I sit beside the fire and think of times there were before. . .

Dear Aaron,  

Today is Labour Day. The end of summer in some ways. And the start of Semester all those years ago. I remember riding down in a Summit van with you and Elizabeth, and Noelle... All of us carefree and loving life.

Today the September breeze is rustling through the trees, the nuthatches are calling their repetitive little sound, and there are Colorado peaches and homegrown zucchini on my kitchen counter. The weather is autumnal, reminding me the seasons are starting to shift (so thankful!), yet there is much life bursting out in flavours and sounds and colours. The persistent scrub oak saplings out the kitchen window are nearly bleached yellow with the sun shining through them. There are strawberries waiting for me to make them into preserves, to go alongside the fried apple preserves I made last night.

Today is Labour Day, mellow with sunshine and life—and full of memories. Seven years ago on Labour Day it was your last day under the sunshine. And though time and marriage have shifted many things in me, it does not mean I don't grieve. That I don't think of you every day. Especially today. 

This year I started the Hobbit journey a little early and am nearly to "The Breaking of the Fellowship," though it is only the beginning of September... Though I'm familiar with Bilbo's poem from the Fellowship, I didn't realise how fitting it would be for today until I reread it this morning: 

I sit beside the fire and think
of all that I have seen
of meadow-flowers and butterflies
in summers that have been;
 
Of yellow leaves and gossamer
in autumns that there were,
with morning mist and silver sun
and wind upon my hair.
 
I sit beside the fire and think
of how the world will be
when winter comes without a spring
that I shall ever see.
 
For still there are so many things
that I have never seen:
in every wood in every spring
there is a different green.
 
I sit beside the fire and think
of people long ago
and people who will see a world
that I shall never know.
 
But all the while I sit and think
of times there were before,
I listen for returning feet
and voices at the door.

"I think . . . Of yellow leaves and gossamer in autumns that there were," in so many ways sums up much of our time at Semester. Though there were also "still so many things [we had] never seen," we got to see so many amazing things together. And for that, I'm grateful. 

The Lord is kind, my friend. I wish you had been able to fight the good fight and continue in the Land of the living, knowing His goodness through your own eyes. I wonder what songs and stories and poems you would have dreamed up... I hope you're saving all of those you're working on now to share with us when we get to the Kingdom.

"I sit and think of times there were before, I listen for returning feet and voices at the door."

Won't You Stay with Me?

Dear Aaron,

Once I asked a friend who lost her sister to cancer, "Does it ever get easier?" Her gentle answer was that grief changes, sometimes mellowing, sometimes roaring up at you. I've found that grief is only "easier" if you ignore it and dive into something else...to the exclusion of deep soul reflection.

Perhaps it's only natural that I miss you extra in December and January... The end of Semester and around your birthday. The end of Semester was so traumatising—losing our community to go back to people who didn't understand how much we had all changed... Going back to greyness—both in external and internal landscape—where there was nothing in particular to work towards or hope for. You, Reese, Chelsea, and to a degree Stephen were my lights in dark places when all other lights had gone out. In each of you was the light of the Messiah, spilling out onto anyone in your paths. I'm so thankful for that Light in the greyness; for your steady friendship those handful of years.

As we descend into the darkness of the Advent season, and the physical darkness of Winter, I can't help thinking of the Christmas you visited me in Indiana. It was exhausting, you were a bit flighty at times, and it is one of the sweetest memories I have. When you read Tolkien to me while sitting on the floor in my old room. You, lounging on the woodpile and reading. Walking in the frigid cold and trying to sort out our sore souls, our loves, our hopes... Both of our hopes were dashed, and somehow I missed what could have grown into more with you. Now that I'm married, I don't grieve that loss so strongly, but I wonder what course our lives would have taken if things had been different. They aren't different, though...and so, I miss you.

One day this autumn the song below came across my playlist. Without warning, grief spilled out of my heart and eyes. All I could think of was you...

Medicate, meditate, swear your soul to Jesus

Throw a punch, fall in love, give yourself a reason

Don't wanna drive another mile wonderin' if you're breathin'

So, won't you stay, won't you stay, won't you stay with me?

It seems like there just weren't enough reasons left... You had fallen in love once, if not twice, and that didn't work out. Maybe you threw some punches. You spent time meditating on Scripture and music and good books...you even had medication. And I know that your soul was and is sworn to Jesus. Jesus is enough to make all wrongs right in His time.

