This morning I prayed for “those who grieve.”
The loss of a friend or loved one to death, of innocence as senseless violence strikes yet another celebration, of a relationship, a future and a hope – suddenly changed, good health, aging… change, financial loss… we… all of us together, are “those who grieve.”
I have a friend who loves to focus on “the celebrations of life.” It always reminds me of Mom… who detested the transition from funerals to memorial services to “celebrations of life.” “I expect you kids to be crying at my funeral!” she would tell me.
She got her wish and I think all of us got her heart.
Mom knew grieving. In her 20’s alone she lost her father to a heart attack, brother to WWII, not to mention the family home burned down during the great depression, a sister lost to scarlet fever, they took to picking fruit in California’s central valley for “vacation.”
Mom always said that her family “had it good” through the
depression and WWII.
I think she joined the community of “those who grieve” at a young age.
You may have joined that community without ever taking note: divorce, trauma of abuse, changed majors and changed the course of your hopes and dreams, an injury that never fully healed and that nagging sense that something had changed, was lost…
You were grieving.
Low energy, lack of enthusiasm for today, the constant process of “pushing through” a problem without taking time to assimilate what it is that’s consuming so much of you – in the background, like white noise – but there just the same…
You may be grieving.
It’s tough to get around as we age. Success as individuals often is in alignment with separation from our family. Career and personal goals take us to different parts of the country. Time constraints restrict closer relationships. Soon we’re entrenched in the life we’ve built – apart from the life, family and community that was and remains so essential to our personal history.
Then people begin to die.
Parents, uncles, aunts, cousins, siblings and the physical number of those who remain is tiny in comparison to what once was… and we grieve. We’re mourning the loss of “our” shared story – that no longer exists.
“Our” family, friends, community are all going through the same process. We extend our hands, hearts and prayer but their losses become reminders of our losses – so we seek safe harbor – no longer going out as often, changing locations, disconnecting ourselves physically, emotionally, spiritually – but we can’t separate – not completely – and so we grieve.
Grieving becomes our closest companion.
I’ve often wondered about the great cathedrals of the world and the generations of life and wealth that was expected of those who built them. Perhaps, as much as individuals and faith communities aspiring towards the heights in their relationship with God, these mighty edifices were physical manifestations that added value to lives, otherwise filled with grief.
Purpose through the everyday pain they didn’t know how to put a label on or find relief from and so they built.
Part of my “job performance” as a pastor is measured by how well I enter into grief with those who grieve. Scripture calls for us to “grieve with those who grieve” and if everyone you meet is in some form of grieving how do we ever “lift our eyes unto the hills?”
Eastern Europe, the Middle East, shootings in Kansas City… next week? Who knows where. Parts of the planet are open wounds that shed and spread grief like a firehose – as warfare takes the guilty and innocent alike. Every community in America lives on edge with very few people who’ve escaped the anguish of an armed and angry world ready to shoot into crowds.
It’s too easy to blame “mental health” when maybe what’s happening in our cities and around the world is the result of people grieving and unwilling or not ready to work through the difficulty of confronting “the human condition.”
We’re temporary.
We want to feel powerful and in control. Grief robs us of these longings and wakes us up to the harsh reality that control and power are even more slippery than life itself and so we grieve.
The Apostle Paul said that these bodies we live in are like tents, temporary, our Real Home is eternal and not here. Someday, the storms of life will simply take the tents away.
Powerful lesson for when the “tent” is gone but until then, we much prefer the comfort of our chair, the remote control, being in charge and certain that we can handle it.
Sound familiar? It’s called denial.
One doesn’t have to join the country club, church on the corner, eat at all the right places or even be a cub scout. Never join the team. Go your own way. You’re still grieving. Still a member of the one group that goes hand in hand with every breath we take – we grieve – not someday, over someone, we’re grieving now.
“Those who grieve.” This is our community.
All those “happy people,” living as if they’ve never been scarred? They’re grieving. They belong to you and you to them.
We’re the same. If there’s wisdom with age – it’s no different than the certainty of a calendar when you reach October… knowing that November and December are inescapably the final pages we’ll turn.
No amount of celebration, denial or even an open
embrace of the brevity of our tent pegs coming out from the ground – one by one – as we feel the canvas begin to flap in the coming storm can prevent the storm.
This is not our home but we’re so very comfortable here and so we grieve.
I prayed for you, no, I prayed for us this morning – we – those who grieve. I prayed for comfort, presence and healing and maybe I should have prayed for recognition of the wealth that resides in our grief.
This inescapable condition that we rail against is very possibly one aspect of humanity that could unite us – if we would take a moment to consider that so many actions in anger, chaos, retribution and violence are very often the complex outgrowth of grief we refuse to allow to be part and parcel of who we are in life.
Every major religion addresses grief in similar fashion. Few give us steps that seem relevant in a world where we measure success and happiness by how much power (money) and control (health) we have over our lives. The direction we receive often seems existential, impractical or farfetched: trust God, love each other, sacrifice, forgive, let it go… what’s the old saying? YBH? Yes. But How?
Jesus wept and so do we. Jesus mourned the weakness of His friends, as we often have. Jesus faced open betrayal – maybe that’s happened in one of your relationships as well – and He continued on and carried the heartbreak to the cross.
Grief is at the core of who we are. It rarely goes away. There are not enough blessings to undo every burden we carry and so instead of just “soldiering on,” perhaps, without feeling the need to tell everyone else that they’re only grieving, we should simply begin to love people for who they are, where they are and give thanks that we’re part of this same great family, the family of “those who
grieve.
It may not make your load lighter today, but imagine going through the grocery store and knowing – everyone in the store, at some level – knows just how you feel.
You’re not alone. You’re grieving. You belong.
This is who we are.
Those who grieve. I’m praying for us.
