Parenting Part V

        I have a friend who suggested that parenting is concentric circles: when a baby is born they are extremely close.  When they start to walk, the circle widens.  When they go to school it expands more.  When they start making friends it expands again.  When they leave for college it expands hugely, and when they partner with someone else, the circles in which we connect to our children expand once more.

        My youngest has a partner now, and Christmas break was an exercise for me in seeing just how far the circle of closeness that I share with my youngest child might expand.  Youngest's partner came home with her for Christmas break, at my request.  But while Youngest still managed to take whole days out of the month to spend time with her local friends, she could not do the same for me.  We caught moments together.  Little spaces in the midst of the busyness of the season to have open conversation. Still, by "open" conversation, I mean that I was open and she listened... as much as a 19 year old is willing to do. It was painful for me.  

    I didn't handle it well, becoming angry at her over little things because I was having a hard time sharing honestly about the deep grief I was feeling at her absence. At the time I felt she could handle my anger more easily than my grief and disappointment at the lack of closeness. I didn't want her to feel pressured to be closer than she wanted or needed to be. Reflecting back, that was undoubtedly a bad choice on my part, but it made sense to me at the time.  I'm aware that this is normal. Youngest is doing what she needs to do at this point in her life.  She is making appropriate choices and stepping away as is to be expected as she pulls closer to her friends and her partner.  All of that is what we raise our kids to do.  But at times, I admit here in this safe space, it leaves me feeling a bit lost.

    I have always put my kids first.  I knew that parenting meant that my number one priority had to be to raise and protect my kids.  But when I became a solo parent, the only one to raise them and to care for them, this feeling of mama-bear, protect the kids and draw them close at any cost - that feeling became exponentially stronger.  They were no longer just my priority, they were my life.  Yes, I still worked: to support the kids.  Yes, I still had friends and connections: so that I could be a better parent and support to my kids.  I moved back to the Bay Area, because I felt they needed more family and support. For the last 14 years, almost everything I have done and chosen to do has been for them.  

    So now that they are all basically out of the house?  I realize I am still the bank for them: funding their schooling, supporting them financially.  But even that has a clear deadline to it.  Youngest will graduate college in 2 1/2 more years.  She plans to go to grad school but she expects to fund that herself and is working to save the money to do so.  I can see the next widening circle coming at the point at which they are no longer reliant on me for their funding.  And I'm preparing, as much as I can, for the even greater distance that will accompany that change.

    Yes, I have my own partner: David is an incredible partner and friend. Somehow early on, though, we set up a dynamic where I support the kids and he supports me.  That has to change so we have a more equal relationship, and that will take time. I have friends who are extremely important to me.  But of course they also put their own families first.  I have my job, my work.  But there are days, like today, when I question whether I am making any difference whatsoever.  I wonder what the point is when I clearly have not been able to persuade anyone who didn't already understand our call: beyond anything else we are to be about loving, supporting and caring for the least of these, for those who are in pain, for those who are marginalized, for those society rejects as unwanted, unneeded, unvalued.  I have not been able to convince anyone of this, and it literally breaks my heart in light of the damage and the hurt that is coming to our most vulnerable at this point in time.   And so I wander and wonder what I am doing.     

    I think all of these feelings are common as attached parents watch their kids grow up and leave the nest.  As I have said before, we celebrate their growing, but we also grieve it.  We delight in their independence, but we also miss their dependence on us.  We celebrate as they step into the world, but we also grieve the closeness.  These are all part of raising kids.

    So today I commit to doing something that is life-giving for me that is not about caring for my kids.  I signed up for a horticulture class at the local community college and today I will begin that class.  I've written many times about my love for plants, trees and gardening.  I am going to take this class to spend time learning and being with plants.  This is for me.  And I'm hopeful that it will nourish me.  My plants are my new babies, and I'm looking forward to learning more how to care for them, how to be a better plant-mother.  For those of you who are in a similar place to me, I encourage you as well to find a way to nourish yourself, to step in a new direction that can give you meaning and joy.  We will never stop being parents.  But we can learn new things and find new purposes as well.  Thanks be to God!

Rituals

         I've been thinking about the many rituals that are an important part of every culture.  There are rituals around birth: baptisms, naming rituals, brises. We have rituals for coming of age: Bat mitzvah's and bar mitzvah's, quinceaneras, senior proms, sweet sixteen parties and graduations.  We have marriages and weddings. We celebrate retirements as well as birthdays and anniversaries.  And we have rituals around the end of life: wakes, memorials, funerals, celebrations of life.  All of these rituals give our lives structure and help us to frame events into meaningful times.  We recognize the seasons of our lives as we recognize the seasons of the year. Those rituals are essential to our sense of movement and purpose as we age and move through lives.

       Mitch Albom in his book, Have a Little Faith shared the story of Rabbi Lewis who lost his young daughter through a very severe asthma attack.  Albom wrote that the power of ritual includes being part of something bigger than yourself, connecting to those who have gone before.  They give our lives rhythm and purpose, especially after loss, after the death of someone we deeply love.  These rituals are soothing, are comforting, and form patterns of self-care and other care.  He goes on to say that since faith is about how you act, what you do, rituals are essential. 

       As he pointed out, though, we in the white Western world are diminishing in our practice of these rituals. Fewer and fewer people practice daily prayer, fewer people are baptized, and fewer get married.  As adults, many of us forgo birthday or anniversary celebrations. And many people now are deciding that when they die, they do not want their families to have a memorial service or a celebration of life.  

                There are reasons for all these decisions, and I think that in many cases, people who decide they don't want these celebrations do so out of a sense that somehow celebrating the seasons in a particular life is self-centered or selfish.  

               But the older I get, the more important I find these celebrations to be.  And in particular, to decide you do not want your loved ones to hold a memorial service in your honor after you pass is the opposite of being giving and selfless.  This denies people a way to grieve, a way to work through the loss and death of someone they loved and love still.  Memorial services are not about the person who died.  They are rituals for those who have been left, for the living.  As such, they offer a way to grieve, a way to gather with others who are also grieving, to remember, and to assign meaning to a life that is no longer physically present with us.  It is a time to offer reassurance that though a body is gone, a spirit continues, and to give people tools for keeping that spirit alive.  They are invited to share their stories, to continue to talk about their loved one without fear of bringing pain, to remember how we each have been changed because of their life in this place.  Memorials offer an invitation to live out the good of the person who has passed by continuing their legacy of giving, of loving, and of serving in their own unique ways. 

               Will people get over the loss of someone without the memorial service?  Probably most will figure out a way to grieve on their own.  And there are always situations where it would cause more harm than good to have such a service (like in the case of family conflict).  But I believe that in the great majority of cases, celebrations of life help the grieving process immensely.  As such, I believe that to deny your loved ones the opportunity to gather, to remember, to share, and to grieve together is to make the grieving much more difficult. 

               Frankly, planning and putting together a celebration of life is especially helpful to immediate family.  It gives them something to do with the pain they are experiencing.  It helps them to get out of bed in the morning because they have a focus and an important job that needs to be done.  That job includes continued focused on their loved one whom they lost (so it does not feel like just putting that person aside to go back to “normal” living), but it frames their time and gives meaning and purpose to the time following the loss. 

               I could go on…

               Please think carefully before you make the decision for your loved ones that a memorial service in your honor will be unneeded or unnecessary.  Please think seriously before you decide for all the people who love you what will be best for their grieving process. 

               If you are worried about the burden it will put on them to plan the service, plan it yourself.  Pick the place, the music, or the readings you would like as well as who you might want to have roles in the service. Pick what kind of party or service or celebration you might like to have.  You can make the arrangements ahead of time in many cases.  Still, you plan your own memorial with the reminder that again the service is for the living: so they may choose differently that your suggestions. 

