Tuesday, July 10, 2012

Just another day...

We mark our lives by milestones:  First word.  First step.  First lost tooth.  First day of school.  Driver's license.  High school diploma.  Going off to college.  Marriage.  First child.  We mark our days by celebrations:  Mother's Day.  Christmas.  Birthday.  Graduation.  Wedding.  As people who live a chronological life, significant events in the timeline of our lives have special meaning, shaping and changing us as they come around.


But not all the significant events in our lives are positive.  Our lives also include accidents, illness, death.  We experience loss, divorce, betrayal.  We suffer assaults, wrecks, murders.  After all, we live in a fallen world.  


These events, though not ones noted for celebration, shape us, change us, as do the milestones and holidays.  In our time lines, for many of them, there is a distinct before and after in the person we are and the life that we live.  Noting them, marking these days in our lives, is not, therefore, something we should eschew...no matter how much the world tells us otherwise.


First, we are thinking, feeling creatures.  This is the way that our Creator crafted us.  He imbued us with emotions, responses, with thoughts and reactions.  To have them, to allow them to happen, is as normal and natural as breathing.  To avoid them, to ask others to do so, is to go against the wisdom of our Creator, to deny our own creation.


For the mother who lost her son, the day of the accident and the day of his burial are ones that will always be with her.  As those dates roll around on the calender for her each year, they are most decidedly not just another day.


It is a rather unloving act, therefore, to shame her in her grief, to say to her in word or in action, that her grief over those days--be they three or thirty years in the past--is something that is wrong.  For those are the days that have shaped her, they are the ones that have changed her.  She had a son she could hold in her arms, walk beside, talk with, laugh with, weep with...and now she does not.  


Those who have such events on our time lines sometimes handle them with grace and sometimes with despair.  Of course, we long for grace more than despair.  Of course, we who have loved ones with such events on their time lines, wish for more grace than despair.  But in our wishing for grace, we must still allow for the despair...and everything in between.


Second, we must do so not merely because we are created with thoughts and feelings but also because it is in such events that Jesus comes to us, shapes us, changes us.  By and with and through the cross the Holy Spirit gives and builds faith, teaches us the magnitude of His forgiveness and mercy, and strengthens us in our weakness.  For our faith is a faith of reception and our theology is a theology of the cross.

For this very reason, we ought not run from despair, from anguish, from doubt...in ourselves and in others.  We ought not to turn away from the hard things, from the darkness of this life.

"For in Him we live and move and have our being..." begins the 28th verse of the 17th chapter of Act.  In a way, perhaps this is how each verse of our lives should begin.  In Christ, we live. In Christ, we move.  In Christ, we have our being.

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being by Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it." we learn in the first five verses of the first chapter of John.

Jesus shines in our darkness.  Our being is in Him.

Two days from now is the first anniversary of the most violent event in my life.  It is a day my body has already felt coming.  A day that is written upon myself and my puppy.  Neither of us are "over" the pit bull attack.  Both of us are still felled by it in many and myriad ways.  We stumble and fall beneath the memory of that violence.  We struggle in our responses to others and to inanimate reminders.  Already several people have told me that it is "just another day" and that I should do my best to ignore it.

Only it is not.  I cannot.  And, if I could, I would not.  There are no words rich enough, full enough, to describe what I have learned of faith because of that day.  No, I would never choose such an event.  I wish with my entire body that it had never happened.  I fear and tremble still over the memory.  July 12th is forever changed for me.  I have forever changed.  And yet I am truly thankful and genuinely humbled at the gifts that my Good Shepherd has given me by and with and through this cross.

In my utter brokenness, when my world was little else but pain and terror, the Holy Spirit nonetheless worked mercy, grace, forgiveness, and healing in me.  When I saw nothing but despair, no end to the misery of my mind and body, He sent others to patiently read aloud the Living Word to me, to fill my ears with that which He could and did use to bring the gifts of Christ to me.  When I could not leave my home, He sent pastors to bring the body and blood of Christ to me and he sent people to help take me to the body and blood of Christ.  I sought these not because I had hope.  In fact, I had nothing, was nothing, could see nothing.  I sought them because the faith given to me through the hearing of the Word and in my baptism called for such, reached out for that which I needed.  The Gospel came to me, filled me, and sustained me, even in my blindness, even in my weakness.  The Gospel clung to me until I learned hope.  The Gospel clings to me now.

