Carrying Grief

I’ve had a couple of poems running through my mind today, and also a song. The first poem is by Mary Oliver, and includes a line about ‘Daniel, brave even among lions.’ That’s what called it to mind – we’re considering a preaching series on Daniel this summer. The poem speaks to me about how we carry grief, and it strikes me that we are all carrying some grief these days – whether it is for people who have died recently or long ago, or for a loved one who is suffering, or simply an increasing awareness of the brokenness of this world. And my prayer is that we might practice carrying these griefs well, and be gentle with ourselves and each other in this. The poem is below:

Heavy

 

That time

I thought I could not

go any closer to grief

without dying

 

I went closer

and I did not die.

Surely God

had His hand in this,

 

as well as friends.

Still, I was bent,

and my laughter,

as the poet said,

 

was nowhere to be found.

Then said my friend Daniel

(brave even among lions),

“It’s not the weight you carry

 

but how you carry it –

books, bricks, grief –

it’s all in the way

you embrace it, balance it, carry it

 

when you cannot, and would not

put it down.”

So I went practicing.

Have you noticed?

 

Have you heard

the laughter

that comes, now and again,

out of my startled mouth?

 

How I linger

to admire, admire, admire

the things of this world

that are kind, and maybe

 

also troubled –

roses in the wind,

the sea geese on the steep waves

a love

to which there is no reply?

            -       Mary Oliver

 

The second poem came to mind as I was reflecting on our worship service on Sunday – on how good it felt for me to be back in our space and physically present with many of you. And how much there is to be figured out yet – so many changing details, so many adjustments to try to be wise and careful in these days. I can get overwhelmed by the details and by the challenges of continuing to adapt more ‘in person’ commitments while maintaining virtual stuff too. This poem speaks to me of the joy of regathering, and how there’s a lot to be lived into yet, and it’s a lot of work. I hear in it an invitation to move forward remembering that it’s God’s work, and God invites us to rest. It’s a sonnet by Wendell Berry, and one I’ve shared before in sermons:

 

1979 Number X (the Sabbath Poems)

 

Whatever is foreseen in joy

Must be lived out from day to day.

Vision held open in the dark

By our ten thousand days of work.

Harvest will fill the barn; for that

The hand must ache, the face must sweat.

 

And yet no leaf or grain is filled

By work of ours; the field is tilled

And left to grace. That we may reap,

Great work is done while we’re asleep.

 

When we work well, a Sabbath mood

Rests on our day, and finds it good.

 

    --Wendell Berry

 

And finally a song:

 

Come, Lord Jesus, send us your Spirit,

renew the face of the earth.

Come, Lord Jesus, send us your Spirit,

renew the face of the earth.

 

This is the chorus we’re using right now in our prayer time with Teach Us to Pray and it’s become a prayer for me. A prayer to be aware of the Spirit’s presence and nearness, and to see the Spirit’s work renewing me, and each of you, and our world.

Rooted in Jesus

I planted my tomatoes this week. These are plants I grew from seed. I haven’t done this for a number of years. Long ago I would try starting tomatoes and various other vegetables and flowers in our basement. I had special grow lightbulbs set up in a fluorescent light connected to a timer. The light would be on for about 18 hours a day, trying to give these plants a head start on life. It is an exercise in hope and anticipation.

I don’t know whether the basement was simply too cold or the grow lamps just weren’t a sufficient substitute for the sun, but this set up never seemed to work so well. Despite years of trying, I don’t think I ever successfully transplanted a tomato from our basement into our backyard. Well—maybe one year, but by the time the plants recovered from the shock of moving from the basement to the outdoors, I was so far behind that I went and bought plants from the nursery anyway.

But then last fall, Peter came home from school with a couple of bean seeds he was supposed to plant and watch grow. Based on my track record, I wasn’t too hopeful. But we put them in a cup filled with soil and watered them anyway. And placed them in the front window. And low and behold, they grew! In fact, they thrived! There was something about the front window that seemed ideal for growing plants. [Okay…full disclosure: I forgot to keep watering the first round of bean seeds and they didn’t make it. Unknown to Peter, these were replacement seeds that started growing.]