               Again, though, please do not decide it is unnecessary for those left behind.  That is not your decision to make: and it underestimates what others may need to do to move forward after your passing.  Our lives touch many people, usually more than we think.  To celebrate that is a good and important part of life, it is an important piece of continuing to live despite the fact that the older we get, the more losses we will experience.

How Much Grief Is Acceptable?

     As I've been dealing with the recovery and continued work on my tooth as well as the illness that has finally claimed my body for a time, I've also continued to struggle with the grief of not being able to walk the Camino with my son.  As people have said, I probably will go back and walk the Camino another time.  A wonderful friend of mine has even offered to go with me, for which I am deeply grateful. But this opportunity to walk the Camino with my son feels like a one time chance that I won't get back. Middle, himself, while still continuing the Camino on his own, has stated that he doesn't see how he would have the time or resources to try to repeat this. While we don't know what the future holds, while my son is spending almost all of his time either in school far away (Fairbanks normally, though this year he was in Bergen, Norway), or working far away (he works at his school even through the summers and winter breaks), this time with him at this precious stage of his life felt extremely important. Eventually he will probably have his own family, and these rare and valuable opportunities to be together, just mother and son, especially in a situation of walking where there aren't the distractions of city life, work, or even chores that need to be done, will be harder to come by. Middle will be home for a week at the end of the summer before returning to Alaska, but I will be back to working full time, and his attention will be shared with the rest of the family, including extended family.  The opportunity for twelve days, just the two of us, has been lost, and I continue to feel that.

    But in the midst of this grief that I have yet to conquer, I am aware of how privileged my feelings are.  How many people have an opportunity to even dream about or imagine they will have the privilege of twelve days off from work to spend alone time with a young adult child?  How many people have young adult children who would choose to spend their time like this?  And how many would have the resources to travel in this way?  I realize that the dreams I had for this week, themselves, were privileges that relatively few have.  

    There are so many much more painful realities that people are grieving.  The loss of loved ones, the loss of freedom, the loss of homes to wars, foreclosures, fires or other natural disasters, and the list goes on, are all so much greater.  Grieving this time with my son, when placed in the perspective of all the other loses people face, feels like a luxury.  Does that sound strange?  And yet, I think it's a truth.  How much, then, can I justify this deep grief that I feel?

    But as you know, feelings just are.  They aren't good or bad.  They just exist.  And the more we can be gentle with ourselves around what we feel, the more quickly we can go through them to the other side. Perhaps it helps to remember that this loss is small in the big picture. What I think helps more is just recognizing that the depth of my grief is in measure to the depth of the love I feel for this amazing young man I am so blessed to call my son.  The pain mirrors the blessing.  Two sides of the same coin.  

    Additionally, and to be realistic, I think I'm also just weepy because my body is extremely tired from all the traveling, the time change, and the need to recover from extensive and on-going tooth work while dealing with illness! What has been physically exhausting has been emotionally exhausting as well.

    So today I continue to lay low and work to recover physically so I can also heal emotionally.  I am grateful for my son, even while we are apart once again.  And I'm grateful for my home: where I can spend the time recovering that I need in order to move forward.

Season of Change

           Last week I wrote a letter for our church newsletter that focused on the nature of change.  I want to include part of what I wrote here, but take it a step further.  

          Every change involves grief.  Even good changes mean there is loss: something that was is now no longer and we have moved into something that is different from what was before.  While some of these changes are easier to get through than others, they all invite us into a process where we can either grow or stagnate, learn and develop or become angry and bitter.  When we try to skirt around the feelings of grief that change brings, usually it ends up hurting us in the end: we are not as able to truly move forward, to grow through the healing process, or to do the inner work required to become the whole people God calls us to be.  

          As I write this, I am preparing to go on Sabbatical.  This is a joyous time: both for me and for my congregation.  For me, I will have intentional and extended time off.  I don’t believe I’ve ever had a vacation or even a day off that was completely free from work in my years serving as a pastor.  There have always been phone calls, texts, emails that need my attention and I’ve been happy to give it.  I love my work and that call has shown me that my work has been valued and appreciated.  At the same time, I am tired and taking a true step away for a few months will be different for me. I will be turning off my computer for these months, stepping away from phone calls and texts.  For much of the time I will be out of the country and unable to receive contact of any kind, but even while I am in the country, a sabbatical requires a stepping away, a silencing of these modes of contact. That will be new for me, but in 28 years of ministry, I’m hoping it will be a time of spiritual renewal.  Jesus modelled stepping away to pray and to regroup and I am trying to learn from his example as I take this time apart.

For my congregation, they will have the experience of a wonderful woman coming to fill in for me who is a colleague, friend and mentor whom I'm hoping will be able to lead them in a different way for a few months.  She will bring different visions, different insight and will be able to lead and walk with the congregation in new ways.  These are all good things.  I will return in August and that will also be a good thing: I hope to come back with renewed energy and vision and I look forward to hearing what my congregation has learned during my time away. 

               But I also need to name, as I began, that every change involves grief.  Grief can include feelings of sadness, depression, anxiety.  While my hope is that these feelings will be minimal for my congregants, I can honestly say that they are rising steadily for me.  I worry about life transitions that I may not be here to support or to walk through. I wonder what my parishioners feel and how they will move through this time. Personally, I worry how it will be for me to not be defined by my ministry.  I have anxiety about the transition back when I return in August.  

            Our session (executive council) for our congregation met yesterday.  We are reading together a book about family and church systems and the chapter we read for yesterday discussed how the anxiety of grief can cause people to "act out."  I feel called to name that despite my understanding this to be true, it is still the case that I find my anxiety causing me to behave differently than I would choose. Today I was snippy and unusually direct with a congregant about something that had hurt someone I love.  Normally I would step back, take a breath before reacting, and be able to be more pastoral in my response.  But today I acted from that reactive anxious place.  I apologized, and fortunately was able to see it for what it was: a reaction based in anxiety and the grief of change.  Even more fortunately for me, he was also able to see that as well and so did not take it personally.  Still, my own behavior was a call to pay attention, and to breathe more deeply through the next couple weeks as I prepare to go.  

            As with all transitions, this is an invitational time for me to pay attention.  As with all feelings, the anxiety calls us to listen and to be honest in our feelings.  But once again, God did not leave me alone in my anxiety.  In the middle of today's drama, I received a phone call from someone I haven't spoken to in nine years.  It was a delightful and unexpected "catch up" conversation with a parishioner from my last congregation. I left the call with several gifts.  

         First, it was a reminder to me that even if I were not returning (and I am returning!!), there would be people who had valued my time here.  I do not need to be anxious that my presence has been unvalued or unimportant.  Even parishioners who experienced me for a much shorter time and during an unusually dramatic and difficult time value what I had to give.  

       Second, it was a reminder that even when we are apart from one another, we remain connected.  Our hearts, our experiences together, our walks together matter.  They continue to be part of who we are even when we are separate.   

      Finally, and always, it was a reminder that God never leaves us alone. At the moment when I most needed reassurance and comfort, I was given the gift of this re-connection.  The ways in which God binds us to one another and is the glue, the love, the communion in community is so important and essential.  And for all of that I am deeply grateful.

     During this season of change I am striving to walk with my eyes open.  I will make mistakes.  But none of us are alone, and with love and intentionality we will walk through the struggles to emerge in a better place on the other side.  Thanks be to God.

Lord, If You Had Been Here!