I fear Thursday.
I rejoice over Thursday.
I feel terrified and peaceful, discouraged and hopeful.
I am angry.
I am awed.


In all of this, though, I am...in Christ.


Jesus shines in our darkness.  Our being is in Him.  Surely, therefore, in our lives there is no day that is just another day.

Thursday, June 28, 2012

Deforestation...

We cannot live without longing 
of the memory of a verdant tree 
felled and chopped down, 
with its place now deserted. 


How much less 
can I live 
from the memory 
of you.




June 28, 2012

~Brigitte Mueller


Wednesday, May 2, 2012

And then there was one...

Two beautiful babies.  Two children created in the image of God.  Two lives, precious and unique.

Only one of them survived.

She is now a feisty seven-year-old, strong-willed and sure of her opinions. She lives life in a large way and most certainly has an interesting future ahead of her.

But what of her brother or sister here?

When her mother and father were looking upon this amazing photo of her, they did not think of her death.  What they saw was his promise, dreamed of the future he would have with them.  Would she like sports?  Would he play an instrument?  Was this a tom-boy who would be as intrepid a nature lover as her mom?  Or would she be deeply sensitive, thoughtful and deliberate as her dad?  Would he be besotted with trains as his father?  Would he share a love of writing with his mother?  They dreamed of a future filled with possibility supported by their love.

And then there was one.  Rightly so, the parents were thrilled that a child would soon be taking his or her place in their family.  Seven years later, that welcome has not faded.  In the best of times and in the darkest moments, a fierce abiding love surrounds that little girl.

But what of her sibling?  Her parents did not love her any less.  He was not any less welcome.  Her life matters.  His life matters.  Life. Death.  Loss.

Embryo. Fetus. Infant.  We like to begin to delineate life, order it, package it up, and make it neat and tidy.  We spend our lives making sense of the world, finding explanations for everything.  Eschewing all notion of mystery.

Toddler. Child. Teen. Adult. Senior.

We label and slot.  We organize and categorize.  We put everything in its place to that we can understand how things might be, should be, will be.  Those terrible twos, we expect.  The rebellious teen does not surprise us.  Nor does the frail senior.  We plod along the path of expectations of how life should be.

But what about the ones who do not fit the order?  We find them difficult to face.  The child who dies before his parents.  The child who grows up without his parents.  The child who is ill or disabled or otherwise challenged.  The child whom we never got to hold.

Pregnancy is fraught with landmines.  All those expectations.  All that advice from others.  The waiting and wondering.  The changes in body and mind.  The hope and dreams and fears and uncertainty.  We talk of babies.  We dream of babies.  We plan for babies.  Only not all babies live.

Miscarriages are widely believed to happen on average 1 in 4 pregnancies.  That is a harrowing, devastating statistic.  The women carrying those babies struggle with the death of their children in ways seldom understood.  They grieve in ways not always apparent.  They face people who tell them not to dwell upon the miscarriage, to move past the miscarriage.  The miscarriage.  The pregnancy is no longer defined by life, by the baby(ies).  Yet the pregnancy is also not really defined by death, by the loss of life.  It becomes the miscarriage.  For some, it becomes an event.  A happening.  A circumstance.  Yet, in reality, it is the death of a baby, the death of a child, that parents experience in all its agony.

Here, the parents had both life and death, birth and miscarriage.  There was not a successful outcome to the pregnancy.  Dreams fulfilled and hopes dashed. Joy and sorrow.

We need to allow parents the right to grieve, however this is to them. We need to respect all life, not merely that which is born.  We need to understand that often in the rush of excitement over a child born, we might be missing the child who was not.

Infant loss is a complex, heartwrenching issue.  For many, infant loss colors the lives it touches in ways not always obvious to the naked eye.  The pain and sorrow mothers and fathers bear over the loss of babies no one know may be hidden from everyone else in their lives.  Hidden agony.  Hidden confusion.  Hidden shame.  Hidden guilt.  Hidden longing.  Hidden sorrow.  And such is not merely processed and done, not eventually "over."

But God is the Author of all life and misses not the creation of a single soul.  Christ died for all, for the sinners and the sin that has wreaked such havoc on God's good creation that even the creation of life can be laced with pain and suffering.  And the Holy Spirit understands the secret groanings of our hearts, carries the words we cannot speak to Jesus, who brings them to our Heavenly Father, who deeply loves us and all lives created...not merely those who were born.

