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Posts tagged ‘Grief’

Dec 16

Illuminate and Animate

“It is not over,
this birthing.
There are always newer skies
into which
God can throw stars.”
― Ann Weems, Kneeling in Bethlehem

“Joy doesn’t demand we silence our grief. It asks us to make just enough room for God to slip in beside it. And sometimes, that tiny crack of space is all joy needs to return.

Blessed are we who cannot fake cheer,
who sing soft instead of loud,
who light blue candles in December
and still hope joy might come.” – Kate Bowler

Hope, light, joy
Even, perhaps especially, on the ground of grief
Thin places and spaces
Cracks for light to enter
Hem of heaven
A particular grace
Throwing stars
Newer skies to illuminate and animate
Once again
Be kind, generous, a warm embrace
You are one of the stars to another’s dark sky
Blessing of a smile, a call, an invitation, place of belonging
A room at the Inn
Cast light.

“Like a thin place, a blessing can help us perceive how heaven infuses earth, inextricable from daily life, even when that life is marked by pain. In the midst of grief, when our loss can make the boundary between worlds feel horribly solid, insurmountable, and permanent, this comes as a particular grace.”― Jan Richardson, The Cure for Sorrow: A Book of Blessings for Times of Grief

Apr 19

Holy Saturdays

“Perhaps it is no wonder that the women were first at the Cradle and last at the Cross. They had never known a man like this Man – there never has been such another. A prophet and teacher who never nagged at them, never flattered or coaxed or patronised; who never made arch jokes about them, never treated them either as “The women, God help us!” or “The ladies, God bless them!”; who rebuked without querulousness and praised without condescension; who took their questions and arguments seriously; who never mapped out their sphere for them, never urged them to be feminine or jeered at them for being female; who had no axe to grind and no uneasy male dignity to defend; who took them as he found them and was completely unself-conscious. There is no act, no sermon, no parable in the whole Gospel that borrows its pungency from female perversity; nobody could possibly guess from the words and deeds of Jesus that there was anything “funny” about woman’s nature.”
― Dorothy L. Sayers, Are Women Human? Penetrating, Sensible and Witty Essays on the Role of Women in Society

“When it was evening, there came a rich man from Arimathea named Joseph, who also was himself a disciple of Jesus. He went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus; then Pilate ordered it to be given to him. So Joseph took the body and wrapped it in a clean linen cloth and laid it in his new tomb, which he had hewn in the rock. He then rolled a great stone to the door of the tomb and went away. Mary Magdalene and the other Mary were there, sitting opposite the tomb.”—Matthew 27:57-61

The days after when before became after with no turning back
Tipping points, pivotal moments, thresholds crossed
Moments in our lives when grief kicked down the door down and plopped down
Moved in and became the loud neighbor
In our holy saturdays, the middle space between our own crosses and resurrections
Hope remains, faint, but remains
Wait, not yet, but soon
Soon, soon, soon

“Blessed are you, who feel undone,
too tired even for tears,
longing to be spoken back into being.

Blessed are you, who ache to remember
the bonds of love that formed you,
that hold you still, even now.
May they be as iron
that strengthen your soul.

Blessed are you,
who glimpse, however faintly,
that this present darkness
is not all there is.

And blessed are we who dare to say:
I am known.
I am loved.
I can love again.
Even—especially—here,
in this very moment.” – Kate Bowler & Jessica Richie

Mar 30

Resurrection Air

“Only people who are capable of loving strongly can also suffer great sorrow, but this same necessity of loving serves to counteract their grief and heals them.”― Leo Tolstoy

“On Holy Saturday I do my best to live in that place, that wax-crayon place of trust and waiting. Of accepting what I cannot know. Of mourning what needs to be mourned. Of accepting what needs to be accepted. Of hoping for what seems impossible.”― Jerusalem Jackson Greer

The aftermath of grief.
The lingering.
The numbness.
We all have walked this when a loved one dies.
The threshold of never going back to the way it was.
And yet.
Hope.
Gently pulls and then carries you forward.
Day by day, little by little.
From empty heart to empty tomb.
The middle place.
Resurrection air coming soon.
Wait.
Hope.
Trust.
Breathe.