This unexpected success got me thinking—what would happen if our front window became the new location for starting tomatoes plants? After a bit of negotiation, Elizabeth graciously allowed me to turn our living room into a plant nursery for the spring. And it turns out—it works! In fact, it’s fantastic! Too good, actually.

The plants I started in February were ready to plant by the end of March. But this is Michigan, and cold kills tomato plants, so I needed to wait. And wait. And wait… For the past three weeks, I’ve been eagerly checking the weather to see if the nighttime temperatures would be warm enough for the tomato plants, but was bitterly disappointed every time. Weatherbug consistently told me there were near-freezing temperatures coming and I should wait to plant the tomatoes.

But now the tomatoes were suffering because they were overgrowing the starter cells I had planted them in. I faithfully brought them outside every day to get them “hardened,” but then grudgingly brought them back inside every night. We’ve gone weeks without fresh cookies over here because the cookie sheets have been tied up with tomato plants. But their leaves started to yellow and they stopped growing because they needed a bigger space.

But now the tomatoes are in the ground, and I’m waiting to see if they’ll actually make it. And if they’ll actually produce tomatoes. And if those tomatoes will taste extra-sweet because I’ve grown these plants myself all the way from seed. I’m envisioning those roots finding new freedom in all that dirt—spreading slowly, this way and that, eagerly soaking in nutrients and water.

Each morning, after I drop Peter off at school, I come home and go straight to the rain barrel in the back of our house, fill the watering jug I keep close at hand, and give a generous amount of water to each tomato plant. With the heat we’re having this week, I know it is particularly hard for them to take root in their new soil without drying out.

We haven’t had much rain lately, so tomorrow I’ll likely need to switch over to the automated system I use every year. I have a hose on a timer connected to the spigot, and twice a day the water turns on and each tomato plant has a small hose delivering water straight to its roots. It’s pretty slick, even if I do say so myself. Because even though I’m pretty diligent on watering the plants by hand, there are days I forget, times I don’t give them as much as I should, times I’m too busy. And the tomatoes start to dry out, and they stop growing. With the automated system, though, the water keeps coming. Right on schedule. I can even go on vacation for weeks at a time, and the plants will be fine when I get back. They’ll keep growing fast and strong, and one day, not too long from now, will produce juicy, super-yummy tomatoes—better than anything you can buy in the store.

This image has had me thinking of John 15 and Jesus’ description of the vine and the branches. He is the vine, and we are the branches, he says. We are unable to bear fruit, he says, unless we remain rooted in the vine—grafted into the vine. Unless we’re continually being nurtured by Jesus, drawing our sustenance and energy from Jesus, we won’t produce anything meaningful.

There are times in my life, unfortunately, where my spiritual life is more like my sporadic watering of my tomato plants than it is of the automated system. There are days when everything is great and I’m growing in Christ, but other days where I run out of time, I’m too busy, or just forget. I can make it a remarkable amount of time this way, sometimes, but I start to run dry. I can sometimes feel my soul start shriveling up. How much better would it be if my spiritual life were more like the automated system of watering I set up? Consistent and regular. Always providing that connection to the life-giving living water that my souls thirsts for? There would still be days of scorching heat, days where it might feel dry—but despite all that, I’d know I’d still be getting the nurture I need. I’d still be growing strong, and I’d be ready to bear fruit—no matter how hot or dry the summer.

Anxiety and Consolation

Last week, as I was praying with Seeking God’s Face, this verse from Psalm 94 stood out to me: 

When anxiety was great within me,

your consolation brought me joy.

 

As I look toward being able to worship with some of you in person again soon, Lord willing, I’m eager and I’m anxious. I’m afraid that even though we are being cautious and many of us are vaccinated, someone will still get sick. I’m afraid that I have forgotten how to preach to people instead of my phone. I’m afraid I’ll cry my way through the service. I’m afraid it will be really awkward, that I’ve forgotten how to talk to people outside of my family in person and not on Zoom. Or that I will forget to be distanced and accidentally hug people.

