Let Us Grieve

How many times has someone told me lately, "The Jewish culture has it right..."? Oddly enough, two or three unrelated persons have said this to me about the custom of shiva, the week of grieving the Jews enter when someone has died. "...[T]he visitor comes to the house of mourning, silently, to join the bereaved in his loneliness, sorrowfully to sit alongside him, to think his thoughts and to linger on his loss."¹ Indeed, the Jews are right.

Grief and mourning are uncomfortable in all cultures, but Americans more than most seem to eschew this process with gusto. Let us be "Happy, happy, happy," anything but grieved. Let us paste on a smile and say life is all right when everything is tumbling down around our ears and we feel desperately alone. Let us only close our church services with clapping and upbeat songs. Let us be anything but silent or sorrow-filled. Let us celebrate sunny days, but ignore brooding rain. Let us get over that break-up next week, the death of our child next month, and the loss of our father by the time we return to work. Let the healing be instant. Let us do anything but lament. We're afraid of sorrow. We don't want to hurt before we heal. We rebel and reel because we can't control grief. 

Some friends of my family lost their sweet, college-age daughter in an icy car accident last year. Her death has changed every family member's life. Christmas and New Year's will always be cast with the pall of her final days in the hospital; of praying for a miracle that never came. I don't know why—and I don't pretend to. Our friends don't need us to give stupid, hurtful platitudes. They just need us to sit with them in the ashes. They need us to remember their joyful daughter. They need us to talk about her if they want to, to talk about anything else if they don't. Their other children still need their parents to be their parents. They still need to be recognised in their own accomplishments and lives. And they still need to be allowed to grieve—yes, over a year later... For the rest of their lives.

The loss never goes away. That person once existed in this world and now doesn't—that is a continual loss. Loss doesn't have a time-table. Grief pricks when you weren't expecting it...but it is okay to mourn. Let us weep when we remember someone we have lost to the ever-insatiable monster of death.

It is much easier to say that about someone else's loss. It's so much harder to live the daily emptiness. There are always regrets, things we wish we had said before that final parting... I wish to goodness sakes I had talked with my grandma on the phone when she was in the hospital. She had so many people there I told my mom I'd wait. I lost my chance to talk with her again. Though I had made sure to tell her I loved her when I saw her last, well, that doesn't change my weeping right now. 

It's been two years since her death, and it still bubbles up unexpectedly. I catch myself laughing at things only my family would understand, said in Grandma's voice... "You heard the story, you heard the story!" I catch my breath sharply when I remember, without warning, her saying, "Of all the grandkids, you're the most like me." I catch the tears rolling off my nose at all these memories welling up in my mind and in my eyes. The smell of homemade fried chicken always takes me back to childhood birthdays at Grandma and Grandpa's. For whatever reason, I remember my seventh, tenth, and twenty-first birthdays vividly, there in that Wanamaker house. That house which was their home for half a century, where my dad grew up, and where I learned how to use a slinky—because they had stairs and we didn't. That house which now belongs to somebody else who has no knowledge of its history. That house that no longer holds my family, yet holds so many of our memories.

Like I said, we can't control grief—when or where or how it will punch us. But it will hit with a hard right hook, or that unseen uppercut. Let's be honest, we like to control things. Our appearance to others; how we spend our time and live our days; what we do and what we don't do; what we eat; what we read...but we cannot control sorrow. It leaks out of our hearts and eyes on the sunny days and the rainy ones. When we laugh and when we swallow that lump in our throats. We cannot make the loss smaller, it only grows bigger with all the things our loved ones miss. It only grows sharper when we can't ask their advice, hear them tell a story, or catch their laugh in our ears. That is the nature of a curse. Of the Curse. And we cannot control the force of the sucker-punch. I want to say that what we do in the face of the Curse is live...but one day the Curse will try to annihilate us, too. For a time, the voracious Curse will feast on life. But only for a time.

There is a rumour that one day, everything sad will come untrue.² One day, death will be—finally and completely—eviscerated and defeated. That the grave will have no inhabitants. That death will be swallowed up in life. That God-who-became-man (a Jewish man, no less), myth-become-fact, will complete the redemption process. And all will be made well. L'chaim! To life!

Until then, we weep and mourn. We grieve and lament. We let sorrow chase us into the arms of our Father. We laugh and we live. L'chaim!