“The resurrection tells us it is never too late. Every so often we will be surprised. We must believe that the stone will be rolled back, and we must be ready to poke out our timid heads, take off the linen bindings of death, and walk free for a time, breathing resurrection air.”― Ronald Rolheiser, Prayer: Our Deepest Longing

Jan 4

1 Comment

Taste It All

“Love won’t be tampered with, love won’t go away. Push it to one side and it creeps to the other.”― Louise Erdrich

“Life will break you. Nobody can protect you from that, and being alone won’t either, for solitude will also break you with its yearning. You have to love. You have to feel. It is the reason you are here on earth. You have to risk your heart. You are here to be swallowed up. And when it happens that you are broken, or betrayed, or left, or hurt, or death brushes too near, let yourself sit by an apple tree and listen to the apples falling all around you in heaps, wasting their sweetness. Tell yourself that you tasted as many as you could.”― Louise Erdrich, The Painted Drum

Sorrow is a given.
The price of loving well, deep, wholeheartedly.
It passes too.
Transforms to something tolerable.
Bitter to sweetness, with an edge.
Broken then mended, different but bound again.
Joy is sorrow’s roommate.
Hope too.
Let them in.
Hold their hand.
Dive into life and you’ll be pulled under.
But you are buoyant.
Love well.
In thoughts, words, actions mostly.
Love well.
Taste as much as you can.

“Sorrow eats time. Be patient. Time eats sorrow.”― Louise Erdrich, LaRose

Nov 17

Megaphone of Love

“Pain insists upon being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our consciences, but shouts in our pains. It is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world.”― C.S. Lewis

“Back on the caregiving roller coaster, I struggled to remember the lesson I had just learned so painfully with Mom: the end of caregiving isn’t freedom. The end of caregiving is grief.”― Margaret Renkl, Late Migrations: A Natural History of Love and Loss

A friend’s Mom passed away yesterday.
Another friend’s Mom in July.
Mine in March.
Others a few years ago, some decades.
Grief is both individual and communal.
Same and different.
Fresh and lingering.
Deeper than platitudes.
Beyond the words of a Hallmark card.
Not a process but a winding, rocky, sometimes beautiful journey.
A bi-polar SOB.
Depths and heights.
Laughter and tears.
Drops and waves.
Never over, merely changing its form.
Do not go around it, avoid, or run from it.
Right through the middle.
Loss is overwhelming and always overcome by love.
Friends and family, show up.
Not just in the beginning, but months later too.
Simply be there and available.
Don’t assume, always ask and listen.
Actions over words.
Peace, love, light on this journey friend.
Love walks beside you softly, quietly, fiercely.

“Friendship … is born at the moment when one man says to another “What! You too? I thought that no one but myself . . .”― C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves

Nov 3

At the Same Time and More

“I don’t want to sit like a brooding hen on the nest of my past achievements. I want to keep on going deep into the uncertain act of making, to see the unknown world stretch out before me and to devote myself to exploring it.”― Katherine May, Enchantment: Awakening Wonder in an Anxious Age

“Goodbyes are only for those who love with their eyes. Because for those who love with heart and soul there is no such thing as separation.”― Rumi

We can hold grief and gratitude at the same time.
Not one or the other but both and more. And more.
There’s always more right in front of us.
Give yourself permission to experience and move through both and all.
Rough and smooth patches. Usually a mix.
With hope, faith, devotion and more hope.
Changing, evolving with time, space and distance.
Joy, hope, resilience, grace, laughter, peace.
Doing their work in us and through us.
We have the capacity and calling to love deeper and louder.
Find contentment wherever you are.
There are no rules or 10 easy steps.
Not alone, keep walking this sacred ground.
Rooted in the present, moving forward a step at a time.

“I have woven a parachute out of everything broken.”― William Stafford

May 5

Dancing with a Limp

“But those who are able to distinguish between a range of various emotions “do much, much better at managing the ups and downs of ordinary existence than those who see everything in black and white.”― Brené Brown, Atlas of the Heart

“You’ll lose someone you can’t live without, and your heart will be badly broken, and the bad news is that you never completely get over the loss of your beloved. But this is also the good news. They live forever in your broken heart that doesn’t seal back up. And you come through. It’s like having a broken leg that never heals perfectly—that still hurts when the weather gets cold—but you learn to dance with the limp.” – Anne Lamott

This quote from Anne Lamott came in a weekly email from Grief Compass, a wonderful resource that has been helpful and free from platitudes, shoulds, processes/rules, black and white and move on already. Loss not only comes with death of a family member or friend. It comes from a change/loss of a job, a divorce, retirement, the kids leaving home, a 3 year pandemic, shifting relationships, disappointments woven through life.