 

John 11:1-44

Psalm 104:27-30

Lent 1

            The story we hear today is a complicated one.  Jesus’ life has been threatened so his disciples are not excited about going back to Judea, and so close to Jerusalem.  We hear that it was “less then two miles” from Jerusalem to where Martha, Mary and Lazarus were.  But Jesus heard that Lazarus was very ill, so after waiting a couple days, he decided he needed to go back to see him, he had to go, despite the threats against him.  The disciples were anxious, but Jesus needed to do this.  He loved Lazarus, he loved Martha and Mary and he needed to return to them to help. 

            On the way back he heard that Lazarus had died.  And Martha and Mary were both upset with Jesus, “If you had been here, my brother would not have died!”  Martha said.  Later Mary said the same thing, “If you had been here, my brother would not have died!”  We understand this.  We understand this pain, this anger, this frustration.  They are grieving the loss of their brother!  And at some level they feel it is Jesus’ fault.  “If only!”  They say.  If only!  If only Jesus had been there, Lazarus would not have died!  And while in their anger it sounds like they are being disrespectful, the truth is that these statements on their parts are strong statements of faith, of trust.  Jesus is able to see past their accusations and to understand that these angry comments are both statements of love for their brother and statements of trust in him!  They trusted that he would have been able to prevent Lazarus’ death.  They also trusted that he could still do something about it.

            Oh, that we were able to see the same in those who get angry with us!  But it’s not that easy for us, is it?  It just isn’t really that simple when we are faced with an “If only” most of the time!

            A couple months ago now my parents both were sick with COVID.  Because they had been vaccinated, they did not get it severely.  They both thought they just had colds.  But the truth was that they both had it and that my father had been to my house the first day that his symptoms showed up.  By the time we found out that it was, in fact, COVID, both David and I had symptoms similar to theirs.  And while I was not worried about myself, I was worried, very worried, about other people in my life.  I was worried about the congregation.  I was worried about my kids being exposed.  And I was deeply worried about David.  David has some fairly serious respiratory issues.  The major diagnosis for him is that he has asthma about being sick.  To say it differently, he gets an asthmatic reaction every time he is ill.  That means that once he gets sick, his allergy system kicks in and he has a hard time breathing, he coughs terribly and constantly, and it doesn’t go away.  As a result of this and other respiratory issues, he actually had to have a tracheotomy when he was only 5 years of age because he couldn’t breathe.  He has the scar from that to this day and it is a daily reminder to me that for David, being sick, especially with a respiratory illness, is not a simple or uncomplicated thing.  For David, being sick is very serious.  So, when I heard that my parents did in fact have COVID, and when I realized they had been at my house the first day that it really presented itself, I was upset.  Like Martha and Mary, I confronted my dad, “If you had not come that day, David would not be sick!”  Different words, but equally a response of grief and fear that manifested in being upset.  And, like Mary and Martha, I wasn’t calling him to just complain.  They went to Jesus seeking help.  They needed to express their grief.  They needed someone to hear their pain.  But also, they were both still hoping, still trusting that he could make it better.  I called my dad to complain just because I needed someone to hear how scared and sad I was that David was sick and that I was afraid it, too, would be COVID.  But we also know that a huge part of grieving is bargaining, or negotiating.  At some level I think it felt that if I could just say “if only you hadn’t come!” it would fix it, it would turn the hands of time back and mean he hadn’t exposed David, and that we were okay. 

In fact, it turned out neither of us did contract COVID.  But in that moment of pain, those feelings of “If Only” were the feelings that overwhelmed me. 

            “If only!”  If only Jesus had been there.  If only my parents hadn’t come over that day.  If only Brent hadn’t gone to that party where COVID went crazy through the group.  If only Suzie hadn’t sold their house at the bottom of the market.  If only, if only, if only.  These are familiar sentiments to all of us, far too often.

            And Jesus’ response?  The shortest but most packed verse in the entire Bible, “Jesus wept.”  Even though in the story he could still do something about Lazarus’ death, even though he could still bring Lazarus back, even though the story did not end here, we still have this amazing and profound verse, “Jesus wept.” 

            I remember reading a sermon once in which the pastor said that we are to be people of the resurrection, people of joy, people always trusting and delighting in the hope of tomorrow.  We are to trust that God truly can and does bring new life out of every death, and new beginnings out of every ending.  And yes, there is truth in that.  As I mentioned in my sermon on the wedding in Cana back in January, we should celebrate much more than we do.  There is so much hope, promise and joy in the resurrection story!  There is so much life and grace and abundance in what Jesus brought and shows us of who God is, that we have no excuse not to party and celebrate and live this life in great fullness!  I stand by that.  I believe it to be true.

            But these two words in this one verse give us a very different gift.  They also give us permission to grieve.  Jesus wept before moving on and bringing new life to Lazarus.  Jesus wept before even looking towards hope and new possibilities for life for Lazarus.  Jesus wept.  He didn’t just cry a few tears.  He didn’t just say “aw, that’s too bad!”  He WEPT.  And he wept for a long time: all the way to the cave where Lazarus was buried.  And in doing so, he invites us to do the same.  We are given permission to cry and to grieve and to lament the changes, the losses and the struggles that we, too, have experienced. 

            I have talked before about the importance of reframing our tragedies.  And of seeing God in them, through them, and in the resurrection aftermath of them.  But we cannot jump there too quickly.  It is immensely important for us to live through the feelings of loss, and of grief. 

            I’m reminded of a movie I saw (Joan of Arcadia episode) in which one of the main characters had been in a car accident and had become a paraplegic as a result.  The person who caused the accident was the driver of the car who had been drunk when he drove.  While Kevin had finally come to terms with the loss of his legs, the loss of the life he had envisioned for himself, the family of the one who had driven the car sued him because he had allowed his drunk friend to drive.  Kevin’s parents tried to shield him from that.  They said to him, “Kevin, you should not have to go through this again!”  But his response, his profound, wise, deep response was, “But I have to.  Don’t take this away from me.”  Don’t take this away from me.  Jesus got that.  He got that there is a need to go through grief, through the pain, in order to truly heal, and, I would say, in order to see the new life on the other side. 

            When the kids were little, we had, for a while, two pets: a cat, Sabbath, and a Beta fish named Jeriah.  At night when I would tuck them into bed, I usually sang to the kids and my song would include a part where I would list everyone in our family: “With Mama and Daddy and (eldest) and (middle) and (youngest) and Grandma and Grandpa and Nana and ….” Etc.  I would name everyone who was part of my kids’ closest circle in the song each night.  Grandparents, aunts and uncles, friends, and, yes, the pets.  I would end each one with “And Sabbath and Jeriah” Well, as you know, fish don’t live long.  One day when we came out we found Jeriah at the top of the fish tank, floating on his side.  It was sad but we made it important: did a little service before flushing the fish down the toilet, sending him to his watery grave.  No one cried at that point.  I think everyone, even the littlest of the kids, understood that death was a part of life and that fish just don’t live very long.  That night when I sang our goodnight song, though, Middle was adamant, even before I started singing, “Don’t forget Jeriah!  You still need to include Jeriah!”  And it was at that point, when I was singing our goodnight song and naming the fish, that the tears came. 

            There is a wonderful Washington Irving poem that I would like to share with you:

There is a sacredness in tears.

They are not the mark of weakness, but of power.

They speak more eloquently than 10,000 tongues.

They are the messengers of overwhelming grief,

of deep contrition and of unspeakable love.

