My Lament for Wesley

Why?!  Why is the question on a lot of our hearts right now as we are reeling from the news.  Our friend and fellow-dancer Wesley Brown was shot and killed Saturday night.  It was stupid.  It was senseless.

Why?!  Our hearts are broken.  We are holding Kelly and Madeline close in our hearts, wishing for time to see them and hug them and be with them.

Why?!  Earlier this summer I wrote an article on the work of grieving; on the necessity of allowing that work to occur in us.  It is essential that we allow grief to wash over us when it comes and simply be with it.  Grief and grieving are cleansing and educational.  Mostly, grieving—especially at this point—is simply there, not to be ignored or set aside.

As an aspect of our grieving, we can allow our faith to spill over into doubt, into questioning.  Without doubt, we never get around to asking the difficult questions of God, of ourselves. 

Why?!  I find myself asking that age-old question of God: "Why, God, did you allow this to happen?  Why?!"

While in the grip of doubt, letting our anger out is cleansing.  There are safe ways of doing so, such as  journaling, praying, swinging a wiffle bat against a pillow or a sofa.  Even screaming at God!  God can take it.  I know I am angry with, of all things, Wesley's employers.  I'm angry that he had to work instead of come to Cumberland—where he would have been instead of in that store Saturday night!  I'm angry that a gang decided to retaliate in an outbreak of violence which spilled over and ended Wesley's life.

Grief and anger exist together in a tangled mess so many times.  This tangled mess could very well be the reason this "senseless" violence broke out to begin with—what were the members of this gang grieving? 

 And, yes, I am angry with God.  Very angry.  My private conversations with God over the last 48 hours have been filled with angry tears and demands to know, to understand.

Yet, as I have moved with my grief, the question has shifted.  Shifted to how.

How, God, am I to be with this?  I have faith that Wesley is in a better place right now, is resting and healing in the light of God.  Yet, his family – a young daughter and his beloved wife – are HERE without him.

How can I be of comfort and support to his family?

This is a healthy movement our souls can take in response to our grief.  Yet, even this healthy movement does not resolve the deep sadness and the ache of loss in my heart.  Only time will do so.

May the grace of God go with Wesley's family and friends through the coming days and weeks.

Grace does abound.

Confluence

I'm sitting here tonight working on about three things at once.  Taking a break from each to work on the others.  I am absolutely certain there are others out there doing the same thing!

With all the transitions happening in my life right now, I'm being extremely careful of how I react to others.  I'm being so because I am a little suspicious of my own emotional volatility.  While on the surface it might seem to add yet one more thing to my head, it actually feels pretty good.  As I am more present to my own emotional state, I'm being more present.  Period.  That is always a good thing. 

Over the last couple of days I have had a few conversations with folks where I was becoming too...something.  I began to feel the edges of frustration and anger floating under the surface as well as the thick gooey feelings of sadness that I know is grief.  Yet, on the other hand has been incredible, deep joy.  The joy of knowing I'm on the right track. 

Stepping out in faith, not knowing for sure what's coming, what God has in store for me is exciting, I admit.  It feels good to be in a place where I can do that.  I have a tremendously fulfilling job now that is paying me enough.  So, what comes next in this ministry mustard seed that's been planted in me to work with those with dementia and their caregivers is free to come at its own speed.  I don't anticipate having to quit my job in order to do this ministry.  I say that because every day God points out to me that I am engaged in an important ministry within the responsibilities of my job.  Every day I have awesome conversations with caregivers needing to talk.

There are aspects to this transition which continue to make me sad.  Having to give up my ministerial commission is painful and on a very elemental level feels very "unfair."  Yet, God sees that, feels that sadness and is, I believe, sad right along with me.  I do believe that something will be resolved around this issue that will allow me, in the end, to continue preaching and pastorally caring for folks, to be able to counsel and marry couples, to be Pastor Daphne.  We'll see.

Basically, it comes down to needing to slow down, needing to be quiet and listen, needing to be patient and wait.  I can do that.

Stepping Out in Faith

After three years, a year and a half of those as a commissioned minister, I am stepping away from my position as Director of Caregiver Spiritual Support at First Christian Church of Decatur. I have been listening very deeply to God, friends, and colleagues over the last year in an attempt to stay close to God's call for my life and this ministry. This past February, in a conversation with my pastor and mentor, he suggested that I "go back to the basics." I took his advice and began taking the Caregiver Spiritual Support Ministry back to its basics: prayer and listening. I prayed and listened. As I met with folks who had an interest in the Ministry, it became clear to me that my time as its Director was coming to a close.