All walk paths of grief. Each differently. Some avoiding, looking for the bypass. Some going through, right up the middle. Most a mix of it all. No one skipped or bypassed. This is where empathy, compassion and self-care come in to sit with us. And also, how we learn to dance again with a limp. Ever changed, different, broken open and moving back into the current of life, then back on the shore and then back in the river yet again.

If you are on the front-end of this journey, you are not alone. Sit with it, nothing to solve or fix. Reach out, find someone who will listen and sit with you. Grief is the cost of love. I would rather pay the price than to not love deeply and imperfectly. Love well today and dance, especially with a limp.

“This is one reason we need to dispel the myth that empathy is “walking in someone else’s shoes.” Rather than walking in your shoes, I need to learn how to listen to the story you tell about what it’s like in your shoes and believe you even when it doesn’t match my experiences.”― Brené Brown, Atlas of the Heart

Mar 23

5 Comments

Shed the Nonessential

“No one is so advanced in prayer that they do not have to return to the beginning.— St. Teresa of Avila

“the only way to survive the storms of the world is to shed all that is not essential, …the only way to survive inner storms is to let everything through.” – Mark Nepo, Surviving Storms: Finding the Strength to Meet Adversity

Some will run.
Some will stay.
Some will wait.
Some will not.
No rules or regulations.
No counting or keeping track.
Gratitude and reverence for those who remain, reside, wait.
The journey is individual first.
Communal and universal next.
No map, signposts, or markers, nothing exact, predictable or precise.
One step at a time journey, each day new.
Grief is not a “fun” topic but each will go through it many times in a lifetime.
Called to be here now.
Awake and aware.
Writing and sharing is a vulnerable space.
Honesty is my only response.
Perhaps, it could be a gift, a foretelling, an invitation to communion, community, belonging.
Be present to the gifts that you are steeped in right now.
Life is both slow and fast.
Before to after in a beat.
Shed the nonessential.
Grief does not reside alone though.
Laughter, memories, tears, wonder, joy all woven through.
No shortcuts or bypasses, right up the middle.
Unfolding a step at a time.
Underlayment, grounded in hope, love and grace.
Cast light, especially now, when it means even more.
Unlacing and weaving something new.
In due time, a step at a time too.

“The great moments of living reside, not in banishing what goes wrong, but in unlacing trouble and weaving tapestries with the laces.” – Mark Nepo, Surviving Storms: Finding the Strength to Meet Adversity

Mar 22

An Anchor Dropped

“Darkness deserves gratitude. It is the alleluia point at which we learn to understand that all growth does not take place in the sunlight.”― Joan Chittister

“Hope is an anchor dropped into the future. We feel you pulling us toward it once again.” – Kate Bowler, Jessica Richie, The Lives We Actually Have

I saw the sun yesterday.
I noticed it, pausing a moment.
An altar.
An upward anchor, a kite, a grounding.
The little things are enough, overflowing actually.
At our feet, surrounding us, holding us.
In words, but mostly in silence, in sheer presence.
In waiting, watching, witnessing.
Winter rain through the night.
Hastening the melting of deep snow, softening of earth, precursor to green.
Notice. Awe. Wonder.
Grace enters and sits right beside you on one side, hope on the other.
Love remains.
Holy. Sacred. Steady.

“Love is holy because it is like grace–the worthiness of its object is never really what matters.”― Marilynne Robinson, Gilead

Mar 21

The Second Day of Spring

“Life changes in the instant. The ordinary instant.” – Joan Didion

“When people want to know more about God, the son of God tells them to pay attention to the lilies of the field and the birds of the air, to women kneading bread and workers lining up for their pay. Whoever wrote this stuff believed that people could learn as much about the ways of God from paying attention to the world as they could from paying attention to scripture.” – Barbara Brown Taylor, An Altar in the World: A Geography of Faith

We put a lot of hope, focus and energy into firsts, into lasts, into nexts, into moving on.
But the whole and entirety of life is in the second, third, fourth, middle days between firsts and lasts.
We remember too little, the highlights, the lowlights, the trips, the falls.
Forgetting the ordinary days of grace, laughter, joy.
Not a mere snapshot but the entire story, the narrative, the love, the staying.
A lot of small steps to our finish lines and start lines.
Slow down and feel each step in the journey.
Today is the second day of spring.
Spring awaits patiently to be revealed under the snow, witness the melt.
One day at a time to green grass, brilliant color of bloom, precursor to summer.
Stay awake, aware and steeped in the waters of today, the second day of spring.

“One day we will remember how lucky we were to have known their love, with wonder, not grief.” – Elizabeth Postle

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