So, the words I wish I could have told you and had you really hear are these:

Oh, you're spiralin' again

The moment right before it ends, 

you're most afraid of

But, don't you cancel any plans

'Cause I won't let you get the chance 

to never make them. . . 

 

Don't let this darkness fool you 

All lights turned off can be turned on

I'll drive, I'll drive all night

I'll call your mom

Oh, dear, don't be discouraged

I've been exactly where you are

I'll drive, I'll drive all night

I'll call your mom

I have called your mom—many times—and it has been a help to us both. But I just. miss. you. You were the one who had changed because of Semester. You are the one I shared life experiences and memories with. And I wish I could see who you could have become. You could have filled books with poems and the air with songs. For now, they reverberate, hanging in the air...invisible, just unheard. So close, but impossibly far—the curtain of death hanging between us. 

Oh friend... The darkness may have fooled you for a moment, but the light turned off can be turned on. The Light of Jesus never goes out...and it spilled out of you into dark places. The Light goes on and on, lighting up lives you never knew—but one day you will.

In many ways you have and will always stay with me. For that, I'm deeply grateful. <3

Call Your Mom — Songwriters: Todd Sherman Clark / Noah Kahan

Sorrow Will Remain Faithful to Itself

Dear Aaron,

I often find that someone else has said (or sung) much better what my heart wants to express but I can't tame into words... You are ever in my heart, my friend.

__

When you lose someone you love,
Your life becomes strange,
The ground beneath you gets fragile,
Your thoughts make your eyes unsure;
And some dead echo drags your voice down
Where words have no confidence.
Your heart has grown heavy with loss;

And though this loss has wounded others too,

No one knows what has been taken from you
When the silence of absence deepens.

Flickers of guilt kindle regret
For all that was left unsaid or undone.

There are days when you wake up happy;
Again inside the fullness of life,
Until the moment breaks
And you are thrown back
Onto the black tide of loss.

Days when you have your heart back,
You are able to function well
Until in the middle of work or encounter,
Suddenly with no warning,
You are ambushed by grief.

It becomes hard to trust yourself.
All you can depend on now is that
Sorrow will remain faithful to itself.
More than you, it knows its way
And will find the right time
To pull and pull the rope of grief
Until that coiled hill of tears
Has reduced to its last drop.

Gradually, you will learn acquaintance
With the invisible form of your departed;
And, when the work of grief is done,
The wound of loss will heal
And you will have learned
To wean your eyes
From that gap in the air
And be able to enter the hearth
In your soul where your loved one
Has awaited your return
All the time.


____

“For Grief” by John O’Donohue, from To Bless the Space Between Us: A Book of Blessings (Doubleday, 2008).

We Were Meant to Live

 Dear Aaron,

It's a new year, a new Church season (Epiphany). It's a new season of life for me, as I'm about to get married. And there is a new recording of Switchfoot's Meant to Live that I wish you could hear. I've known this song for twenty years, but this recording breaks my heart almost every time I hear it. It makes me think of you. It makes me miss you. And it makes me cry. 

We were meant to live for so much more, my friend. There's no going back in time to tell you, to remind you, to help you believe that you were meant to live life abundantly. In those last years there was no way for me to help you live inside. I can't imagine what 'inside of you' was like for you... All I can do is sit in the gloaming listening to this song soar inside of me. Somewhere inside of me a little piece of you lives. Your life glows like an ember in my own heart. You touched me and it changed who I was—who I am. Your friendship shaped my life in so many ways... You made my world bigger. Did you know that you did that? That you could do that?

Fumbling his confidence and wondering

Why the world has passed him by

Hoping that he's bent for more than arguments

And failed attempts to fly

This was what the world might have seen from the outside... A shy and quiet chap who lacked confidence and direction. I happen to know you felt like the world had passed you by, like you were a failure of sorts. But you just didn't fit into the world's mold... You wanted 'more than this world has to offer' while 'everything inside screamed for second life.' You saw the world with different eyes. The problem was that you felt the opposite tug of what society dictated you should do and who you were—what you were truly made for: to show your corner of the world beauty and light and hope through new eyes. 

We were meant to live for so much more, 

have we lost ourselves?

Somewhere we live inside...

That tug inside of you pulled you into a place you weren't made for. You remained yourself in that space, but I think the strain became too much. At some point, something snapped and you lost yourself. I don't think you ever lost your True Anchor, but you did lose your true self enough that you quit living at all. 