 

And I’m afraid that being in our space together again and being masked and spread out will be another reminder that this isn’t all just a bad nightmare - the pandemic is real and we’re still in it and things are not as they were before. Fear of even more feelings of loss. I wasn’t expecting to feel this afraid. And that’s just about the Sunday stuff – there’s the sharing space stuff, the violence in the neighborhood, the racial hatred, the immigrant children at the border, the new violence in Israel and Palestine, the COVID devastation in Nepal and India. It’s easy for anxiety to be ‘great within me.’

 

But I have also been noticing the second part of the verse –‘your consolation brought me joy.’ I looked up the word consolation this morning and noticed that grief is part of the definition – it’s comfort that comes after sorrow. This feels important to me – that in the midst of anxiety we remember how God has comforted us in grief. It seems to me a bit like God giving Noah and all of creation the rainbow as a sign of the promise – something that comes out after rainstorms. The sign of the promise connected to the memory of the disaster.

 

Most mornings I walk with Emma part of the way to Grand Rapids Christian Middle School. We go up to Plymouth together and then I turn around and come back. Often we see Sue DeVries out walking, and one morning this week she stopped me on my way back and said, ‘I was thinking when I saw you walking with Emma today, about when she was such a tiny baby on oxygen.’

And all of a sudden, I was back almost 14 years ago, in those days of great fear and anxiety, of sorrow and disappointment. I could feel it in my body the rest of the way home. Remembering walking that same sidewalk with her on my front and her oxygen tank and heart monitor on my back. And remembering how lots of other Boston Square folks were also in and out of the hospital when Emma was – how many of us were going through such hard stuff. And remembering how we were praying and wondering if Boston Square Church had a future together or if it was time to close.

I’ve been remembering the grief and the fear of that time and I’ve been remembering that things are different now. And it feels like seeing a rainbow. Consolation bringing joy.

 

I’ve been consoled, remembering how God can heal and sustain life. I’ve been consoled, remembering how that tiny struggling baby is now taller than me and we are still walking together. I’ve been consoled, remembering how the others who were sick then are also alive and well all these years later. I’ve been remembering the painful losses and the answers to prayer we’ve seen at Boston Square. And I’ve been consoled, remembering how God has been faithful to us and to God’s church – sending just what we need, just in time.

 

When anxiety was great within me,

your consolation brought me joy.

 

God's Messengers

Last night I had my first Zoom meeting in over a month. It was a clear indication that Elizabeth and my mini-sabbatical had come to an end.

As hard as it was to sit in front of the computer screen for a meeting again, it was also somehow good to have that unmistakable sign that we were back in the thick of it again. It became a good moment to reflect on things—on life in the midst of a pandemic, on what Elizabeth and I were able to accomplish during sabbatical, on how we were feeling coming back into the more regular routine, on how the upcoming few weeks might go.

I was amazed again at how thankful I am for technology. As frustrating as Zoom and other modes of communication can be, this past year would have been much more difficult without the ability to communicate over the internet.

It reminded me of a lesson I learned during sabbatical. Besides the reading I was able to get done and the prep work for regathering that took place, I was able to accompany our daughter Emma on a school trip to Gettysburg. We listened to a number of top-notch speakers talk about the battle, and one in particular talked about the challenges of communication. Back then there was no internet, no telephones, and no radios. There was the telegraph, but you couldn’t use that during battle. Any messages back and forth between troops needed to be delivered in person.

The Union had a huge advantage during the battle because their battle lines were positioned in the shape of a fishhook—there was one long line, but then it hooked around at the end. This made communication (and movement of troops) much easier, at least on the one end, because the line curved back along itself. The Confederacy, on the other hand, needed to go out and around the curve of the fishhook in order to communicate from one end of their lines to the other. Since their lines stretched for miles, communication was slow, and there were numerous instances where a message delivered a bit more swiftly would have altered the battle significantly.