Indeed...The Jewish people have it just about right.³ 

___________

1. Comforting the Bereaved

2. “Gandalf! I thought you were dead! But then I thought I was dead myself. Is everything sad going to come untrue? What's happened to the world?" "A great Shadow has departed," said Gandalf, and then he laughed and the sound was like music, or like water in a parched land... (Tolkien, J R R, Return of the King, emphasis mine)

3. Except for that whole not-believing-Jesus-was-the-Messiah-and-crucifying-Him bit. 

The Art of Grieving

Drip-drop. Drop-drip. Plink! Glorious Spring rain drips off the gutter-less eaves of my cottage this forenoon; every now and then one drop making a sharp ping off something metal below. Steady, strong notes to set the rhythm for the day, those water-drops. I draw icy water for the kettle, waiting for its warm whistle as a Southwest wind kicks up its heels. The song of the rain slows, softens, becomes silent. Whirling this way and that come the downy flakes of snow. 

Pungent Earl Grey tickles my senses as I gaze long at the steady, slanting white. I am very much alone, but not in the least lonely. Solitude need not make one solitary. Fog, snow, roiling grey skies – they are all friends. The damp, chill, and quiet give one time to pause, to recalibrate the soul toward stillness and Beauty. When we make the time to hush, not writing, nor reading, nor listening to the ever-present music that pervades our senses, we are able to be. We are able to grieve or mourn, to ponder and reflect, to pray and listen, to know and be known.

Stillness and reflection often seem colossal threats to our current 'culture of noise'. Particularly in the process of grieving, perhaps the greatest conundrum in this age. In times-not-long-past, there was a set period for mourning in which the mourner at the least wore a black band on their arm, if not complete outfits of black. Now we hardly even say someone has died, but that they have 'passed away'. We have funerals and weddings in 'Life Centres' at cemeteries. Our culture seeks to sanitise death from all its ugly brokenness. I am very, very pro-life, but even I cannot ignore the effects of the Fall. We cannot pretend that death is routine, neat, and 'part of life'. It is not. It is a violent affront to God the Creator. It is madness and fragmentation at their extreme end.

Grieving is a slow process; whether it is the death of a loved one, the loss of a friendship, or the crumbling of a cherished dream. It takes silence and prayer to walk the road of sorrow. Yet, not even the evangelical church seems to accept this. Half-truths are still lies, yet they ring forth from our Postmodern Evangelical churches and the reams of pages in 'Christian' bookstores: God must always make bad things good. We must always smile and say we are well, that it is good to be alive. Christians are always to be happy, happy, happy - which translates to fake, fake, fake. God will make all things well, but probably not the way we think He should, and often not on this earth. It is good to be alive, because we were made for life - but 'good' does not mean 'easy'. 

The Anglican response to death in the prayer book does not ignore the creeping shadow of death, nor does it wallow in the Fall. It brings one's focus back to God, the Author of life, the Redeemer of death:

Thou only art Immortal, Creator and Maker of mankind;
and we are mortal, formed of the earth, and unto earth shall
we return. 

For so Thou did ordain when Thou created me,
saying, “Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.”
All of us go down to the dust... 

Yet even at the grave we make
our song: 

Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia.

Even at the grave we sing of the Hope to come. We weep and mourn in Hope. This is not easy. We may sing our alleluias through teeth clenched, through stinging tears. But we have Hope: Jesus Himself, the Resurrection from the dead for all who are 'in Christ'. And when death takes from us one who does not know God, we lament even more. Again, we cannot pretend that death is normal. It is grotesquely abnormal. We still mourn loss. 

Learning to lament takes times of silence, of being. It can take the form of long walks, writing poetry, playing or writing music, cleaning vigorously, cooking and baking (for oneself or others), painting or drawing, gardening, crying, and many other things. Strikingly, lamentation is often pro-creative. By that I mean that we find an outlet for grief, anger, and sorrow in making, in serving. 

Look at the first line of the Memorial Prayer - it calls God three things: Immortal, Creator, and Maker. We tend to think of the last two words as being synonyms, but they are Names and have nuances. A 'creator' begets - the thing begotten is from himself, is part of himself, like a child shares the 'humanness'  and DNA of its parents. A 'maker' is a companion or a spouse, as well as one who designs or constructs. So, the act of creation is intensely personal and part of the creator-begetter. The act of making is taking something already in existence and fitting it together; as one takes flour, water, and yeast to make bread; or wood, nails, and varnish to fit into a wardrobe; or chisels and marble to form a sculpture; or a man and a woman together fashion a marriage. 

In grieving we image God by making. We turn to pro-creation to pro-cess (move forward, continue). We seek solitude and silence in order to better serve, because the act of serving (helping one's neighbour with various tasks, inviting others over for dinner, etc.) brings us outside of ourself so that we do not dead-end in grief.

This brings up the other aspect of lamenting. To lament, I said, one needs times of solitude. But one also needs time with others. God says in the beginning that, "It is not good for the Man to be alone". God was right there with the Man, but still says he is 'alone' or without a match (or mate) of his own. We need other persons. We need friends and family who will be still with us, who will listen to us. We need others to serve with our creative acts. We need those close to us to cry with us, and also to make us laugh. 

