A Couple New Hats...and Creative Kids

That looks way more fun than a laundry basket should be!

Small projects do get finished.  Now if I could get to the backlog of Unfinished Projects in 15 some bags.  Usually I take on one or two for January.

The Green in Winter

Familiar with the tune?  I think it is People Look East--a great Advent Hymn...

Articulating an Approach to Grief

This conversation with the book All Our Losses, All Our Griefs:Resources for Pastoral Care began before the class Care for Bereaved and Dying.  Practical insights and theological insights lead me to articulate the kind of theology of care that is helpful to me in my own life and will be a guide for ministering to those around me in need of care for their grief.

The most first insight for me was that grief went beyond the bereaved or those who are actively dying.  Grief is caused by any number of many losses in the course of our lives.   This very definition helped me expand my own ideas about what grief is and how to handle it in my own life and in the walk through grief with others too.  The chapter on the “Nature of Loss” made me aware that any transition, be it a wedding, a move to go back to school, a job change or even a promotion may leave us bereft and grieving the role(s) we have left behind during even with a positive change in our lives.  

Among the losses Mitchell and Anderson mention is the loss of any friendship, not necessarily death.  “The threat, or the actual occurrence, of loss at any time in human life evokes panic, anxiety, sorrow, and anger in keeping with the intensity of the attachment.  Because attachment is lifelong, so is grief”(28).   As an adoptive mother I’ve spent time reading about forming good attachments.  Attachment to friends and roles is as natural as our attachments to family and should be honored as such.  I can see that this is an important realm to take note of in our transient society, where many of us move to improve career possibilities or to areas with a lower cost of living.  This book has given me a new language of loss to apply to people’s grieving over what we might consider normal events in life.  Walking with people during a lifetime of losses should be the most natural part of my ministry role.

In considering my theology for care of the dying and bereaved, I found that Luke 24: 13-33 [New Revised Standard Version], the story of the walk down the road to Emmaus, was especially helpful to me.  Mitchell and Anderson led me to this passage because of the insights into our connection with Christ walking with us to bear our sorrow.  They say that “the principal theological question when we are confronted by loss and grief is not ‘why do we suffer?’ but ‘who suffers with us?’ …The willingness to bear another’s sorrow is the recognition of the reality of suffering in human life and the acceptance that the grieving person and his or her circumstances are normal.  To be a follower of a crucified Lord is to be a bearer of sorrow”(169).  On the road to Emmaus, two of Jesus’ followers walk seven miles from Jerusalem.  They are talking with each other about all the things that have happened—possibly in our language they are grieving by telling the stories they know and love about Jesus.  Then a stranger joins them on the road.  Verses 15-16 say “Jesus himself came near and went with them, but their eyes were kept from recognizing him.”   Jesus asks what they are discussing.  They stood still, looking sad(Lk 24:17).  God as Jesus walked with them in their grief, listened to the story they needed to incorporate into their own memories about Jesus.  It is a witness to me that Jesus walks with and through others to be near us in our own grief so that we process the stories and sometimes reinterpret the narrative to help us move to a bigger place in our own lives.  For me the seven mile walk is the walk of a lifetime of trying to make sense of any of our losses.  Mitchell and Anderson outine six types of loss:  material, relationship, intrapsychic, functional, role loss or systemic loss.  

At the end of Jesus’ conversation on the road to Emmaus Christ asks the two followers in his guise as stranger: “was it not necessary that the Messiah should suffer these things and then enter into his glory”(Lk 24:26)?  After thinking again about the nature of our griefs, I think, yes, for us to believe that the Lord understands the nature of human suffering, then yes, Jesus must suffer and die for us to understand that God knows what happens to our own grief-stricken satisfaction.  Beyond grief and loss we gain a more positive ideal, or I do, that is that God gives us Jesus who loves us enough to get through anger and resentments that show up at grieving times.

