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Posts Tagged ‘sorrow’

Broken Memories

Posted in Grief, Ordinary Time, tagged , , , , , on October 28, 2015| 3 Comments »

broken memoriesI, more than others perhaps, know that memories are not in objects or things. And yet, there are a few items that are saturated with symbols and pictures of a time past.

 So I will always remind you of these things, even though you know them and are firmly established in the truth you now have. I think it is right to refresh your memory . . . [II Peter 1:12-13a]

Yesterday, by accident, one of my adult children was helping me by washing a high window and a soapstone sculpture that had been there for some years fell over and broke, not shattered, but broken into enough pieces that it is not repairable. They were not inclined to tell me, I know, for my husband had hand carried it home from one of his first missionary journeys to Zambia.

sattler 1

Photo by Steve Sattler

When Mike brought the thing home we were still only a family of four and I noted that the carving was a representation of a family of five. I had given him a hard time about it, thinking he didn’t even notice the difference. He demurred, as he often did, that he felt compelled to get that one, a kind of holy tug. And so, it found a home in the window and was forgotten in its familiarity.

But then, a few years later, our lives did take a turn and we adopted a teen from Russia, hence we were five after all.

In this past year, as our family has struggled with a different kind of brokenness when Mike died, a photographer friend (at my request) gave me one of his images that touched my heart deeply, capturing what it felt like to have one of our family leaning away from us.

This week, my youngest son moves out of our family home into a new life; my oldest son is in the Navy and will soon be posted to San Diego; and my daughter is expecting her first child in a few weeks. Life moves on.

So, when the soapstone carving broke, a little place in my heart hiccuped. I even thought about trying to glue it back together again, but then I just knew, it’s not really broken. In order for new things to grow, the seed must die in the ground, stop being a seed and become something else entirely.

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Help Carry

Posted in Grief, Lectionary, Ordinary Time, tagged , , , , , , , , , on August 7, 2015| Leave a Comment »

tearsLike so many things in life, we are part of a circle. As we help bear the burdens of others, God bears ours (and that of the others we took upon ourselves). When a friend’s heart is heavy or circumstances pouring over them, we have a responsibility to help. Our fear is that we will be crushed or infected. But God’s promise is sure:

Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ. [Galatians 6:2, NIV] Praise be to the Lord, to God our Savior, who daily bears our burdens. [Psalm 68:19, NIV]

I had the opportunity this week to meet someone new and to hear her story, filled with disapmourn with those who mournpointment and sorrow. She needed to talk. She needed someone to listen. She need to offload. My cost was only time and my faith that God would ultimately carry the most of it. We are all so similar. Human pain and loss is universal. It’s easier to see it in others than to walk it. But time does bring some reprieve and the touch of others helping us hold up our heads, our hearts, our souls.

Another brother in my extended community of faith has passed, a contemporary with my own husband. I cannot reach out physically to his wife who has moved away, but I do lift her and her family up in prayer. This lifting is a conscious carrying that is just as important as listening or talking to someone in person. Prayer is vital to burden bearing. Even though she may not know about it, God is faithful. And another, closer to me, will feel the call to hold her close, to wipe her tears, to sit and listen, to laugh when she laughs and to weep when she weeps. [Romans 12:15] It is the way of faith.

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See Your Dove

Posted in Grief, Lectionary, Ordinary Time, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on June 10, 2015| 1 Comment »

Mourning Dove

Mourning Dove

Today I am the dove who asks for God’s strong hand to carry me, to disentangle me from the barb wire of my current circumstances, to confirm my faith in the Way and to show the doubters how God provides. I know my afflictions are minor compared to the great tragedies of the world, so I claim the dove as my emblem.

Remember how the enemy has mocked you, Lord,
    how foolish people have reviled your name.
Do not hand over the life of your dove to wild beasts;
    do not forget the lives of your afflicted people forever. [Psalm 74:18-19]

I am looking for a confirmation or perhaps I should confess, I’m looking for a sign. That’s so childish, I know. But if I am honest with myself, that’s the truth. I am quieting myself as much as I can in the midst of a very busy week, each night a program or meeting or work that requires my attention. In between, keeping the house impeccable for showings as well as taming the flourishing vegetation after our heavy rains. Calling in repair men and dear friends to do those things I cannot do. And prepping for book group and writing for writing group and volunteering for church and Opera House Foundation. All the while, looking for a place to move within my new, much smaller budget once our house does sell. And then, balancing the adult kids, one pregnant, another frustrated with me and my “needs,” and another out of state. Yada yada yada.