The second child above may be only missed by his family and their close friends here on earth, but in Heaven her life was celebrated, welcomed, and rejoiced by all.


Lord, have mercy.  Christ, have mercy.  Lord, have mercy.

Monday, April 30, 2012

Project Unbreakable...


Please watch. For me. For the survivors in your life...even though you may not know they exist. They are all around you.



Lord, have mercy.  Christ, have mercy.  Lord, have mercy.

Sunday, April 29, 2012

Shadow Children...

the children 
we bore in our wombs 
but never our arms 
the children with whom we never share 
milestones, birthdays, photos 
sweaty heads resting on a pillow 
faces covered with chocolate ice cream 
racing to beat a player to the ball 
firsts of school, dances, kisses 
walks down aisles of graduations, of weddings 
no pictures, parties, ceremonies
no baptism, confirmation, communion 
they live with us, beside us 
we watch their shadow lives unfold 
alone 
God knitted them in our womb 
fearfully and wonderfully made 
but the stain of sin 
the corruption of creation 
kept them from the life they could have had 
they are our children 
every bit as much as the ones 
you place to your breast 
send off to school 
bandage knees and cool fevered brows 
cheer wildly at games 
console in your arms 
send off into the world 
they are our children 
living in the shadows of our lives 
where we cannot help but imagine 
their lives
where we cannot help but store 
their hopes and dreams 
where we cannot help but mark 
their milestones
their photos, their memories, 
a scrapbook we can never share 
the pages of which we flip through
alone


~Myrtle Bernice Adams

Friday, April 27, 2012

Christmas Tree Lament...

Long, strong arms,
lifted the segments
gingerly,
gladly,
loved to help
where their strength would show.

A cherub with blond curls,
a Greek god in full bloom,
boldly hugged
the females in his train.
I was just one of them now,
perhaps the least.
A troubadour of sweet strings and voice
tearing always at our hearts.

"Bist du bei mir" the orchestra is playing on the disc, now,
sweepingly, grandly, broadly,
over and over, swelling.--But, it will not be your beautiful hands
closing my faithful eyes.


~Brigitte Mueller

Thursday, April 26, 2012

Grief is not linear...

Elizabeth Kubler-Ross gave life to the dying.  She taught the entire world about grief, giving us words to describe its stages in a way even those not touched by grief could understand.  But as it goes with the way of the world, we did not really listen to the difficult things.  Instead, we tried to simplify it, package it up neatly, turn it into an actionable list to be conquered one cross-off at a time.
  1. Denial
  2. Anger
  3. Bargaining
  4. Depression
  5. Acceptance

  1. Denial
  2. Anger
  3. Bargaining
  4. Depression
  5. Acceptance

We work the list.  We struggle through the list.  We finish the list.  And in our minds we cross off the 6th and final stage as "Resolution."  No matter the word you might use for number six, the idea is the same: the grieving process is not over.

Grief is not linear.

Kubler-Ross understood this.  She spoke of this, wrote of this, taught this.  But we stuff our fingers in our ears.  We glossed over that part.  We failed to take notes.  It is easier if grief is linear.  Easier for the grieving.  Easier for those who care about the ones who are grieving.  When I studied her work, the metaphor most often used was like the waves that crash upon the beach.  They come. They leave.  Sometimes gentle. Sometimes violent.  Sometimes smoothing out the sand. Sometimes wreaking havoc.  But always coming and going and returning again.  Waves never cease.

For me, I like to think of grief as a companion. As one of my characters explains, "A strange companion Grief is. He comes and goes, comes when you least expect him, goes when you don’t. Grief fills you when he’s there, and his whispers linger when he’s gone."

Were Cora the one writing this, she would also add:  He is a companion you hate and a companion you learn to respect.  You run away from him. You embrace him.  You vent your ire with your entire being with him.  You weep within his arms.  He is your bitterest enemy.  He is...surprisingly...your friend.

If you understand that there is no check list, no normal, and no end, then you also understand that Grief is a companion who strengthens you and enriches your life. Even if you are near certain that he is destroying it.


Lord, have mercy.  Christ, have mercy.  Lord, have mercy.