It is not until the end of the seven mile walk from Jerusalem to Emmaus that the grieving men realize with whom they are walking.  When they sit to eat and bread is broken they realize Christ has been with them all along on that long walk.  They then rush back to Jerusalem to comfort the others by talking about their story and that they were with Christ.  I wonder if any of the others, Thomas maybe, might have run down that road to Emmaus looking always to see the Son of God walking somewhere along there again. 

Like the early followers of Christ, we all walk a difficult road of grief. Maybe even the seven miles is a metaphor and was at that time known to be a ‘perfect’ number.  It may be that the road of grief is a different length for all of us and yet the perfect amount of time that we are meant to be there.  We are often stumbling and do not recognize that God is with us at all-- for as long as we see only our own grief and process it .  In fact we, like the disciples, might be disappointed and angry with God that what we think should be fulfilled is not.  Our interpretations are sometimes way off and we have no road but the one into a valley of shadows or emptiness.  The path that is cut by each person and each loss is an individual journey through our own divots in the road—through our history and emotions.  And yet God walks with us in ways we might deny until we later look back down the path with the eyes of wisdom that may only be gained by living through loss and grief. 

We in turn as clergy and as friends are to walk and listen, even as Romans 12:15 says “rejoice with them that rejoice; weep with them that weep.”  In so many losses this seems to be the answer—to hope that the Holy Spirit works through us to be completely with a person in grief and yet to give the person permission to resolve portions of their journey to reintegration by listening.  Mitchell and Anderson say that “although grieving is a by nature a lonely task, the resolution of grief requires the presence of other persons”(107).  When I think back to the ‘road to Emmaus’ metaphor I remember that before Christ dies he asks all the disciples to stay together in Jerusalem.  Is this the way that people meet grief—alone and together?    Mitchell and Anderson also say that “the notion that time heals the wounds of grief is only partially true; time alone is never enough to heal the ravages of loss.  Full release from the hold that emotions of any kind have on us depends on their being heard”(107).  No wonder so many people hold grief and loss within them—they don’t know that they are allowed to process that out loud in order to free themselves from the side-track that emotions can create.

Although I do not think I can articulate a refined and finished theology of care for the dying and bereaved, I do think this is a start.   Without a number of years of practice to reflect upon I am also left with the feeling that the picture I’ve drawn here is complete at this point, but will need generous additions in the future.

A Little Sledding in the Backyard &&

In front of Valentine--almost our back yard.  Ella being the good big sister--oops, they wrecked at the bottom.  Callie split her lip and ice crystals spattered her face.

Oh, that was fun!  And Callie road down facing me and liked it too.

Found this intertuby thing in the garage.  Callie was much happier being pulled around on flat ground...

Ella spinning--

The aftermath--healing the little ice cuts may take a while after her sled with Ella.

Anybody need to borrow some sleds?  We are done...until after nap time.

Friday Five Late: Movie Watching Edition

Thinking of movie-watching, what do you prefer?

1. At home or at a theater?  At home generally.  Too loud in the theater.  After the kids go to bed, I stream Netflix.

2. With whom?  Usually just myself and a cup of hot tea or decaf...

3. Movie you look forward to seeing? Sherlock Holmes II

4. Movie you like to see repeatedly?  Something sweet and beautiful--Under the Tuscan Sun, Bridget Jones 1 or 2, Whalerider ... I can be doing something else and have a movie as background now and sometimes a thing I have never noticed before will grab me and then i'm locked in again.  I used to say I'd never see a movie twice.

5. Food with a movie?  In my teens it was popcorn and Reece's Peanut Butter Cups.  Now?  I don't snack after 6 unless someone is visiting...like my mom who loves pretzels and ginger ale.


Thank you Jan, for making this one short and sweet so I could do it and visit a few of the RevGals.

Telling Our Stories Tells Who We Are

Last week I took a January-Term intensive class, Care for the Dying and Bereaved.  It is probably the best class I’ve had as a graduate student.  As part of the work for the class, we studied as a Collaborative Groups. 