With this transition away from the Caregiver Spiritual Support Ministry to which I was commissioned, I am also taking off my robe and stole. This is a painful step for me because my role as a pastor brought me much joy. I enjoyed marrying folks! Yet, what has dawned on me while working my way through this river of grace is that what actually brought me so much joy was the time I spent with the good folks at Northlake Gardens Assisted Living residence, many of whom are cognitively challenged. This insight is bringing me back to the basics of God's call on my life: bringing a ministry of worship to those living with dementia.

Since 2008 that has remained my passion; unfortunately, my passion became derailed as I directed a more generalized caregiver support ministry. Now, God is asking me to step out in faith, to return to my Spirit-led passion, and begin caring for those who have entered the great silence. My prayer is that I can become a resource to churches around the state whose congregations are facing the dilemma of how to care for those whose ability to communicate, to be an active part of the community has been compromised by dementia.

So, as I transition away from this phase of my ministry and away from the faith community which nurtured me into ministry, I grieve and I hope. I have hope and faith that God will place me where I need to be for whatever is coming next. I will have both hands outstretched to receive it.

I have no idea what God has in store as far as a commission; perhaps it's time for me to head to seminary to become a fully-ordained minister. What I do know is that God is good; God is gracious; God gives us abundantly far more than we can ask or imagine!

The Work of Grieving

"Too many times we stand aside and let the waters slip away

             . . . dare to dance the tide."  ~   Anonymous

Why do we grieve?  Why are our hearts so entangled with one another's?  Why must we mourn our losses—large and small—and suffer the consequences when we refuse to do so?

Losses, changes, transitions—good, bad, or indifferent—all bring about grieving.  Some instances of loss, change, or transition affect our relationships because of death, illness, distance, work schedules, and even philosophies.  Our relationships form the bases of our lives.  We were created for community and when that community is disrupted, we grieve.

Grieving, despite its bad reputation, is a necessary part of growth.  Without the work of grieving, we tend to lose ourselves in the tangled emotional webs we weave.  Grieving helps to gently untangle our needs, our fears, and our doubts from the truth of a change. Grieving helps us value and appreciate what went before and look forward to what is in store for us.

A few years ago, I had the privilege of taking a class on the Psalms from Dr. Kathleen O'Connor at Columbia Theological Seminary.  I say privilege because Dr. O'Connor loves the Psalms.  Part of the work we were assigned during the class involved choosing a type of psalm (lament, happy, etc.) and writing one of our own.  The assignment elicited an inward groan from me because I knew immediately what sort of psalm I needed to write: a lament.  The idea of writing a lament was on the surface a simple one; yet underneath, an assignment that would pull from me difficult emotions surrounding my life and my relationship with God.

Yet, I wrote my psalm.  It was indeed a lament.  Now, one thing to know about laments: they are fluid; they move from anger and despair through grace and mercy into joy.  I find psalms of lament the most hopeful psalms.  My psalm dealt with the grief I have experienced throughout my life, my ache for understanding the "why," and the ultimate mercy and solace I found in God's presence with me throughout all of it.

In the stanzas of the psalm, I compared grief to being on the beach. However, I took that comparison a step further and wondered if God was indeed the grief itself.  God is often said to be joy and love—why not grief?  If we began to experience our grief as yet one more way of being present with God, would the work be any easier?  Would we be more in touch with the mercy and solace available to us through God's presence?

             Henri Nouwen writes,  

            Jesus, the Blessed One, mourns.  Jesus mourns when his friend Lazarus dies (see John 11:33-36); he mourns when he overlooks the city of Jerusalem, soon to be destroyed (see Luke 19:41-44).  Jesus mourns over all losses and devastations that fill the human heart with pain.  He grieves with those who grieve and sheds tears with those who cry.

             The violence, greed, lust, and so many other evils that have distorted the face of the earth and its people causes [sic] the Beloved Son of God to mourn.   We too have to mourn if we hope to experience God's consolation. 

When Jesus goes to the Temple in Jerusalem and reads scripture, the scripture he reads is from Isaiah 61, verses 1-3:

 The spirit of the Lord God is upon me,

            because the Lord has anointed me;
he has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed,
           to bind up the brokenhearted,
to proclaim liberty to the captives, and release to the prisoners;
to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor,
            and the day of vengeance of our God;
                        to comfort all who mourn;
to provide for those who mourn in Zion—
            to give them a garland instead of ashes,
the oil of gladness instead of mourning,
            the mantle of praise instead of a faint spirit. 
 They will be called oaks of righteousness,
                       the planting of the Lord, to display his glory.

We hear Jesus tell the crowds gathered on the hillside that those who mourn will be comforted (Matthew 5:4). 