How do I reconcile this, my friend? How do any of us cope with your absence? It's been five years, four months, and three days since you stopped living inside and out. But I stop to remind myself that you are now more alive than I am. You are with Life Himself. With the Author of all Hope, all Life. And in other ways you are still living on in the lives you touched, mine included. You being with Jesus (and not here) doesn't stop me from loving you and missing you and wishing things were different. 

We were meant to live for so much more.     You...     Me...    Anyone reading this. 

We were made in the glorious image of the incomparable, multifaceted, life-giving, imaginative God of the universe. We were made for a purpose. For life. For love. For relationship. We were made for so much more than the crumbs this world has to offer. Let us prepare a sumptuous feast for those around us with our words, actions, and lives. And let us feast on the Word of Life Himself, who gave Himself for us that we might live eternally.

* Meant To Live (Jon Bellion Version) — Switchfoot, Jon Bellion

The Beautiful Letdown (Our Version) [Deluxe Edition] © 2023

Seriously, if you haven't listened to this version, do yourself a favour and go somewhere by yourself with a good speaker... Play it as loud as you dare.

We Are Once In a Lifetime

Dear Aaron,

Did you think I forgot? Because I didn't. I called your mom on 3 September. Last weekend I hiked around the area where I carved your name into a fallen tree five years ago. The Switchfoot playlist that gave words to my aching has been on repeat all month. Tears have definitely rimmed my eyes on repeat, too.

I was re-reading some of your thoughts/poems earlier this month... You had good thoughts, friend. You had good taste in lyrics. In poetry. And goodness knows you had more patience for certain literature than I do. 

You know that dark blue plaid shirt of yours? It is ringed with holes now... I sleep with it every night I'm not travelling. There is something comforting in its tangibility—like there is with your letters. I just like seeing them, holding them, reading them. 

You left an indelible mark on me, Aaron Eugene Hennig. The mark of friendship. The mark of one who has known a similar sorrow and tried to walk with me through my own, even when you didn't always know how, and I didn't always recognise your efforts. 

You know what I do recognise? You were once in a lifetime. My ticket to Oxford and Alaska and Rhode Island. My ticket to a land of imagination and Beauty, reminding me there is Hope—and He is the Anchor for our souls. 

Do you have any idea how mad I am that you went ahead of me? Or how much it hurt to have you leave, both five years ago and all those years ago after I came to Alaska? You walked out of our friendship because I was me and not someone else. Or maybe because that 'someone else' was taking up too much space inside of you. 

Do you remember writing about how some people take up more space inside than you wanted to give them? I remember, not only because I've re-read your letters so much in the past handful of years, but because I understand that feeling from the inside. Some people want to take up more space than you have to give...and some people that you have vast treasures of storeroom for don't want to take up much (or any) space inside of you. We can't always choose these things.

What are you waiting for?

The day is gone. . .

I said, I'm waiting for dawn

...

Every now and then I see you dreaming

Every now and then I see you cry

Every now and then I see you reaching

Reaching for the other side*

Your reached it, friend. Aslan's own country. The other side from here. The end (which was only the beginning!) of your dreams. You found the womb of the dawn you were waiting for. The mental clarity you were reaching for with fingers wiggling, straining to reach just a little more.

May all of your days shine brightly

And your nights be blessed with peace

Wherever you lay down to sleep

And all things are made good

For those who believe

May you grow from a seed

Into a strong, fruitful tree**

___

Aaron, you are a tree, my friend. 

Not "you were"—somehow, you still are.

. . .

*Switchfoot "Red Eyes"

**Josh Garrels "Benediction"

Irrational August

This is the irrational season
When love blooms bright and wild.
—Madeleine L'Engle

It is no secret that I despise the month of August. The heat, the weight of work, the physical and emotional exhaustion, it all feels crushing... But this August has been especially hard to bear. In the span of a week, two of my oldest Summit connections were dealt death blows in their families: one lost their 17-year-old daughter, the other his 88-year-old wife just 12 days before their 66th wedding anniversary.

Now in the same span of time, I will attend two funeral services... One for a vibrant girl who was just about to begin adulthood, the other for a gentle soul full of humour and grace—both loved Jesus, and both loved people. It is no easier to go to one service or the other. Death is the great thief, thrusting itself into our safe worlds and snatching away those we love; snatching our security from under us. 

Death happens to other people. . .until it doesn't. 

No man is an island,

Entire of itself.

Each is a piece of the continent,

A part of the main.

If a clod be washed away by the sea,

Europe is the less.

As well as if a promontory were.