            We are in a time when there is much to weep about.  Our world is not what we would want it to be.  We are frightened and scared about the violence happening in the Ukraine, about the decision to deal with things through violence at all, with the greed and the claiming of power that this represents.  We feel helpless in the face of such wrong behavior.  And on top of that we continue to struggle with COVID.  We see people almost always through masks, we distance from people we would like to be spending time with, we all have lost people and lost a sense of “normalcy”.  And this has been going on now a LONG time.  Next week we will have been under the tyranny of the pandemic for two years.  Two long years.  Do we see a light at the end of this tunnel?  We think we do and then that light moves to being farther off.  And the reality is we will never return to what was.  Times have changed.  We have changed.  There is sadness to be felt, there is grief to go through.  This is our truth.  This is the reality of the times.  And while we trust and look to a God of resurrection, a God of new life, a God of hope and joy, we aren’t there yet.

            This is the first week in lent: and in this first week of lent, we are walking towards the cross, not yet towards the resurrection.  And we are called to look, to see, to be honest about where we are and how we are and where we are going.  And we are called, finally, to do what Jesus did.  To grieve, to struggle, to acknowledge the pain, to go through the pain.  To weep.  We know that God knows what this is, that God understands what this feels like.  And we know that tears are a deep gift: the ability to weep, to release our pain, to express our pain: this is a gift from God.  Often, it is only once we have allowed ourselves to grieve, to feel, that we can see what actions we can take to change things, to make the world better.  We are invited into the grief so that we can move through the grief to a new place, a place of hope, of resurrection, of new life.  It will come: that is the promise.  But we must go through the death, through the grief first.  Thanks be to God.  Amen.

The Giving Tree: a different take

           I want to start by saying that I've always hated the story The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein.  I've never seen this as what Christian love should be.  We are called to love our neighbors as ourselves, which inversely means we are called to love ourselves as our neighbors.  Allowing ourselves to be used and abused is not loving to ourselves.  Frankly, it's also not loving to the other as it allows them to have using, abusing relationships that are not healthy for them either.  

         That being said, this week a good friend pointed out that parenting is a lot like The Giving Tree and I have to say that really resonated.  Our kids love us.  Of course they do.  But they love us in the needing us, using us, taking from us kind of way.  That's the nature of the relationship.  And conversely, we love them by giving all that we have, ALL that we have for their growth, their wholeness, their well-being.  And in the end, they leave us.  They leave us and form more equal relationships out in the world.  They leave us and have their own kids to give to, to care for.  We raise our kids to take all we can give and to go out on their own, leaving us behind.  And we feel we've been a success when they "launch" well: go into the world as successful adults, no longer returning to us to get their needs met.

      We are happy when they launch well, when they live full lives, when they succeed in the "growing up" thing.  But as Shel Silverstein also says, "... but not really."  And what I mean by that is that while we are thrilled FOR our kids, while we feel proud and happy and would never choose anything different than their successful launch into the world; while we encourage and support and are so very pleased when at the end of the day they go out on their own and handle it well; at the same time, we have raised them to leave us.  And the grief in that is real.

      I would say at one level maybe this grief is one of the hardest kinds of grief there is because we aren't SUPPOSED to feel it.  I came home from Alaska, after taking my son there to begin his first year of college, just a few days ago.  And I have not been able to stop crying.  The best I can do is to keep so busy that I don't have time to think about it much, though, because I'm not "supposed" to feel this way.  When people share their grief about other things, those around them can support them, often hold them, extend care for them.  When I mention that I'm having a hard time because I miss my son so terribly, the inevitable reaction is "Yes, but aren't you happy for him?"  Of course I'm happy for him!  AND I'm grieving for me.  But those comments discount my grief.  They try to wipe it away.  It is a telling me "you shouldn't feel that way!"  As a result, this is a grief I have to suffer alone.  There is no support for it.  Only a strong reprimand to "be happy for him!" as if my happiness for him and my grief for me were mutually exclusive.

     I love my son.  I love him as both a part of myself and as much more than myself.  I love him for the fact that he is my son.  But I also love who he is and who he has become.  I love that he is smart and thoughtful, that he deeply feels compassion and empathy for others, that he is self-reflective and quick to apologize when he has hurt someone.  I love that he works HARD at school, at friendships, at connections with others.  I love that he forgives often and easily.  I love that he likes to engage in real conversations about real issues.  I love that he is not afraid to disagree, though he does get concerned when he upsets someone with what he says.  I value that he has so many interests from flying to photography to science, to the ranch, to weight lifting and hiking, etc..  I love that he tries things and is willing to stretch and grow.  I love him.  And I miss him desperately.  Just as I love my first child and hurt so terribly much when they left, I love my son and miss seeing him everyday, talking with him everyday, even arguing with him every day (because... well, there you are.  That's my relationship with my son and has been for the last 18 1/2 years).  So the possibility of not grieving for him?  Non-existent.  Not realistic at all.  I am grieving.  Terribly: as anyone who truly loved another person would when they leave, when they go away, when they start a life that is separate from you.  

    That grief is not a bad thing.  That grief is a sign of the love I have for him.  So today I am trying to be gentle with me, even when those around me cannot accept my grief.  I am trying to give my grief space, even when others think it is a sign that I am not a good mother.  I am going to allow the tears for today.  Because I am hurting.  I have launched my dear boy into the world and my own harbor is much emptier without him.  It is okay for me to notice this, to grieve this, even as I celebrate who he is and who he is becoming.  

    If you are in a similar space, I wish you peace.  But before then, I wish you space for your grieving.  It's okay to feel this way.  It's a mark of your deep love.

Cycling through Forgiveness as we Cycle through Grief

        I don't believe forgiveness is a linear thing, anymore than grief is.  And today I was struck by the fact that it is, undoubtedly, because the two are so closely related.  

    Anger, we are told, is a secondary emotion, and it usually is a cover for sadness, or grief (or fear).  Forgiveness is a way to let go, to release that anger from our bodies, from our minds, from our beings.  Grief is not linear, so forgiveness won't be either.  As we cycle through the pain of loss, and especially the anger of loss (one of the stages of grief), we will probably need to forgive again.  Also, just as new losses can push us into reliving old losses and can bring up that old grief all over again, new things that anger us can cause us to remember at a cellular, emotionally based level old injuries and present us with new opportunities to work towards forgiveness again, hopefully at a deeper level, for what has happened in the past.

    This came up for me this morning as a scripture I read threw me back into an injury from almost two years ago, and the realization that while I had forgiven it at the time, I would now need to work to forgive it again.  That while I had grieved the loss and the pain of that injury at that time, that it hurt again, that it cut again, and that I would need to grieve it, going through the denial, negotiation, anger, and depression again to come to a place of acceptance and then forgiveness once more.  Ugh.  

    Grieving is hard work.  Forgiveness is, perhaps, even harder work.  It requires us to remember the humanity of the other, and to have compassion for their challenges and their histories that have impacted who they are today.  It means letting go of the anger by walking through it to the other side.  It means experiencing the pain of loss once more.  And then, deep forgiveness requires self-reflection as well, and asks of us a commitment to look with intention and integrity at our own part in a situation.  If a person cannot be self-reflective, forgiveness is unattainable.  The more self-reflective a person can be, the more quickly a person will be able to pass through to forgiveness.  But it seems that self-reflection is not really something we value too much in our current culture.  It is a difficult calling to look at our own failings, to own them, to admit (or confess) them and to attempt to make amends for them.  I deeply believe it is the only way we can truly heal, but it is a challenge many simply cannot face.

    I am reminded of Dumbledore's conversation with Harry in J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallow's about Voldemort.   He said that even this evil man could heal all the horrible, awful things he had done.  There was hope for him, but it was only to be found in a decision on his part to look, to see what he had done and to feel remorse.  Dumbledore also admitted that the pain of that remorse would be worse than he could imagine.  And, unfortunately,  it was a pain Voldemort was simply unwilling to experience.  