Hear my prayer, Oh Lord. Keep me mindful. Help me practice your Presence in the cracks. For this reason I fast, to step away from the daily preparation and consumption of food at the least. People spend a lot of time on this, I see, from planning a meal to purchasing the ingredients to preparing it, eating it, and cleaning up.

The tears come easily. I am at the six month mark this weekend of losing my husband. The time is harder now than it was before in many ways. This grieving thing is a harsh and unpredictable road. It’s so much more than simply loss of a loved one, it’s the transitioning to a new lifestyle, a new identity, a touchless world, an aloneness, and a limbo, always in doubt of the future.

Despite all the idiosyncrasies of Mike, he was a rock to our family, a given in the midst of change. Not that God is not a rock, of course. But I am not so full of the Christ Spirit that I do not need or want the comfort of my mate. We survived a lot of troubles and disappointments together. We stood the test of time, half my life.

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Crying Out in Silence

Posted in Grief, Lectionary, Ordinary Time, Random Thoughts, tagged , , , , , , , on June 5, 2015| 2 Comments »

tentWe don’t cry out much anymore. I mean, if I cried out from that deepest place, I’d probably be put in a straitjacket. So much. Just started pulling out of muck and felt a bit of hope again, then another disappointment, another unexpected challenge. I understand why people drown. Too much water.

Out of the depths I cry to you, Lord;
     Lord, hear my voice.
Let your ears be attentive
    to my cry for mercy. . .
I wait for the Lord, my whole being waits,
    and in his word I put my hope.
I wait for the Lord
    more than watchmen wait for the morning,
    more than watchmen wait for the morning. [Psalm 130:1-2, 5-6]

I have my faith. Relax.

But I am crying out, down in that private place only God knows about; the place I reserve for tear collecting, the place I hide, the place I wait. No one can really tell. It’s small and protected. Like a fantasy tale, that place changes shape depending on my state of heart. Sometimes, like today, it’s covered in sound absorbing quilts. Not a black hole yet.

 

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Are You Disappointed?

Posted in Grief, Lent, tagged , , , , , , , , , on April 3, 2015| 2 Comments »

The crowd was disappointed in Jesus. He did not turn out to be the Messiah they wanted. He did behave as a warrior king.

Wanting to release Jesus, Pilate appealed to them again. But they kept shouting, “Crucify him! Crucify him!” For the third time he spoke to them: “Why? What crime has this man committed? I have found in him no grounds for the death penalty. Therefore I will have him punished and then release him.” But with loud shouts they insistently demanded that he be crucified, and their shouts prevailed. [Luke 23:20-23, NIV]

disappointmentI had an unpleasant confrontation with my daughter about this very point, but in somewhat different terms. Relatively new to the contemporary and casual worship (having been exposed to Russian Orthodox practices most of her life), over the last couple of years, she was coming into a place of understanding and personal commitment. She was getting direction from the messages and found solace for her many losses as an teen adoptee. And then her father, my husband, died this past December. Her world crumbled and her faith faltered. After all, how many losses can a person take? I knew it was hard for her. But I thought she would bounce back. Today, I discovered otherwise. I could hear in her voice and her attitude that she felt betrayed by God. This God who supposedly “saved” her from her circumstances and yet plunge her into grief.

Jesus had stopped being the kind savior who had intended the best for her. Her seeds of faith had dried in the heat of sorrow.

How can I help her? Although my many years in my faith in God and Christ has sustained me through these months, she has not had the same foundation. She is disappointed like the crowds that day on the streets of Jerusalem. They wanted something else, not what God was offering, not what this Jesus was offering.

I grieve twice over now for my daughter. Nothing is the same and nothing will ever be same. I am sure the disciples were not much better. They scattered at the arrest of Jesus. Only a few came to his execution (John, Jesus’s mother, and Mary Magdalene, who believed). She believed he would survive the cross and live again. So much so, that even in the face of his death, she returned to the grave on Sunday morning, just in case, just in case. When the body was gone, she wavered (and for this reason perhaps, she did not recognized Him).