As well as if a manor of thine own

Or of thine friend's were.

Each man's death diminishes me,

For I am involved in mankind.

Therefore, send not to know

For whom the bell tolls,

It tolls for thee.

—John Donne

As I pulled on my swishy black dress today, I reached for the right necklace to wear with it—the necklace with winter-bare branches etched in silver, my 'Aaron necklace'. It seemed the right thing to wear to Elsie's funeral. Elsie was a toddler when Aaron and I met. I've watched three families from that Semester lose loved ones too young. Stephen's brother was 27. Aaron was 30. And Elsie was 17. 

 Alice Noebel was also too young. Yes, she would have been 90 next year, but that's too young, because death isn't how it's supposed to be. And I know that Jesus turned death on its head, making it the gateway to the New Kingdom for those who believe... But it wasn't supposed to be part of this world. Not until one of God's image-bearers reached out her hand to take; to make the choice between tov and ra for herself. 

That is what we all do... In big or small moments, we decide for ourselves what good or evil are. And sometimes we choose evil, saying it is good—while eschewing the good, experiencing it as evil. Our stubborn choices bring various kinds of death and destruction. In relationships. In creation. In ourselves. Knowing the real difference between tov (good) and ra (evil/bad) is nuanced and complicated, and I for one don't have enough information about the future to know which thing is which. That's why we are supposed to depend on the Creator of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil to help us discern. 

August is irrational, this one full of death and wounding grief beyond words. Perhaps the irrational part is that it also holds the bloom of love, bright and wild. Even in my own grief, I also know a love I've never known before. It is bright, illuminating. It is wild. It is both stable and hard to predict. And I experience this love as a sweet gift. On the surface it appears tov...  I pray for the wisdom from the Creator to know tov from ra, to open my hand to what He will place there in His time. It is so hard not to reach out and pluck what looks good and right. YHWH, give me wisdom and patience to wait on You. Help me to choose life, not death. Help me to see rightly what is tov. 

The Price of Loving Fiercely

“I’d believed—fool that I was—that because I knew this end was coming, I was prepared, that I would not grieve as hard. As if one can pre-grieve and get it out of the way. It’s not true. Grief is the price I paid for loving fiercely, and that was okay, because there was no other choice but to love fiercely and fully.”

― Patti Callahan, Once Upon a Wardrobe 

Dear Aaron,

The fog of a freezing frost is settling in my valley this evening, friend. I hope to wake to a glittering world of beauty and delight—a sort of Eden splashed over all I can see. Sometimes I think other people want that for grief. . . For some joy to splash over one's world and cover over the grief, leaving only shimmering Beauty where once there was pain. But like hoarfrost, those moments are just that: moments. The pain leaks back through like mud beneath the snow. The ever-present stain of grief is the price paid for loving fiercely and fully.

A while back I had someone whom I consider a close friend tell me that perhaps there was something wrong with me for still grieving you stepping out of life—not just out of mine, but out of your life. To this day that comment still rankles in my soul, because the loss of you will not go away while I'm still living. You will always be gone now. Oh, one day I will cross the Great Gulf and join you in the Kingdom, but who can say when? And until then, we are separated. That doesn't quit or stop or go away. Just like your birthday is always your birthday, even if you're not here to celebrate it. It's your birthday just the same. . .the day before mine, every year. 

It was a full day with an appointment, work, small group, and exhaustion. But I thought of you, of course I did. Each time I had to write the date on every page of the chiropractor forms. When I was running a mailing and setting the stamp date. When I texted your parents and sister. Of course I knew it was your day. And of course I missed you, even if I spent the evening with dear friends. None of them were you.

I miss getting to know you. I have pieces of your thoughts and heart penned in about twenty letters spanning about five years. I have three months (plus a week) of shaky memories of the time we spent in the same place, often together. But I've forgotten too much of those weeks, days, and hours. My mind and my life are full, always edging out memory unless I sit with it, stoke it, tend to it. And yet... There is a hole where you should be. Where I should still be able to write or receive a letter, where we should still be able to talk on the phone or visit one another. We should still be getting to know each other. And we aren't. I miss what we had; but perhaps even more, I miss what we never got to have. 

Lately the pain has been something like a branch beneath the hoarfrost of dating someone I truly love. He's very different from you, but also he reminds me of you in some ways. But even the wonder of a sweet relationship doesn't cover the pain of loss forever. Perhaps the mud seeps through the snow a little less often right now, but I still think about you every day. I still miss writing real letters to you—letters I can drop in the mail and have you receive at the other end of the line. I still raised a mug of tea (caramel-coconut-sesame) in a toast to you on your birthday. And I still believe that if the Lord allows you to see through the veil—to know the love of those who miss you—then you know that already.