    Even with small things, people can be scared or afraid to self-reflect.  And that fear of the pain of self-reflection keeps us from forgiveness.  One might ask then if we are able to do that work and are able to forgive, why do we then have to forgive again?

     Just as each time that grief resurfaces we have an opportunity to dive a little deeper into healing that grief, each time anger rises at another person, we have the call to dig deeper into compassion, self-reflection, and ultimately forgiveness.  

      Again, none of this is easy.  As I sat with my own grief, pain and anger this morning I realized how much easier it would be for me to just remain hurt and angry and not do the work of self-reflection or the work of remembering that the others have histories and pain, too, that I need to approach with compassion and grace.  It would be simpler to stay mad.  To be holier than thou.  To allow the anger and judgement to build safe but isolating walls between myself and those who hurt me.  It would be so much less work.  It would also be "safer".  I would then no longer have to be vulnerable to their actions, to their ability to injure me.  I could walk away and self-righteously declare that I did not need that kind of "friendship," and that this loss of relationship was THEIR loss for not treating me right in the first place.  I could do that.  But I would be lying to myself if I did.  And I would miss an opportunity for deeper healing for myself.  

    So today I once again choose the harder path.  I will take the time I need to journal and reflect, to grieve again, and to own my part in the problem.  I will do what must be done to heal at the next level, and more, to forgive again.  Their intentions and their choices ultimately are immaterial in this.  The forgiveness must be given for the sake of my own soul, my own peace of mind, and my own walk towards wholeness.  I would wish for all of you to find that peace as well.  Blessings on your day.

Happy Birthday, Dear Daughter, during this odd time...

     Today is my eldest daughter's 20th birthday.  This was going to be her "big" birthday.  I know, usually it's 21 that's the biggie.  But Eldest is turning 20 on the 20th of May in the year 2020.  She's been anticipating this as the "big" birthday for years, and thinking through the specifics of this one for the last year: what she wanted to do (invite some of her friends to come out to CA to celebrate with her), what she wanted as a gift for this special day (the promise of a mom-daughter trip up to some place she could really see the stars), where she wanted to go to have dinner with family as well as friends, what kind of dessert she wanted me to make.  Even the last thing on the list hasn't worked out: we get our foods from Imperfect Foods.  Generally I love what they do.  But this time they left off an entire box of the foods we ordered which unfortunately included milk, eggs, and flour among other things.  This usually arrives late Tuesday, so we didn't know we wouldn't have these things until about 10PM last night. I called them about this mistake and they are "getting back to me" which probably means they will just discount the box.  That doesn't help me today, however. Wednesday is the day we record our worship services, so I just don't have time to stand in the long grocery store line to get the items we need to make her dinner and dessert.  I could go on, but you get the point.  It's just disappointing.  Today is disappointing, for my daughter, which somehow makes it doubly disappointing for me.  As I've said to all of you many times, grief seems to bring up past griefs.  Trauma brings up old traumas.  So this little thing, of a birthday not being what it should be, feels much bigger for me than it should, no doubt.  I woke up under a cloud, one that I will have to try to shake off before recording your service for Sunday morning, but a cloud, none the less.

      I know that many of you are thinking "wow, that is such a little thing compared to what many are suffering" and you are right in that.  It is a very little thing in the big picture.  We have a house, we have work, we have our family healthy and whole.  We have church, extended family, friends, we have community (even though we cannot gather yet), we are blessed today with bird song and sunshine, the flowers are in bloom and it is a beautiful day.  I am very aware that this little thing is just that, a little thing.  

     But I am also giving myself permission, as I give it to you, to feel what you feel this day.  Grief during this time when things are not what they would be, could be, should be, is an appropriate emotion.  Sorrow for things that our loved ones have lost makes sense, even if it is not as big as what others suffer.  We don't make it better for them by denying our own pain in the midst of this.  If anything, our own senses of loss can give us a glimpse, an opportunity for understanding and compassion for what others are going through as well.  

       So I share this with you for three reasons:  First, to let you know I understand.  I understand the feelings of grief and loss that you are also experiencing.  This is a hard time.  And it is okay to name it as such.  Second, I extend this as an invitation to be gentle with yourself around your own feelings.  God has given us our feelings as a gift, and we are called to experience all that it is to be human.  I realize our culture tells us to "buck up", but we have the psalms to show us another way: one of being genuinely and humanly authentic.  Denying our feelings and our reality is, at some level, pushing God away, who is the author of all feelings and experiences.  Finally, my own experience is that acknowledging the grief and pain often makes way for the feelings of joy to return.  I think about the movie "Inside Out" in which it was sorrow that opened the door for healing and joy.  So allow yourself these feelings too.  Move through them, rather than avoiding them.  See what doors of feelings, ideas, thoughts and creative solutions are opened on the other side.

     Happy Birthday, my dear 20 year old girl.  

     I am looking towards next year for a better celebration.  

     For the rest of you, love and peace this day.

As the crisis continues...

        I've been having bad dreams at night.  Not exactly nightmares, but disturbing dreams.  Most of them seem to center around relationships from the past, people who were once part of my life but aren't anymore.  Some of the dreams are fairly realistic: exploring what would happen if we met up again.  Others are completely unrealistic and travel down weird roads and situations that are just not realistic at all.  I know I'm not alone in having bad or disturbing dreams.  Other people have shared with me that this has been one of their experiences of this crisis time as well.
       Any trauma can bring up for us all the traumas of the past; any unknown time can bring up everything that was unsure, uneasy, or unresolved from the past; any time of fear can raise in us a need to try to heal or fix anything from our lives that has not been dealt with sufficiently.  I think that at some level, no matter what the crisis, trauma causes us to look at our mortality and to try to work through what we want dealt with before we leave this life.  Sometimes our dreams are a way to try to work through some of those things.  Sometimes dreams are invitations to look more closely in our waking hours at our past so we can walk with more confidence and wholeness into whatever future we may have for however long we may have it.  Maybe the challenges of this time, the traumas of this season are affecting you in different ways or manifesting for you in different ways, but for me, the challenges of today seem to be manifesting especially through disturbing dreams.
       As always with the things that challenge or disturb, I see in them a calling.  For me, one of the callings in this present disturbance is to do more real and important life work than maybe normal times allow us to do.  I see in my disturbing dreams an invitation for healing and reconciliation, a call to reach out to those I haven't spoken to in a while, a chance to really do some of the inner work, healing and peacemaking that we are always called to do as part of our human journeys.  I know there are some relationships that cannot be attended to.  I know there are some situations that it are best  turned over to God for healing.  I do believe that relationships that cannot be dealt with directly still can be healed within ourselves, and I also believe that God is active in healing all relationships when we are serious about doing that work.  Still, there are people who we might not have connected with in a long time, and this time may be an invitation to reach out.  And there are many relationships and situations that can be healed directly through conversation, the making of amends, the offering of apologies and forgiveness, and the work of grace.
      I find myself remembering the good about many people I haven't talked to in a long time.  I find I am missing folk I haven't been with in a long time.  Mostly, I am feeling incredibly grateful for all the people who have touched my life: some for a short time, some for a longer time, some for my life time. For all of you who have graced my journey, I am grateful.  I am grateful whether my time with you was for growing, was for learning or was for healing.  I am who I am because of my time with each of you.  I will grow into who I will be because of our interactions, whether they were positive or negative.  For all that you are and do and have done, I offer thanks.