The hush of snow is heralding a chance to ponder, time to be. This late Spring snow is a gift before I step into the bustle of Summer. The silence of a full day to process and grieve is worth the thanks-giving. Right here and now I learn to be still and know... and to be known.

Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia!

~ Johanna

The Telltale Heart

Do You Listen to Your Heart, or Does it Listen to You?

Have you ever realised that Disney princess films and pop love songs have the same mantra? Think about it, they all whisper the same line: listen to your heart. There is even a classic 80's song by that name. Some of the lines are as follows:

Sometimes you wonder if this fight is worthwhile
The precious moments are all lost in the tide, yeah
They're swept away and nothing is what it seems,
the feeling of belonging to your dreams

Listen to your heart
when he's calling for you 
Listen to your heart
there's nothing else you can do...

 There is nothing else you can do... Really? Are we simply trapped in the dichotomy of listening to our hearts or listening to outside opinions? As with most dichotomies presented to us, this one is false. We do not have to listen to our hearts to be happy (happiness is temporary, anyway), nor do we have to live under someone else's idea of success. When life does not go as planned, when we feel the pressure of needing to achieve the American dream, or we feel miserable because we have not achieved some idea of love, success, and affluence, we absolutely should not listen to our hearts. We should not listen to the world, or even well-meaning Christians breathing out 'feel better' pop psychology.

What other option do we have, if we ought not listen to the world or to our hearts? We need to tell our hearts. We need to speak Truth to our hearts and minds, even when we feel miserable.  The most oft quoted reason for unhappiness I hear from my friends is, "I don't have a boyfriend!" Is a spouse your idea of success? Have you made a good thing an idol? Do not wallow in the misery of what you have not. Speak Truth to your heart, "He who finds a wife finds a good thing," says the writer of Proverbs. Marriage is good. But if you are not married, then singleness is your garment of glory. 

I want you to be free from the concerns of this life. An unmarried man can spend his time doing the Lord’s work and thinking how to please him. But a married man has to think about his earthly responsibilities and how to please his wife. His interests are divided. In the same way, a woman who is no longer married or has never been married can be devoted to the Lord and holy in body and in spirit. But a married woman has to think about her earthly responsibilities and how to please her husband. I am saying this for your benefit, not to place restrictions on you. I want you to do whatever will help you serve the Lord best, with as few distractions as possible.

 ~ St. Paul, 1 Corinthians 7

Perhaps you are in true lament, a valid thing for Christians to do. You are not wallowing, you are deeply lamenting the loss of a person, a dream, a good thing, or the way your relationship with God used to be. Speak Truth to your heart in this, too. Lamentation is not a sin, but in the midst of grieving, remind your heart to hope.

The valid lament: 

For I used to go with the multitude;
I went with them to the house of God,
With the voice of joy and praise,
With a multitude that kept a pilgrim feast.

Why are you cast down, O my soul?

And why are you disquieted within me?

 The equally valid Truth spoken to the heart/soul:

Hope in God, for I shall yet praise Him
For the help of His countenance.

(Psalm 42:4-5, NKJV)

We may not be yet in the place where we have hope in God, and certainly not in a place of rejoicing. However, we must speak Truth to ourselves: hope in God, for I shall again praise Him, as the English Standard Version words it. The Psalmist is reminding his own heart of how he used to joyfully praise God. Yet it is no longer he who is so full of praise that he is at the head of the people going to God's house. Does he sit down an kick and scream? No, he tells his heart to hope in God, for at some point in the future he will again be able to Praise Him.

Perhaps you are in the midst of many crises all at once. I know many persons who are in that place - health troubles, family frustrations, financial crunches, and cars breaking down are just part of their stress. In that place I am tempted to say, "God, a little kindness, some ray of hope would be great right about now. Look at all I am going through, I deserve a little help." Yet I do not dare to believe that I deserve anything from God. All is gift, as a friend of mine told me recently. It is true, all is gift. I cannot win God's goodness or kindness. I cannot earn my redemption and salvation. I do not deserve any good thing from the hand of God. All He gives is a gift, and all I can do is to receive that gift with an open (not grasping) hand. This I must remind my heart, when it would rather think it was entitled to good things.


Finally, after you tell your heart what is True, do not become myopic. Do not dwell on how right you were and how wrong your friend was in an argument. Do not sit on the couch feeling overwhelmed when there is laundry to do, or dishes to wash. Speak Truth to your heart and then do something. Sometimes that means taking a long walk -- without a friend, phone, or iPod. Sometimes it means cleaning your house. And sometimes it means looking at the trees and the sky, simply listening to the silence.

~ Johanna