Here's to the twilight
Here's to the memories
These are my souvenirs
My mental pictures of everything
Here's to the late nights
Here's to the firelight
These are my souvenirs
My souvenirs

I close my eyes and go back in time
I can see you're smiling, you're so alive
We were so young, we had no fear
We were so young, we had no idea
That life was just happening
Life was just happening

Here's to your bright eyes
Shining like fireflies
These are my souvenirs
The memory of a lifetime. . .

—Switchfoot, Souvenirs 

Though I'm a little later than the day of, happy birthday, friend. I miss you. The mud and blood beneath the snow still surface. But one day the glittering frost will melt into Spring and I will see you again. We can get to know each other more then, my friend. Until the Kingdom comes, I will pay the price of loving fiercely and fully. Until then, here's hail! to the rest of the road.

Love,
Johanna

My Only Remedy

 

 

Dear Aaron,

"Unmerited favor is my only remedy." Do you remember writing that to me a hundred years ago? You spelled "unmerited" with two rs, if that helps.

Four years. . . It's been four years since that September day that you left me behind. Sometimes it feels like forever ago; sometimes it feels like I just found out. I don't wake up immediately thinking that you're gone every day now, but I do think about you every day. Did you know that? Did you know that I still miss you when it rains? And when September rolls around, I close my eyes and go back in time. . . I think about all those years ago when we were prepping the Lodge, meeting everyone for the first time, not knowing we were about to become something altogether bigger than the sum of our parts: family.

This spring I stumbled across some photos from your student session at Summit...it was like finding buried treasure. You looked so happy and alive. I know you're more alive now than you ever were before, but that doesn't fix things on this side. It doesn't stop these tears from flowing. It doesn't make me stop missing you on rainy days. Or every other day that I also miss you.

Sometimes I still wonder. . . What if I had called that summer? I never got to say goodbye, you know. And while I don't think you would have talked to me, I still wish I would have tried. I wish I could have said thank you for all the things you taught me; the generosity you spilled out on me. I didn't say it then, but I can say it now: Thank you, Aaron. Thank you for Oxford, for making my world bigger and sprinkled with beauty, for giving me the chance to meet my best friend, for all those nuggets of wisdom you were always strewing about in your letters. . .for helping me like Switchfoot. 

Every now and then I see you dreaming
Every now and then I see you cry
Every now and then I see you reaching,
Reaching for the other side. . .

What are you aiming for

Out here alone?

[You] said "I'm aiming for home"

You're home. You've reached the other side. And the world is a poorer place for your relocation. I know, because I am a richer person for knowing you, and I feel your departure keenly. 

Most people don't really understand the scars I carry with me because of my love for you, friend. They don't get you—but in all fairness, I spent the majority of our friendship not really "getting" you, either. We shared some similar sadness, loneliness, and loves. But you were and always will be light years ahead of me in perception. 


When it comes down to it, until the Kingdom comes fully, grief leaves us bleeding and broken, with unmerited favour as our only remedy.

❤ always,

Johanna

* "Red Eyes" Switchfoot, Jon Forman 

When You Lose Somebody You Love

 “One of the hardest things I’ve ever had to learn is how to lose someone,” sings Scottish musician Nina Nesbitt. Her official music video for “When You Lose Someone” debuted on March 1, 2022 and has been viewed over a million times. The video is replete with heartfelt sorrow and simple images of her holding on to a shadow-person who eventually splinters into starlight.

In a YouTube live chat, Nesbitt says the song is about her specific loss, yet she hopes that her listeners will relate to the lyrics in the many kinds of loss they, too, experience: a loved one passing away, a divorce or breakup, being separated from a loved one by mental illness, or other forms of ambiguous loss. 

Psychologist Pauline Boss “coined the term ‘ambiguous loss’ and invented a new field within psychology to name the reality that every loss does not hold a promise of anything like resolution.” (FN1) We experience this type of loss when our loved one is still with us physically, but dementia or mental illness has taken them away from their minds and from us. We see it in having to co-parent after divorce or in breaking up with someone we still love but can’t marry for whatever reason. Perhaps one of the deepest places we observe or experience this ambiguous loss is in fathers who are physically or emotionally absent from their children’s lives. 