Seasons of Loss

        This last year seems to have focused an inordinate amount on loss for us.
        As a congregation we read the book Being Mortal by Atul Gawande (New York: Metropolitan Books, 2014) which discusses end of life decisions and questions that are important for us to name and explore with our family members BEFORE the time comes for those decisions to be made.  It is an amazing book full of relevant stories and one I would recommend to everyone, regardless of your life situation, your age, your circumstances, or even your beliefs.  Death is a part of life and the sooner we recognize and plan for what we really want at the end, the better prepared we, and our loved ones who will walk us through the endings, will all be.
        This was followed by our Faith and Film night movie being If I Stay, which tells the story of a young girl caught between life and death and needing to make a decision about whether to live or not since her nuclear family has all been lost to the same accident that placed her in this limbo state.  This was a very thoughtful movie, bringing up questions of agency in our own endings but also family roles, what ultimately matters to each of us, and what decisions we make that either mirror our true values or act against them.
        In the midst of all of this my brother in law died, at the age of 52, from a stroke.  There was no warning, and no way to prepare. It just happened, leaving my husband and his family reeling, grieving, confused, and lost. 
        A few months later, the priest at the local Catholic Church died, at the age of 61, in a car accident.  He was a man I worked with and served with (I am one of the church's pianists) and who left behind a deeply grieving congregation.
       Then at the end of November my uncle, age 69, died of a heart attack.  Also an unexpected, unanticipated, very sudden, and very big loss for us.  That was the third unexpected, tragic death in the course of six months.
        Finally a friend I care about very much is dying of cancer.  This is now imminent.  She is a solo parent, and she leaves behind two teens.  And while cancer at some level leaves more time for loved ones to prepare, it is still devastating.  She is young, her children need her, and the loss around this feels huge. 
       All of these losses are in addition to those I usually face as the pastor of an older, aging congregation.  The deaths of older persons are still not easy, even though they may be more expected. 
       As I said, it has been a year of loss.
        I have found myself saying repeatedly to my family as they have walked through this year of loss, "Well, people aren't meant to live forever."  And that's true.  Reality is that we are all walking towards death.  None of us get out of the this life alive.  Our own deaths may seem more distant, but we walk towards them just the same, and as most of our losses this year show, "distant" could mean just around the corner.  Things happen, life happens, suddenly at times.  
        As I said above, death is a part of life: a natural, expected-at-any-moment, other side of the coin that is living.  While I will be the first to admit that I don't have a clue what death really means for those who leave this life, while I find that scripture really doesn't have a lot to say about after-life (though there have been many misinterpretations that say otherwise), still I have a sense of some kind of continuance. I believe strongly that whatever death looks like, we are loved through it just as we are loved through life. Additionally, I have never felt that my relationship with someone is over once they've died.  I still talk to those who've died.  I still imagine, and sometimes feel, I might actually hear their responses.  I still feel their presence or spirit as something that continues within my memories of our times together, in the retelling of their stories and in the ways I have learned, grown, and changed because of them.  I still meet them in the ways that those around me also have been changed and the ways their lives reflect the values and lives that those who passed have led.
        But still, with all of this, grief is real.  Our relationships with those who have died are different now.  We can no longer call them, or check in with them, or see what they are doing in the same way.  Sharing a meal or going for a walk together, having a good laugh, hugging and connecting with a touch or smile - these things are no longer possibilities.  It's no longer possible to make new memories with them, to have experiences together in the same way, to physically be in the same space, sharing, working, playing, being together.  And that changes everything in a day to day way.
       So I'm left with the same questions I always have - what do we do with this?  What are the lessons for us in times like this, and where do we take our grief when it can be overwhelming?
        First, grief is different for every person.  Even within those differences though, it isn't something we can avoid or put off or ignore.  It has to be walked through in order to move us to a new place.  This is never comfortable, but it must be done.  Trying to not feel our grief means it will erupt in other, potentially harmful ways.  We are given these feelings as a pathway to healing and feeling them is the only way through.
       Second, we don't walk this alone.  God is there with us experiencing this as well.  We have a companion in this who sees beyond us and is there to love us through it all.  But also, all of us experience loss.  All of us experience grief.  We've been given community to walk with us and to care for us.  Finding people to share your grief and feelings of loss is so important during these times.  Standing with one another, supporting one another - these are essential.
      Finally, I believe our grief, our sense of loss, our devastation sometimes, is a sign of just how deeply we care.  It is a reminder of something absolutely beautiful and that is the love we have for one another.  Grief can also remind us not to take for granted what we have this day, this moment, in this place.  It can be a gentle push to honor those with whom we travel THIS day knowing that tomorrow is not a guarantee.
        Be good to one another, because we do not know when is the last time we will see someone.  We do not know when will be the last chance we have to tell a person we love them, value them, see them as a beautiful person.  Apologies, expressions of gratitude, kindnesses, words of love and grace - all of these cannot be offered too often, or too soon.  

Watching our fledglings leave the nest

         I've been feeling very down lately.  Anxious, sad, stressed, depressed.
         Lonely.
         I couldn't figure out why.  Yes, we've experienced an important family death lately.  But I felt that didn't really account for the level of my anxiety and sadness.  It certainly didn't make sense to me that I'd be feeling lonely while surrounded by family, while reconnecting with family folk I haven't seen in forever, while anticipating my daughter coming home from school for winter break.
        But then I remembered that it was that time of year which is always hard for me, or has been for the past 9 years.  9 years ago my life changed radically and I went from being a partnered person caring for my three thriving kids into a solo mom dealing with tragedy and stress and loss and trying to help my kids through the same.  This time of year, every year, I feel this way.  I think that our bodies remember, our bodies house those memories associated with season and time, even when we don't consciously remember what is triggering our feelings.
        But this year is also different for me in another way.  My eldest daughter has "gotten it together," is leaving the nest, is spreading her wings, making friends at school, not calling as often and certainly not needing my help or support as much. She is learning well how to "adult," and she is stepping into doing what needs to be done on her own, she is living her awesome, beautiful life in ways I don't even begin to understand.  She is connecting deeply to others, to her peers.  She is doing it right.  She is doing what we all hope our kids will do - stepping into being her own person and taking flight.
       The truth is that I am struggling with it.  When I became a mother, even though I was working and still had friends and other family to occupy my time, I moved into a new identity.  My primary identity became that of being a mother.  I love being a mother.  I think about my children constantly, even when I am not with them, they are the lights of my life, my biggest joys, my greatest gifts and the raising of them has been my biggest accomplishment.  This became doubly so when I became a solo mom.  They were where my focus had to be.  Their concerns became my largest challenges.  Their needs and fears and sufferings took the largest part of my attention. Truthfully everything I did, and have done ever since, including working, has been to make sure they have what they need and are okay as they step into life.  I had to do this, or they would not have become the healthy, happy, well-adjusted kids (in the face of and despite great crisis) that they have become.  The fact that my eldest is thriving in school and in her life is in part a testimony to the depth of love and support I gave her that has enabled her to bloom, to work through her losses, and to grow into a beautiful young woman.  I know this.  I can't take full credit, and I won't.  We were surrounded and continue to be surrounded by a community of helpful, caring people and they have credit too.  Eldest herself also needs to take a lot of credit, for being willing to do the work, to grow, to learn, and to step forward.  But I can claim a piece of it.  They know they are loved beyond measure.  They know they are more important than anything to me, and that I would do anything to make sure they are healthy and happy.  That knowledge and that experience has made a difference in their ability to move and grow and live.
       Still, I find myself feeling a little bit like Shel Silverstein's Giving Tree.  When they were born I gave them my apples, fed them off of the sweat and tears of my work and my care.  But when we went through crisis I gave them not only the branches, but my very trunk so that they might survive and thrive.  Again, I made a choice to do what I believed was necessary for them to be okay.  And it has paid off for them.  But now I am the stump, especially where my eldest is concerned.  I am waiting for her to come home and rest for awhile on that stump that is me before she leaves again for other adventures.  And this is a sad and hard thing for me.  I won't change it.  I will not ever choose to hold her back from her dreams and adventures, from her living her life as fully as she can.  But I am lonely for my eldest daughter.  And, at some level, for my other two children as they become independent teen-agers.
       I think about the olive tree in our back yard.  We cut down this huge olive tree because it was blocking the window, causing problems on the roof, was creating great mess both in the yard and tracked into our house, and, most importantly, it was creating pollens which were making my son (with his allergies to olive pollen) very sick.  We cut it down to a stump, and yet it has not given up.  Hundreds of new branches continue to sprout from the sides of the stump each year.  Each year that tree makes it clear that it belongs there and has no intention of dying.  I know that I can choose to be a stump like the olive tree: to find new ways to grow and thrive once my kids are gone.  I can invest more in other relationships now and to find my purpose, meaning and identity in my work and other activities.  I can and I will.
       I also know, though, that this still involves grief. Every change is a loss at some level.  And grief is a natural part of watching our kids grow and leave the nest.
       Today I am grieving my daughter.  Even as I am proud of her and grateful for who she is becoming, I am grieving our closeness, her needing me, her dependence.  I am grieving being the person she was closest to whom she loved the most.  I am grieving the primary identity I had as Eldest's mom.  I will always be her mom, but it can't be who I am first and foremost anymore.  My life has to be more about other things now, and less focused on her.
        I know most parents go through this, and I know that I, too, will survive it.  Being a parent is about self-less love.  We don't do it to have people always around us who will love and care for us.  We give of ourselves and watch the blooms grow that are our children.  I am so grateful to be mother to my three wonderful kids.  The grief is just a small part of that.  But I am naming it today in the hopes that others who might be feeling similarly know they are not alone.  And to name for myself that the sadness I'm feeling is okay.  It's a testimony to the depth of the love I gave and give still.  And for that I am grateful.

