel balm for my wounded soul in the words in sacred text–in Scripture, song, wisdom–that is embedded in me from my youth: It is Well With My Soul; We Rest on  Thee, Our Shield and Our Defender.  From Isaiah, “I have called you by name.”  From Psalm 139, “My darkness is not dark to you.” From I John, “Love contains no fear.”

And so the winding, opaque way through the valley of the shadow goes ever on, and I am accompanied by the Presence that I cannot see or always apprehend, but that I count on. That Presence keeps me from despair, because a “way is being made where there is no way.”

I would love to have the June gloom that is covering Southern California lifted soon, both where I live and in my soul trudging this valley of the shadow. However, I am confident that Light and Darkness co-exist, and that when the time is right, I will burst out into the clearing where I will once again dine and laugh and revel at the table, where cups are running over with love and joy.

Thanks be to God!

 

 

 

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Blessed is She Who Believed

02 Saturday Apr 2016

Posted by in blessing, gratitude, grief, Spirit, spiritual direction, wisdom

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I sit each morning at my window that faces east toward the rising sun. Behind and  sometimes around me is an antique quilt, passed down to me by Betsy, my spiritual director of nearly 25 years, who died suddenly on Good Friday. She had been in a process of recuperation for the past five months, and we had spoken a few times on the phone, but we had scheduled face to face appointments for the next three months. Instead of seeing her in person, I will be sitting with her spirit in  the space she blessed for me with her generous gift.

She embodied the spiritual director as a Quilter in my life, taking ragged, old pieces of experience and belief, and with skill and patience helped me to envision and live into my own ongoing present life with the Holy, a wholeness, a work of art. We came from differing faith traditions. Initially our callings were very different–mine in public ministry, hers in intimate spiritual direction. Our family systems were a contrast in culture, size and sensibility. Yet from the start we were united in our quest for an intentional life of Spirit.

I have been musing these past days over all that I learned in my hours with Betsy. With the gospel writer I could say that if I were to recall everything, the world itself would not be able to contain it. However, as I grieve and remember, I keep assembling “squares”in the quilt that was gathered together in the years of our shared spiritual journey.

  • She expanded my perception of the spiritual to include the visual arts. We began by using the sand tray, a tool from Jungian psychology which helps the seeker choose objects in her own arrangement that reflect the journey of the soul. I did not feel at all adept in this exercise, but I did begin to see that the material world could be an outer image of my interior one. Then as I risked trying to express my soul in collage, she encouraged me enthusiastically often pointing out things that I had not observed about where my heart was.
  • She did not use the word Grace freely, but for me, she embodied it. Her welcoming presence, her compassionate listening, her gentle course correction when I got tangled up in my own frenzy, sadness and despair, were all manifestations of the Grace of the Holy One. After a life full of experienced judging and criticism, I found a place of Spirit where I was my longings for the Holy One were accepted just the way they  were; she offered more compassion for me than I was able to have for myself.
  • She was generous with her time, her space and her resources. Often after we met she would follow up with a notation on something we had pondered about together or readily loaned a book or resource. I never felt hurried or rushed in her presence, except by my own tight agenda.
  • She exemplified for me what a spiritual director actually was, not someone who “directed,” but someone who accompanied me as my life unfolded, and helped my see how the Spirit might be at work in and through me.
  • She trusted the Holy One implicitly and explicitly, and knew that “all will be well, all will be well, and all manner of things will be well.” When my mother died, she was able to companion me in a way that both acknowledged the loss and gave hope for the days ahead. When I wrestled with the unknowing future, she brought a serenity rooted to the Spirit that allowed me to rest in the unknowing.

She often remarked on the fact that we were two Elizabeths seeking a spiritual path in the Christian tradition together. And in her loss I have peace as I mourn in the words of the Elizabeth in the gospel of Luke, who when entrusted with the momentous event in the life of her cousin Mary who was to be the Christ-bearer, sang with joy: Blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of that which was spoken to her by the Lord. (Luke 1:45). Betsy believed that she was in the hands of the Holy One in all parts of her life, and her belief nurtured and nourished my belief. When I sit on my couch each morning, I will believe that Betsy’s life here has been fulfilled, and is still being fulfilled in my own. I am grateful!

 

 

 

Seeing What’s New–through Pain

20 Monday Apr 2015

Posted by in Easter, grief, presence, seeing

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images-5From Lent through Eastertide I am trying to pay attention to the places that the Risen Christ is visible in ways I have not yet fully seen. One constant in the lives of those I know and love is the presence of suffering, grief and pain. And I am watching to see how surely God is in those places, and I wait to see how.

  • how is God present in the dailiness of the beloved ones who are chronically ill, who can never know from moment to moment if their bodies are going to allow them to step into the plan for the day?
  • how does God come alongside the grieving ones–those who have lost someone without warning? those who have walked in the excruciating pain of doing all that medicine and current protocols can provide, only to recognize that those means are not enough to save the life of the beloved? those who have been faced with the mortality to which all flesh is heir?
  • how is the Holy One a companion who bears our griefs and carries our sorrows through depression, anxiety and despair, whether those weights come from biology, trauma, circumstance or habit?
  • how is the Spirit manifest and available when our sighs are too deep for words?

I am drawn again to the company of Jesus in the post-Resurrection days, this time to the fearful gathered ones in a locked room, then the next week to Thomas, who is full of doubts. I am touched by the fact that Jesus does not wait until they get themselves together, with right belief or with right feeling, but enters into the place where they find themselves and speaks and touches them right where they are. He brings peace, he shows his own woundedness, and they are glad.

I am uncovering that reality as I accompany my own company of beloved ones who suffer and/or wrestle–the Holy One appears in unlikely places for them; they report to me that there are moments of joy, moment of peace, moments of rest, even when the going is bleak and is rough. For one it was new information that brought promise; for another it was the laughter than was infectious that gathered everyone into a sacred moment. Another one was buoyed up by faithful friends who continue randomly to appear in tangible and intangible ways. The refrain of a well loved song or a just remembered line of an old poem can evoke Holy Presence; the new blooms of spring or the endless and constant ocean sing out the praises of the Creating One, and there is peace or respite for a moment.

The invitation in these stories for me is first to be like the disciples–honest about my own fears, my own doubts, my own struggles, and to let go of my need to “do it right,” whether it be grieving, aching or fighting. The transparency of these wounded ones allowed them to be receptive to the Risen Christ when he came to them; some well mannered defenses may have deprived them of that miraculous break-in of Light in their darkness.

But also I learn from Jesus that intimacy with the Holy and others can happen when I am not afraid to show my wounds and scars, even to allow them to be touched. I can hold them in such a way that they can give me and entree of Grace into the places and ways that others need a sign that there is hope and resurrection after great darkness. I am challenged and encouraged by that stance. I need courage and trust to live that way.

It helps me to know that the disciples had to live into the reality of the Resurrection, even through pain, even as i do. And the Holy One does and will appear.