In addition, commanders were constantly making decisions about how to send messages. Obviously, the message would be best conveyed if you could deliver it yourself in person—but this was unrealistic for top-level generals. Often the generals did meet in person late into the night after the fighting had ceased for the day, but this was impossible during the day when they were spread out along the lines. Another option would be to write a note and have a courier deliver it—but this meant your message was open to interpretation, and the person who received it would not be able to ask questions about it. There’s an infamous moment late on the first day of the battle where General Lee wrote a note to General Ewell to “take the hill before him if practicable.” General Ewell decided it wasn’t practicable and didn’t advance despite the Union army being in disarray—and by the next morning, the Union army had dug in and that hill became their main base of defense for the rest of the battle.

Our guide for that discussion, Doug Douds, talked about different levels of communication. Face to face is the best, he said, because we can read each other’s body language and ask questions if needed. We’re able to pick up on visual cues and hear inflection in voices. Technology like Facetime and Zoom might be the next best—not as good as face to face in person, but you still get many of the same benefits, just filtered through the technology. Something like a phone call might be the next best—you miss the visual cues, but you’re still able to ask questions and hear the inflection. And then something like texting or Facebook messenger might be next—no inflection, but you can still get an immediate response. And one of the most challenging forms of communication is writing the old-fashioned letter—it’s slow, doesn’t come with any additional inflection or cues, and you’re left to interpret it yourself.

I thought briefly about worship during a pandemic, and while Zoom worship has certainly had its challenges and many of us are worn out by too much Zoom over the past year, it’s also allowed us to maintain some sense of community, some sense that we’re in this together, some sense that we’re still a body of Christ gathered together even if we are physically distant from each other.

There’s one more way to communicate, though, Doug told us. And that is to send a representative in your place. To send someone you trust to speak for you. Someone who knows you and what you’re trying to do and can represent you well. Someone the person you’re sending the message to knows can speak on your behalf. Someone who might be able to answer questions if the other person has them, someone who could make decisions on your behalf in your absence. And there are multiple instances during the battle of Gettysburg when generals sent their second-in-command to speak for them, or their top camp aid to deliver their message. In these instances, the one who received the message knew to take it seriously—that it was of utmost importance—because the general had bothered to give up their top aid in order to make sure the message was delivered quickly and clearly.

It strikes me that there’s a bit of that happening in the Christian life. Jesus is no longer on this earth physically, but we are his representatives in this world. He’s entrusted us with his message. In the Great Commission of Matthew 28, he tells us to go and make disciples of all nations, teaching them everything Jesus has taught us. In John 15:15, Jesus says, “I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.” Teresa of Avila puts it this way, “Christ has no body now but yours. No hands, no feet on earth but yours. Yours are the eyes through which he looks compassion on this world. Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good. Yours are the hands through which he blesses all the world. Yours are the hands, yours are the feet, yours are the eyes, you are his body. Christ has no body now on earth but yours.”

When I think of the importance of some of those messages during the battle of Gettysburg that were entrusted to those top aids, and then reflect on the importance of Jesus’ message of God’s love for the world that has been entrusted to us, I am first of all astounded that God would consider us worthy of carrying that message—and then I feel a renewed call to do my best to communicate that message well through my every word and action.

Foot Washing (Again)

I remembered this week that last year for Holy Week I’d written a midweek reflection about foot washing, and how it seemed especially important in those first few weeks of the pandemic. I looked it up in my files (and I’m drawing from it heavily), because foot washing feels really important again this week, this far into the pandemic.

I don’t know about you, but I am not having a particularly ‘holy’ Holy Week this year. In fact, despite working on worship services, I keep forgetting that Good Friday is two days away, that Easter is this weekend, that this is a week the church sets aside for prayer and meditation on Jesus’ death and resurrection. It feels more like any other week – trying to stay on top of the routine tasks, to faithfully keep going. Trying to keep straight which day it is and who has to be where when and what they need to take with them.