The Fragility and Unpredictability of Life

          On Thursday afternoon I drove to pick up my kids from their two different high schools.  I picked up Youngest first and then drove to get my son.  I pick him up on a side street several blocks away from the school since, without busing as a possibility here in CA, every other kid is also being picked up at the school and it is a complete zoo.  I had driven our electric car to the place where I pick him up.  In this car, the front door has to be open in order to open the back door to let someone into the back seat (it's a dumb design, but there it is).  Youngest opened the front door and before we could open the back door a dog ran over to the car and put his big head in Youngest's lap.  I said "hello, friend!" to the dog and reached over to scratch his head.  After I scratched his head, though, he then decided that he was going home with us and he tried to jump into the car, into my lap, crossing over Youngest.  At that moment two women who'd been walking nearby ran over, asked us if the dog was ours, and said they were on a mission to find the dog's owners since they'd found the dog wandering around by himself in the next block over.  "No, it's not our dog."  I said, to which one of the women responded, "Well, he clearly WANTS to be your dog!" before she helped pull the dog out of our car so my son could get into the back seat and we could head home.  The dog was very resistant to being pulled out of the car, and it seemed to me that he kept looking at me with a pleading in his eyes that was not unmoving to me.  If we did not have three cats, I would have offered to bring the dog home until the owners could be located, and might even have adopted him if the owners couldn't be found .
           The next morning I learned that the head priest of our local large Catholic parish was killed in a car accident that same afternoon (about a half hour before I was picking up my son).  I knew this man.  Not well, but we both were part of a local clergy group and I am the pianist for the choir at the Catholic parish that sings for memorial services.  Since it is a very large parish, they have memorial services on a weekly basis (the choir doesn't sing for all of them, but many of them) so I am at the church, often playing for services over which he has presided, on a very regular basis.
           Both of these incidents: the death of the priest, and the encounter with the dog, are very present in my mind.  I realize these two incidents cannot be compared in terms of gravity, importance or seriousness.  The loss of Father Mat is a huge, incomprehensible, deep loss for several large communities of people.  It is tragic and devastating in so many ways.  I spent much of the weekend talking with people who have been personally and deeply affected by this tragedy, and I imagine that these conversations will continue over the next few weeks and even months.  In contrast, the incident with the dog is only present in my own mind.  It is small.  I am hopeful that the dog's owner was found, and that the dog is happily back with his people.  I met this dog for all of five minutes and will probably never encounter the dog again.
           And yet, still, both of these incidents are strongly with me.
           To me they are both moments that emphasize how fragile and unpredictable life is.  Everything can change in a moment.  Life can be lost, devastation can occur, tragedy can hit in a second and the worlds of many people can be changed, instantly.
           At the same time, and what we notice with less intensity, less interest even, is that there are new friends to be made, new encounters and new opportunities, new "openings" of our minds, our thoughts, our experiences - all of these also can occur in a moment.
           Losses are often instant.
           Unexpected gifts of encounter or opportunity or new connection are also often instant.
           There is a difference.  Usually, we have no choice about the losses.  Often there is nothing we can do to control what losses come and how they change our lives. We can choose how to walk through them, but we cannot control whether they come.  People die.  People leave us.  Life happens and others make choices that affect us in ways we cannot predict, cannot control and cannot prevent. In contrast, gifts must first be seen, and second, accepted, if we are to allow them to change us, move us, and help us to become better, fuller, and richer.  Both the losses and the gifts call us to make decisions.  Will we accept with grace what life has to offer us this day, and what will that look like in this particular moment?  We don't control if they come, when they come, or how they come. We can only take what this life hands us and decide what we will do with what we are given in each moment, each day, each life-time.
            Today I find myself grieving.  But I am balancing that with the memory of the gifts that also come suddenly and unexpectedly.  I am easing my own sense of loss by remembering the encounter with a friendly dog who instantly loved us and wanted to be with us.  Does it make the grief go away?  Of course not.  But it does remind me that life is more than just the losses.  It is deeper than just the grief.  Life gives and life takes.  God is in both, walking with us, grieving with us, and celebrating with us, too.  In that realization I find peace, even when the healing has not yet come; and I find promise, even though the path through grief is often steep and long.  I am grateful for the journey, even when the road is rough, even as I remember how fragile and unpredictable life really is.

Coming to Jesus

Acts 16:9-15

John 14:23-29

Today’s scripture is part of Jesus’ final speech to the disciples before his arrest and crucifixion.  It is a small part of a much longer speech in which he repeatedly says that if they love him they will follow him, love each other, do what he tells them to do.  He also repeatedly tells them that he is leaving them, and then he reassures them with promises that the Spirit will come to be with them.  Today I want to focus on this second part – Jesus’ telling the disciples that he is leaving and his reassurance about what is to come.  

Has there ever been a time in your life when you felt abandoned or left?  I imagine there have been times for all of us when we have felt that someone has left us.  If that someone is someone we cared about deeply, that loss, that abandonment can be devastating.  Sometimes those feelings of abandonment might not even seem logical to us, but still they come.  A loved one must leave on a work trip, or leave on a military deployment.  Or a person dies.  But even then, even when the loved one does not choose to go, it can still feel like abandonment when it actually happens.  We can still feel that we have been left, that they left us and as a result we can feel angry, hurt, devastated.

This feeling doesn’t just happen with people.  Have there been times when you have felt abandoned by God?  That God is somehow not there for a time when things are hard?  It is not sinful to feel that way.  As we will talk about when we do our series on the psalms, all of these feelings are normal and natural and acceptable to God, too. That’s why we have so many psalms that express these feelings.  They give us permission and words to express feelings of pain, of isolation, of abandonment, that are just plain normal at times.  Sometimes it is hard to feel God’s presence.  Sometimes God’s presence comes to us in different ways, ways we might not recognize as easily.  And I think that when we are feeling abandoned by a person or by people, it is especially easy to feel that it is actually God who has left us.  That somehow, if God really loved us, we would not have been left by the person we love, that they would have lived, or wouldn’t have gone away, or wouldn’t have moved or wouldn’t have rejected us.  And again, while that may not be logical, it is a very human experience.  It is very human to feel that it is God who has left when it is in fact a person whom we love who is no longer present with us in the same way.