I read Chapter 6 of Mighty Stories, Dangerous Rituals: Weaving Together the Human and the Divine by Herbert Anderson and Edward Foley.  (one author is a liturgist and the other a pastor).  I came to the ‘Ritual and Funeral’ collaborative group with questions about how to talk with those who are dying about what they need. 

In the larger context of their book they invite pastors to let the congregant’s life stories inform and reinterpret the pastoral care they give and the liturgies they conduct.  In the larger framework of the book Anderson and Foley talk about ‘mythic’ stories (which have a neater tied up ending happily ever after sort of feel) as opposed to the parabolic ending (which is more like a parable in its possibly jarring or unexpected elements). 

Baptism is the ritual that begins the Christian parabolic interpretation.  It initiates us into a process of dying and rising that is marked by the death of Jesus.  The end of a life and the grief that follows is parabolic.  So all of our lives are parabolic all the way, from the beginning to the end(122).  It struck me that all people going through any type of loss grieve best by telling their story also—in All our Losses, All Our Griefs the many types of losses are discussed.  So, for example a woman who is told she is not able to have children goes through a type of grief over the loss that can be processed in much the same way we tell our stories before death. 

The narrative/story form differs between the dying person and those who grieve(98).  Each person who is dying tells his/her story and this is an autobiography.  Each person has the freedom and authority (of his/her final intentional act) to tell the story.  Those who are dying need to know that it is never too late to claim authorship of their own story. (98)  After the death of a loved one, the pattern is reversed.  The person grieving creates a biography in an attempt to get inside the life of another by observation and reflection.  (100)

When death is unexpected, initial grief is intense and the work of making memory protracted.  Embracing the messiness of any person’s life is part of making peace with the journey of grief.  It also tends to be more parabolic than mythic.  The possibility of transforming painful memories into occasions for consolation is increased when they are understood in the light of Jesus’ narrative.  The embrace of death by Jesus as the completion of his life became one of the stories his disciples remembered in their grieving.(103)  Within the context of the seasons of the church year we repeat their grieving stories at Maundy Thursday and Good Friday. 

Anderson and Foley also talk about the three most common fears beyond our anxiety about death:  1) Fear of Incompleteness:  if the dying person fears incompleteness, then the awareness that there may not be enough time to finish the story becomes a crisis. (matches K-Ross’s bargaining stage)  Ex:  Francisca—goes to Mexico—makes peace with her daughter…

2)Dread of Abandonment or Isolation:  No one wants to have these feelings; in fact most people struggle with them.  “Many societies take elaborate measures to ensure that no one dies alone.”  (105)  Side note: some people do want to die alone; however, this is not the same as feeling abandoned or isolated.

3)Terror of Letting Go and Losing Control (107) Dying ones recall their stories…but also show this by giving away the things they value to people they love.  **Dying is unavoidably an experience of the loss of control.

In order to counter-act this feeling of losing control, caregivers, family and friends may help the dying person rehearse his or her life so that the formulation of the story corresponds to the family’s or community’s version of the narrative but the dying one must tell the story.

An additional connection I made with this chapter:  A few years ago when someone I knew well was dying of cancer I researched Ethical Wills—Putting Your Values on Paper—It was a way of questioning that prompted thoughts in the writer about what to leave behind as a legacy of beliefs and memories.  I thought it very helpful, though it is now somewhere in our boxes of books…

Some pictures to add...

Callie and Papa Ed sharing salsa

A trip to the zoo--where the seals were plenty playful...

Mom was getting ready for 'the grand opening' surgery as she called it.

Ella and Callie as flower girls...they understood picking up petals was part of the job.

Happy Couple...Ella sat on Cynthia's lap for most of the reception...

Callie is 2!!  Little girl.  Aunt Bethamy brought a whole party to us...

There's the crew--salsa and chips and cupcakes were on the menu....

She picked out a babydoll so we got it for her...

And bubble was her first word, so every party has to have bubbles...and balloons.