Whether grief stems from an ambiguous or a concrete loss, it shapes us. We can choose to hide either in or from our grief. We can ignore it, we can feel asphyxiated by it, or we can choose to walk alongside it as a companion. Seeing grief as a companion is not easy, nor is it the conventional first step after a loss. As Nesbitt asserts, initial grief often goes

from feeling numb to feeling everything at once

And I don’t know if I wanna cry—

One of the the hardest things I’ve ever had to learn

is how to lose someone

In a sense, the image of holding hands with grief—walking with it rather than fighting it or ignoring it—is an image of us holding the hand of Jesus. He is acquainted with sorrow (Isaiah 53:3-4). He walks with us through loss, mourning with us over what is broken (John 11:32-36). Grief should be our response to disconnection, because it is God’s response to death and disintegration.

The separation that comes from death or ambiguous loss is still something to be reckoned with, even though Christians believe in the resurrection of the dead (I Corinthians 15:20-27) and ultimate reconciliation. When Adam and Eve ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, relationships fractured in every direction: with other people (Genesis 3:7), with God (Genesis 3:8), with the creation (Genesis 3:17-19), and with ourselves. This sheering apart is not the way it’s supposed to be. The severing caused by death is not how God made his good world to exist. When we experience loss it is the catastrophic consequence of sin (James 1:14-15). 

What about those who don’t know God or understand that death and separation are an outworking of the Fall? For most of our culture, loss is something bad that we don’t want to experience. We want to outrun the ache of grief, the pain of loss. We want to be distracted from pain or become numb to it. But the reality is that our minds and bodies hold the scars of the Fall, whether we know that it happened or not. Surprisingly, Nesbitt acknowledges the continuance of loss:

[It] changes you forever in the blink of an eye

and it’s not something that just fades overnight

it’s something that stays for the rest of your life

when you lose somebody you love

We don’t just “move on” from a breakup or a death. While we shouldn’t stay stuck in the past or stop living the life God has gifted us, there is no such thing as closure when it comes to love. Pauline Boss continues, “‘closure’ is a terrible word in human relationships. Once you’ve become attached to somebody, love them, care about them—when they’re lost, you still care about them. . . .Somehow, in our society, we’ve decided, once someone is dead, you have to close the door. But we now know that people live with grief. They don’t have to get over it.”(FN2) She clarifies that this doesn’t mean obsessing over our lost loved one, but rather living with grief is choosing to remember them, even though remembering might hurt sometimes. 

And that is where the world stops. There is no hope beyond saying “It’s okay to live with grief. It’s okay to miss someone. It’s okay to feel the loss you’ve experienced.” There is no hope of seeing a loved one again. Maybe they disappear into the stars, as in Nesbitt’s music video; maybe they are reincarnated, as some Eastern cultures believe, but you can’t really know your lost loved one again as you did. There is no true hope in those ideas. 

Even Christians sometimes get lured into the world’s idea that “death is simply part of life.” But let's be clear, while death is a reality, it is not part of life in God’s creation. Death is a result of the Fall—it is the great enemy to be finally and fully defeated (1 Corinthians 15:20-26).Thanks be to God that by the Resurrection of Jesus, death is already being worked backwards until it one day is no more (Revelation 21:1-6). As Orthodox theologian and priest Alexander Schmemann expressed it: 

Christianity is not reconciliation with death. It is the revelation of death, and it reveals death because it [Christianity] is the revelation of Life. Christ is this Life. And only if Christ is Life is death what Christianity proclaims it to be, namely the enemy to be destroyed, and not a "mystery" to be explained. Religion and secularism, by explaining death, give it a "status," a rationale, make it "normal." Only Christianity proclaims it to be abnormal and, therefore, truly horrible. At the grave of Lazarus Christ wept, and when His own hour to die approached, "he began to be sore amazed and very heavy. . . It is when Life weeps at the grave of the friend, when it contemplates the horror of death, that the victory over death begins.”(FN3)

We know that Life himself, Jesus, wept over death (John 11:33-36). We know that he has gained victory over death and he offers that victory—eternal life—to all who will believe in him, turning away from sin and toward him (1 John 5:11-13 TLB). But we also know that not everyone chooses to receive beauty for ashes, eternal resurrected life instead of eternal death. Just as Jesus bore the scars of death in his resurrected body, we too bear the scars of separation and loss dealt by the Fall. Grief shapes us. As the consummation of the Kingdom of God draws ever closer, we must acknowledge that some grief extends to eternal death and some grief ends in the hope of eternal life. Right now we live between these eternal and temporal griefs, holding both sorrow and resurrection-hope by the hands as our companions. Perhaps Nesbitt explains it best: One of the hardest things we ever have to learn is how to lose someone.