We all live our lives in the presence of God/God is always present to the messiness of our lives. Part of what we learn from studying Jesus’ life is that Jesus experienced everything we experience. Jesus lived a human life; was very familiar with the losses and transitions through which we all live.  The reason Jesus' life lessons are so important for us is that they create a sense of familiarity, of understanding, of acceptance—of comfort.  There simply is nothing we can experience with which God has not become intimately acquainted.  God comforts us with presence—just as we comfort those around us with our own presence in times of trouble, in times of grieving. 

Back to grief and the beach—grief is like the waves at the beach, sometimes they roar in from way far out and knock us down, sometimes they sneak in from just a little way out and pull the sand from under our feet, and sometimes what looks like one of those waves that will surely knock us down actually dissipates before it ever reaches us.  If we look at each of these instances of grief and see God as the grief, how does that affect our experience of grief, of God?

Are there times in our journey through grief when we see God coming?  Do we realize our feet are about to be knocked from under us?  How about those times when we think we see God approaching only to feel a certain withdrawal, bringing a sort of disappointment with it.

Through the varying depths and strengths of our experience of grief, God works with us in sorting out our issues, our questions, our needs, our desires.  I have come to accept that God ensures we have what we need to do the work we need to do when we need to do it.  The role we have in this is openness and acceptance.

In looking back at the Psalms class and the practice of writing a lament, I found that the movement from lament through grace into joy was exhilarating.  By writing my own psalm, I realized that I had lived through that movement time and again. In seeing it as such, I saw the hope and comfort which kept me going from a different perspective.  I experienced God as being an active participant and a companion on my journey. 

Indeed, God is the guiding presence in my life which leads me through difficult periods and onto the high beach, safe from the rolling waves, to rest, to be comforted, to heal.  We each have those high beaches in our lives.  God is indeed the power which brings us there.  If God is present with us on those high beaches, then God is also present with us in the waves.

When considering God as actually being the waves of grief at that beach, perhaps we can experience a deeper sense of hope in the midst of our grieving.  When God is so deeply a part of the work we must do, then that work is good work, healing work, growth-inducing work.

Gratitude, Anticipation, Joy...and Grief

Recently, I've been giving a lot of thought to grieving and the holidays.  Yeah, I know, that's a rough way to begin a post isn't it?

Yet, it is that time of year when family and friends draw near.

It is that time of year when family and friends draw near and notice who isn't there. 

We have been trained by the great marketing experts to deny any sadness this time of year.  My own grief is not nearly so intense this year as it has been previously.  The heaviness began to fade last year around this time.  I was surprised by that.  You see, my mother fell just after Thanksgiving 2006.  A lot of you reading this will be very familiar with the downward spiral that follows a fall by the elderly, especially the cognitively challenged elderly.  By December 22nd she was gone.  So, Thanksgiving and Christmas have really been difficult for me for a few years.

Yes, I have "put on the good face" for my children's sake, so that they could have a "good" holiday season.  Of course, we all know what happens when the "good face" goes on, right?  In our family, in my life, when my "good face" goes on, my attitude goes down the tubes.  I get very tired, very emotional, very paranoid....just very everything!  Not an enjoyable way to spend the holidays!

Nor is it the way we really should spend the holidays.  I am quite fortunate to have a community of family and friends who are very supportive of me during the holidays.  They understand.  Indeed, there have been times when my pastor has bravely and compassionately suggested that I step back a little and take it easy during the worst of my down time.  That was hard to hear.  Yet, it was very good advice. 

As we enter into a time of grieving, whether it is heavy and intense or simply a period of occasional sadness, it is healthy to step back and allow that to happen.  Grief is a natural emotion surrounding loss.  The loss does not have to be about death either.  Grief happens when we lose a job, a friend, a house, a community.  Even good transitions can bring grief!

Our family has endured a good bit of stress this last year, leaving us tentative at times in hoping all will be well.  Yet, I can't help but experience my faith that God is in this life of ours; that God is moving blocks around that will slowly fall into place in a way that will further God's plan for our lives.

Perhaps that very plan involves my healing from the deepest of my grief.  My personal belief is that my mother is healed and whole and "understands" all of those things that she always questioned.  My belief is comforting this year in a way it hasn't always been.  That is a good thing; a God thing. 

When I think about our traditional holiday season, it encompasses Thanksgiving, Advent, and Christmas--a season full of gratitude, anticipation, joy...and grief.  Is it possible to enjoy a time of giving thanks for what God has provided, even the way in which God has provided, all that we need?  Rejoice in the face of grief?  Of loss?  I believe it is, given what God has provided.  That whole "all that we need" is what Christmas is all about.  The love of God, healing, merciful, forgiving, comforting...yes, that was the gift of Christmas...yes, that is what any of us who are grieving need the most. 

Dare I say that I am looking forward to experiencing the depth and breadth of my emotions this holiday season.  The gratitude, anticipation, joy...and grief, each as it comes; each as the gift that it is, bringing me closer to God, to my family, to my community.