I think about C.S. Lewis’ book, A grief Observed (New York: Seabury Press, 1976). C.S. Lewis, as many of you know, was a remarkable Christian author who wrote both novels such as the Narnia series as well as theological conversations such as “The Four Loves” and “Surprised by Joy”.  In 1945 he experienced the death of a close friend.  About this death he said, “The experience of loss (the greatest I have yet known) was wholly unlike what I should have expected.  We now verified for ourselves what so many bereaved people have reported; the ubiquitous presence of a dead man, as if he had ceased to meet us in particular places in order to meet us everywhere...” he continued, “No event has so corroborated my faith in the next world as Williams did simply by dying.  When the idea of death and the idea of Williams thus met in my mind, it was the idea of death that was changed.” 

But 15 years later, in 1960, his wife of very few years, Joy, died. And that experience was also unexpected for him - but in the complete opposite way. As he said in the journal he kept following her death, “After the death of a friend...I had for some time a most vivid feeling of certainty about his continued life; even his enhanced life. I have begged to be given even one hundredth part of the same assurance about Joy. There is no answer. Only the locked door, the iron curtain, the vacuum, absolute zero.” And in contrast to the experience of the presence of his friend’s death changing his faith for the better, after the death of his wife, his faith was tested beyond measure.  As he continued, “Go to (God) when your need is desperate, when all other help is vain and what do you find?  A door slammed in your face, and a sound of bolting and double bolting on the inside.  After that, silence.  You may as well turn away.  The longer you wait, the more emphatic the silence will become.  There are no lights in the windows.  It might be an empty house...not that I am in much danger of ceasing to believe in God.  The real danger is of coming to believe such dreadful things about Him.  The conclusion I dread is not, ‘So there’s no God after all,’ but, ‘So this is what God’s really like.  Deceive yourself no longer.”

Deeply disturbing words of pain and despair from a deeply faithful man.  Have any of you ever felt that way?

God knows and understands this very human experience.  God expects and anticipates this very human experience.  It is for this reason that Jesus spends so much time telling his disciples what is to come and offering the reassurances he does.  Jesus is about to leave them, he is about to be crucified.  For all of our experiences of abandonment by friends or family, how much worse for those who knew Jesus?  Jesus was not only their friend, he was their Lord, their Savior, their God.  He taught them.  He fed them.  He cared for them.  He gave their lives new direction, new purpose, new meaning.  He opened up life for them, he touched them and connected them with God in a real, concrete, new way.  He became their all, their everything, their reason for being and living.  But now he tells them that he is leaving and asks them to be happy about it because he is going to God the Father.  He tries to add more reassurance.  He tells them he is sending the Spirit.  And he tells them he will send them off with his peace.  He tells them to not be afraid.  And he tells them to not let their hearts be troubled. 

And so, what do you think?  Do all the reassurances make it all okay?  Does it work for Jesus that because he has said all of these words, the disciples are therefore at peace when he is killed and are happy for him to be with God?  Are they untroubled and unafraid when the crucifixion comes?  Do they “believe” because he has reassured them and laid out for them what is to come?  Well, as we talked about last week and as we can imagine in the aftermath of today’s reading….Not so much.

The truth is that we are connectional beings.  We are people to whom loving and being loved are as important and crucial as food, water, and even air.  Babies who are not held and touched die.  If they have no one to whom they form an early attachment, they struggle to connect normally to others throughout their lives.  We witness this with other creatures, too.  There was an experiment some time ago in which some monkeys were offered food and water, but no care at all, while other monkeys were given stuffed animals and even others were held and cuddled and comforted.  The monkeys who were just offered food and water languished and died.  The ones with the stuffed animals did better, but still could not relate to other creatures.  Only the monkeys who were offered care and cuddling thrived and became “normal” adult monkeys. 

There is also the story I shared with you two weeks ago of Owen and Mzee.  Owen was a baby hippopotamus who was a sole survivor of a terrible storm.  He was rescued and put in a reserve with a bunch of other animals.  Immediately upon being released into the animal refuge, he attached himself firmly and completely to a cranky old tortoise named Mzee who wanted nothing to do with Owen for the first 24 hours.  Owen followed Mzee around and cuddled up next to Mzee and Mzee tried again and again to walk away from Owen.  But after only about a day, Mzee somehow got it that the hippo needed him, and maybe Mzee discovered that he needed the hippo, too.  The two became completely inseparable, eating together, sleeping together.  Both thrived through that connection, through that attachment.  And we experience this sense of abandonment with our pets, too – even those who appear to not like each other “grieve” when another family pet dies. 

I’ve shared with you before the wonderful story of the difference between heaven and hell.  In hell, there is a big feast spread out on the table, but the people sitting at the table have no elbows.  They desperately try to feed themselves, but are unable to get the food to their mouths because they cannot bend their arms.  In heaven the picture at first glance looks very similar.  There is a big feast spread out on the table, and again the people sitting around the table have no elbows and are still unable to feed themselves.  The difference, though, is that at the table in heaven, everyone is feeding each other.  And while this story points out that it is only in caring for one another that we are fed, that it is only in caring for one another that we are truly and deeply fed, there is another message here, too, and that is about the importance, the necessity of community.  We picture heaven as a place where our loved ones who’ve passed are waiting for us, a place where we can connect with those we love and stay connected.  Where loss, death, abandonment are no more. 

            But in the mean time, we have to face it.  Every human relationship will end in its human form.  We will lose everyone in one way or another.  People move, people change, people have tragedies happen and ultimately everyone dies.  So whether we are doing the leaving or being left, in human form, we will lose everyone.  And each one can feel like abandonment.  I don’t want to just ignore that, or lighten it, or push it quickly aside.  Those feelings are real, and they deserve our attention, our care, our time.  I think about what C.S. Lewis also wrote about situations in which well-meaning friends could not tolerate his pain, and how much damage that inability to sit with his pain caused..  They couldn’t tolerate it, and so they tried to shove it away with trite quips.  His favorite was “Well, she will live forever in your memory.”  And he found this created nothing less than an intense rage within him as he struggled to grasp, daily, that she was no longer alive, no longer with him in a way that he could recognize while he was in the midst of his deepest grief.  To tell him that she would live in his memory did nothing for him but make him feel completely alone in his grief - in other words, it had exactly the opposite effect of what was undoubtedly intended.  It did not make him feel better.  It made him feel misunderstood, isolated, and alone.  I do not want to do that by rushing through the real and tangible feelings that we have as we grieve.

That being said, I am also called upon on Sunday mornings to deliver the Good News.  And the good news in this is huge.  First, we are reassured that death and separation are temporary.  No matter how it feels, no matter how bad it feels, we are connectional.  God created us this way and I believe God will return all of us to connection.  Also, even in this life, we have Jesus’ reassurances, which are not just about his leaving, but ours as well.  “My peace I leave you” Jesus says.  And “I will send the Spirit to be with you.”  That spirit is our advocate, our comforter, our companion when we are lonely and alone.  “Do not be afraid” he tells us.  For there is nothing to fear – God is with us.  And finally, “I am going away, AND I am coming back to you.”  The end is not the end.  Death is not the end.  Connection will continue.  God will continue.  Christ will and does continue.  And through Christ, we, too, continue in connection with God and with our loved ones.  Amen.