And dealing with a fair bit of weariness and anxiety. It’s still so hard to believe that we’re doing Easter virtually again. That some of us haven’t seen each other in over a year. That it still isn’t safe to gather. And there’s the heartbreaking, ongoing news in the world and in our personal lives – the death of dear friends, the devasting testimony in the Derek Chauvin trial, the awful attacks against Asian Americans, against women. So much collective grief and guilt and fear. It’s hard to make time and space to pray or to settle my mind and body when I do make time and space to pray.

As I wrote a year ago, our family tries to wash each other’s feet during Holy Week. And every time beforehand I have idealist expectations about how it will go – we’ll be calm and peaceful and the water will be warm and soothing. And instead, we usually fight over who will wash the feet of whom, I yell at everyone, and the water gets cold and all over everyone’s pants. And somehow, something holy happens anyway. This gesture of love, the vulnerability of kneeling and receiving touch, shapes and grounds us. It’s a concrete way to experience and express with our bodies Jesus’ love for us.

And, wow, do we ever need it. We need practices that involve our bodies, that remind us to treat our bodies and other people’s bodies with tenderness. We need physical reminders that Jesus holds us in love, that Jesus washes us: even our feet - even the parts of ourselves we may not like, the parts we’re ashamed of. We need embodied experiences of Jesus love in this long and complicated season of grief and loss. We need embodied reminders that Jesus cares about our bodies and the bodies of every other human being.

So, I encourage you again to practice footwashing this week:

For those of us who are alone, I encourage you to lovingly wash your own feet. This much aloneness for so long is hard; this is a way to treat yourself with tenderness. Embody and receive Jesus’ love for you, for your feet, his compassion for your struggles in these days.

For those of us who are with others, I encourage you to lovingly wash one another’s feet. This much togetherness for so long is hard; this is a way to treat one another with tenderness. Receive Jesus’ love for you, for your feet, his compassion for your struggles in these days. Embody this love and compassion for those you live with by washing their feet.

It might feel awkward – the bending and kneeling, touching someone else’s feet or your own, feeling their callouses, smelling their smell. If things at our house go as they often do, there might be arguing over who gets to go first and who washes whose feet, I might lose my temper, the water might get cold. But that’s the point – that Jesus loves us in our weakness, loves our bodies, even our feet; that Jesus’ compassion extends to us in all of our struggles, whether we’re having a ‘holy’ Holy Week or not. 

One Year In

Elizabeth and I had the opportunity to receive our first shot of coronavirus vaccine last week. We were part of an effort by the Kent County Health Department to get local clergy to get the vaccine in a very public way so that we could encourage our congregations and communities to get the vaccine as well. It was nice that they thought of us as influencers. 

The effort was based on the availability of the vaccine, so it was not widely publicized ahead of time and we had about forty-five minutes between when we heard about the opportunity and when we needed to sign up by. It all happened rather quickly.

When we got down to the convention center that had been turned into a vaccination site, we were still a bit unclear about how everything was going to work and we had some fears that maybe they only wanted clergy that fit the rest of the vaccination criteria and would still turn us away at the door. Our fears turned to relief, however, when the national guard, who met us at the door, responded to our mumbled, “We’re pastors with the pastor-thingy…” not with looks of bafflement but with a quick hand-off to a guide who brought us to a back gathering room.

The whole process ended up being quite emotional. We were touched when representatives from the Health Department spoke to us as a group, and they repeatedly expressed gratitude to the churches who had worshipped virtually throughout the year, helping to keep the COVID cases down. When we later received our shots, both of us almost started crying as this event that we had been longing for finally became a reality—this was a tangible step toward making it through this hard year. And it was a publicity event, of course, so we had our pictures taken at various stages along the way and sat for a short interview at the end, and one of the questions we were asked was, “What are you most looking forward to being able to do again?” And all of those longings for community, for physical interaction, for simple hugs of friendship, for being able to give folks communion again came flooding over us.

It’s been a year. A year since all of this started. A year since we last worshipped in person together. I remember back to one of my first midweek reflections, and—not knowing quite how long all this was going to go on—I said this was a time to rethink some of our lives. What was healthy? What was unhealthy? What did we want to get rid of? What did we want to add? Our lives were going to change, I wrote—let’s try to change intentionally.