_____

Footnotes:

1. Navigating Loss Without Closure —OnBeing Podcast with Pauline Boss and Krista Tippett

2. ibid

3. Alexander Schmemann, For the Life of the World: Sacraments and Orthodoxy (Crestwood, NY: Saint Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1973), 99-100. 

* All Scripture quoted is from the ESV unless otherwise noted.

Originally posted for Reflect at Summit Ministries

Proof That We have Loved

"How can we say that God has cheated us, 

when this crush of grief is proof that we have loved?”

—Steve Bell We Believe in Love

Part of me wants to just leave it at this lyric and not say anything. Isn't that enough? 

But the other part of me, the part that cries until I'm sick, wants to work it out in all the words.

____

Dear Aaron,

Today is your birthday. 

Why do we say someone "would have been" a certain age if they have passed from this life into the next? Perhaps people quit counting in the 'normal' way because years don't matter or add up or work at all in the Eternal Kingdom? Still, you were born in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred and eighty-eight, and you will go on forever in His Kingdom, so you are thirty-four today from where I stand. 

Today I'm tried... Tired from being up late and early while visiting Kasey the last few days and tired from travel. But I'm 'other' tired, too. Tired of the world being broken. Tired of loving and losing. Tired of missing so many people because of distance, physical and metaphysical, emotional and spiritual. 

But I'm not tired of missing you, because missing you means I remember you. Missing you is a habit. It is a daily thing. I've been missing you since before you died; but I've only felt really free to give that feeling full expression since you died. The longing and the grief mingle painfully, even still. The love that I can't seem to send across the veil or through the thin spaces to you feels restless in my heart. It wants out. It wants to go to you. But it's like a bird with a broken wing, thudding back to earth after pitiful attempts to fly. 

Today is your birthday. . . 

. . . But I don't want to be sad. I am thankful you were born. You have taught me so many things, in life and after death. In a way, you connected me with Kasey—with Oxford—with poetry—with music—with myself. Not wholly, but in ways no one else could or did. Thank you! Thank you for being born. For living life. For being my friend. For sending me on a grand adventure. For helping me see I was capable. For giving me the chance to meet my best friend. For being faithful while you could be. For knowing wisdom came from outside of us when we were both confused about life. For introducing me to your sweet family (though I really wish you would have done that differently...). For ringing bells—not in steeples, but inside of me. For being you... Aaron E Hennig. 

Today is your birthday, and the crush of grief is still there, the proof of love. 

God has not cheated you nor me, He gave us gifts: friendship, camaraderie, hope, love. And through you, He has given me so many more of those gifts in other people. Some other days my heart will spill open in grief for some of them, too. I pray those days are so far away I can't imagine how far they are. But I know I can't outrun grief, because I can't outrun love. And I don't want to. 

Today is your birthday, my friend, and you are basking in the Father's love. The love that you can't outrun, even by death. So, I'm sending my love for you to Him...along with a bear hug.

Love always,

Johanna

Year in Rearview

Contrary to a large percentage of the population, I loved 2021.

It was a surprisingly good year in so many aspects. I got to see all of my best friends over the year (I got to see Max a whopping three times!) and introduce most of them to my small group and work friends, who are like family to me.

This last year was one where I grew decidedly closer to my small group, especially the Hendersons. They often invite me over for dinner or movie nights, they are open-hearted and honest with me, their kids ask me to sit with them at church, and I spent three holidays with them in 2021. I feel very blessed to be part of their family and our small group community! 

In one of those "Only God could have done this" things, I not only got to spend a month in Arizona, I got paid for it by work! Spending the month of March with Doc and Alice was SUCH a gift... I loved making meals for them, going for walks with Alice, going out for walks by myself in the evenings (people in Arizona aren't crazy about having stupid lights everywhere!), seeing interesting places and critters, and meeting nice neighbours. And, of course, it was very fun to get to see my Max-friend for an evening when he was near Phoenix for work. My day in Sedona was one of my favourite memories of the year.

After being invisible for pretty much most of my life, in 2021 men suddenly asked me out. Perhaps not getting out much in 2020 made them bolder (or desperate?), so they asked. Granted, most of them weren't believers, so I said "no" as kindly as I could—but I appreciated that they asked! It made me feel seen. 