I believeDisappointment feeds upon our thoughts. We must consciously choose to believe in the face of the “evidence.”

I am reminded of the little girl from Miracle on 34th Street, who rides in the car in the last scene, repeating over and over again, “I believe, I believe, I believe.” Sometimes it simply takes that much.

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This Day

Posted in Grief, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , on February 6, 2015| 2 Comments »

T1221029-roadrunner.gifhis day could be any day, even today. Or perhaps “this day” has already happened and, looking back, we can say, “Oh, yes, that day–that day caught me off guard.” When Mike died, not even two months ago, a thief crept into my life and plundered me–that day. I thought I knew the way of life; I thought I had the God journey rooted in my understanding, but that day became this day for me.

But you, brothers and sisters, are not in darkness so that this day should surprise you like a thief. You are all children of the light and children of the day. We do not belong to the night or to the darkness. [I Thessalonians 5:4-5, NIV]

My faith is strong enough to keep me standing. I am grateful for the love and steadfastness of the Holy Spirit consciously whispering and sustaining me in ruach (breath of God). I am conscious of the prayers of the people that allow me to crowd surf these days and now weeks.

In some ways, it’s hard to disallow my former self to run this show, that planner and problem solver. She would have had everything worked out by now, she would know how to make all the ends meet and put order to the chaos. She is my cheerleader but she is also my goad. She is impatient to move on, to be in control, to make decisions. Over the years, she has buried her feelings and disappointments and simply built new paths instead. If a way is blocked, she goes another. She is her mother’s daughter, persistent and undaunted, self-sufficient and capable, enthusiastic and confident with energy and passion spread about like buckshot.

She has experienced what happens when her Road Runner stops moving, stops running. Everything in her warns of the danger. Keep moving. Keep talking. Keep busy. If nothing else, at least turn on the white noise.

But another voice is speaking as well, with questions: what’s important to this day? What is needful? Can we negotiate this time? Can we be more like conjoined twins and work together, and not compete to be one way or the other?

And if there is no decision, my “Martha” asks? Who will do the work?

Just wait. The pieces are not all in place yet. Wait. Stand a while longer. Try. Test the silence. Test doing nothing.

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Widow

Posted in Grief, tagged , , , , , , , , , on January 22, 2015| 1 Comment »

winter treeI thought I could write today. I thought I would title this post, the Widow’s Lament, but really, to what end? I am forging on, for good or ill, the way I usually do, with busyness and tasks. In this way, I can push back the other, that unnameable thing some call grief, but the word barely scratches at the guts of the experience.

Williams Carlos Williams wrote a beautiful poem entitled the Widow’s Lament, but it also carries the hope of renewal within it, set in the spring. For me, it is still winter, cold short days and bitter wind and frozen tears falling white.

I sought out scripture about widows, and we, like orphans, defined by our aloneness, are cast upon the body for care and love. I am grateful for it, I can say that plainly for my capable self is perilously close to shattering her illusion. Keep busy. What is worse? To collapse under the weight of it all and cast one’s being into the flurry of well-intentioned voices and pursuits or brave it well by appearance and lose support? Where is the middle ground? I am not a blubbering mess, not really, but I am also not a tower of strength. Stay close, my people, the way is long.

True devotion, the kind that is pure and faultless before God the Father, is this: to care for orphans and widows in their difficulties and to keep the world from contaminating us. [James 1:27, CEB]

I found these words, I dedicate them to my children, that they might know something of the truth (written by Lauren Bacall, at the death of her beloved husband, Humphrey Bogart):

A new beginning for me, the making of a life without Bogie . . . And from the time of his death–and more and more–his teachings have permeated by being. With each passing year I find myself repeating more and more often to my three children and to many of my friends his words of wisdom . . . how two become one and is that one way people live on after death? . . . So imagine my shock when I realized, at the tender age of sixty-five, that with all the above, the final truth is this: I live alone. I need a reason for all that I do, not just fill my days but to unleash my energy, to make me feel warm, that I matter, to satisfy my emotions. When I travel, which is often, who do I buy things for? My children. to whom do I send postcards? My children. Who do I call? My children. they are my connection. My connection with yesterday, today and tomorrow.

And so I imagine it will be (and is) with me: my children and my God and the people who love and need to be loved.

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