Now, a year later, I wonder a bit how I did. Some of the rhythms I adopted were very deliberate. Others just happened. Some I had a lot of control over, others not so much. Some changes were very positive—there’s been a surprising amount of good that has come out of this past year—and other changes have been, shall we say, not so good.

I read an article this morning about all the changes churches have experienced in the past year and lessons that could be learned from them. An obvious lesson is that church is not a building—our faith and spiritual life and community together are not tied to the building at 1803 Kalamazoo Ave SE. A less obvious lesson, the article pointed out, is that discipleship is different than many churches thought of it as. It’s not just about gathering together for worship or running church programs or discipleship classes, but rather it’s about people growing more and more like Jesus. And while the gathering for worship and church programs have been taken away this past year, growing more like Jesus most certainly has not. In fact, in many ways, this past year has presented a unique opportunity to grow more like Jesus that so-called “normal life” would never have afforded.

And so, I began wondering—between reading this article and thinking back to that early midweek reflection—how have I grown more like Jesus this year? How have you? And then, as we keep moving through this, how can we keep growing more like Jesus in the days and weeks and months and even years ahead?

Rocks of Ages

I’ve been planning this week to write about seeds and plants and growing things. I took pictures of our crocuses in bloom last week and also the seedlings that are growing in our living room. I grumbled a bit when Jay and Peter planted the tomato and zinnia seeds about them taking over the space on the trunk in the living room, but they’ve become such a lovely reminder of hope. When I see them each day I remember a line from Gerard Manley Hopkins’ poem God’s Grandeur: ‘There lives the dearest freshness deep down things.’

But as I’ve been praying about what to write about today, I’ve been hearing not seeds or plants or springtime, but stones, rocks. And two particular stones or rocks have been on my mind last week, both of them birthday gifts from my children. It’s been a week of remembering around here – it’s probably been that way for you too, remembering the early days of the pandemic and stay at home orders. Last year, my birthday was at the beginning of all that.

Jay and I had flown home from Israel a few days early, and soon after we got back I got really sick with a stomach bug. And of course, we were under self-quarantine, so it was a pretty subdued birthday celebration. I spent the morning sick in bed, and crawled out in the afternoon to open the gifts the kids had bought with the help of their grandparents. And one of the gifts that day was a small, flat coral colored stone with the word ‘patience’ carved into it. The kids were quick to explain that they weren’t saying I needed more patience, just that they thought I would like it. (I suspect that was only partially true – I do actually need more patience, particularly at home where I of course want my children to do exactly what I want them to do immediately when I want them to do it . . . but that’s probably the subject for a different midweek reflection.)

Anyway, they gave me this stone with the word patience carved into it, and I teared up, realizing it might be exactly the right word to pray with in the midst of all of the pandemic uncertainty.

And it’s been a good, hard word for this year. Praying for patience as we navigated online school last spring. Trying to be patient last summer when our refrigerator broke and we were using coolers for several weeks till the new one arrived. Learning more patience with each other as we all struggled in different ways with the challenges of these days – the isolation, the boredom and frustration, the anxieties. Patience – it was the right the word at the right time.

All the same, when we were talking last week as a family about my birthday coming up and Jay the kids were asking for gift suggestions, I informed them I did not want another rock with the word patience on it! So this year, instead, they got me a different stone with a different word on it. It’s a much heavier stone, carved and polished in the shape of a heart, a deep orange color. And carved on this rock is the word hope. And once again, I teared up looking at it, holding it, because it feels like exactly the right word to hold on to as we continue to live with uncertainty. And as things are different this year. Last spring was the beginning of lots of things shutting down, this spring vaccines are becoming available, and our kids are starting the sports seasons that were cancelled last year. Last year we were wondering how we might worship together online, this year it’s become familiar and we’re beginning to plan for worshipping together in person again. Things are different this year. And there’s still a lot that’s uncertain. And in all of it hope feels like a good word to pray with, a good rock to hold on to for this time.