One of those fellows did get quite a few "yes" responses from me, however. :) Which is maybe part of what made for such a good year. Having never dated someone in my town, it was an unexpected gift to have someone to be with—and to not have to rely on texts and phone calls to carry the relationship. We could just go out for dinner or walk around town or play hockey in the park together. Embodied relationships are so much deeper, even if it's a lot harder to say difficult things out loud rather than in writing. Both long-distance and in-person relationships have their drawbacks and their perks, but I have found that I infinitely prefer in-person relationships... Even if breaking up is way harder.

Of course, 2021 wasn't all rosy. Dear family friends passed away. My best friend was/is going through a divorce. I had several fights with my stubborn will. I had to both say and hear hard things about myself...things I'm still trying to face. And I had to break up with Nick. My heart and will are still terribly opposed to that last item, but there was no way around it. Maybe one day I will be thankful that we broke up, but it sure isn't today. Today it still sucks. I still don't know how to act around him when I see him. And I still cry myself to sleep.

 

I'll close with the things that have been the sights and soundtrack of the year...

Albums/Artists:

Sigrid

Arvo Pärt

Novo Amor

Audrey Assad

Hymn of Heaven (album) - Phil Wickham 

Songs:

It's Always Been You - Phil Wickham

This song hit me with a force the very first time I heard it...and it still does. 

Take My Hand - Skerryvore

I know exactly where I was when I heard this song for the first time. Nick played it for me and it instantly felt like "our song." 

Shiloh - Audrey Assad

When pain comes to show you
What you'd rather not know
What will your heart do?
What will you let go?

Show Me - Audrey Assad

Bind up these broken bones
Mercy bend and breathe me back to life
But not before You show me how to die

Wrecked - Imagine Dragons

I heard this song when editing a piece for Reflect. It made me think of Aaron... Aaron, whom I still miss. Whom I still write letters to, even if I can't send them to him. 

Shows:

The Chosen
Let the record show that I do not like Bible shows...but I love The Chosen. Any show that makes me cry during the Eucharist at church has gotten something right. I have quite the soft spot for Matthew.

All Creatures Great and Small
This show has been an aesthetic delight with its Yorkshire views (and how adorable is Nicholas Ralph?!)—though I always make the mistake of sitting down to watch it whilst eating, and inevitably the vet is birthing an animal or cutting into a beastie...

Books:

Last Bookshop in London
I got on a WWI and WWII kick this last year-and-a-half-ish. This book was a good one! I yelled "I hate this book!" at least twice whilst listening to it and crying my eyes out. Trust me, that means it was good. There was a lot of "people banding together to get through hard things" stuff going on in this story.

Last Christmas in Paris
If this list were in order, this book would be number one. The audiobook is first rate with narrators for each character. The story is told in letters during WWI. The first time I read the book it made me think of Aaron and all the years of letters we exchanged.

Tolkien and the Great War
This one I listened to (I don't know if I could have made it through just reading on my own) and I found it both interesting to know about Tolkien's life and how WWI influenced so much of LOTR (esp The Scouring of the Shire), and heartbreaking to see how so many bright, influential poets, writers, professors, musicians, and the like were mown down in WWI.

Reforesting Faith
Such an interesting book about trees in the Bible (and trees in general)!

I was on a tree kick early in the year (when am I not?) and also loved this podcast series about Trees from the Bible Project fellows. Seriously, go listen to episode one!

Tears

The candles are crying waxen tears

        from their unseeing eyes—

Their little frames have 

        no hearts to break

no wound to bleed like mine

My own grief pools red and hot,

        or cools upon my cheek,

my waxen heart cannot feel

        unless it is this emptiness—

My loneliness none dares to break

Candles burn bright and

         candles burn low—

Grief and loneliness don't fill me

         they hollow out my feeling,

stealing life, their appetites grow

What can fill grief and sorrow,

          loneliness and death?

Their hunger growls and I diminish,

          their ache digs deep

to ravage my every breath—

Breath! Spirit of God poured out

           like melting wax—

Unlike water in the wilderness

           the Spirit is not swallowed—

He fills and heals each crack

Cracks in my soul that run

            deep and hungry ache,

He finds the bottom and

            fills the deep wells

making a pool of Beauty—a lake

A lake of salty tears

            that now reflects

the Light, the stars, the silver moon—

            and bathes the travellers' weary feet,

a gift, a healing they did not expect.