grieving during transition

Here is an edited copy of my July newsletter article on the power and importance of grieving during times of transition. I know that all of us face times of grieving; we just often don't allow ourselves the sacred space necessary to mourn in healthy ways. This is just my reflection drawn from personal experience.

This July marks the third anniversary of my father's death. Right after I was appointed to Woodland Park in 2004, I received the call that my father's health, which had been deteriorating for a number of years due to congestive heart failure, had finally reached a point where medical and surgical intervention would no longer help him. I flew home and took a couple of weeks to spend with my family as my father passed from this world to the next joining the communion of saints. This was by far the most difficult transition of my life. It brought an experience of loss for which I was unable to prepare myself. It was also a holy time for my family and for me. After years away from the small town that I consider my family home, I returned and walked the graveyards where my ancestors are buried, the farmland that my uncle farmed, and laughed and reclined in the heat of the Delta sun. It was both a homecoming and a home-losing. I lost the sense of home that was tied to my father 's life, but I was able to recall how home roots me in a rich past that goes back generation after generation. It was an important time.

Perhaps I am more nostalgic this year because I have bought my first house, something about which my dad would have provided counsel, caution, and care. I'm thrilled about this new transition in my life, but I'm a bit sad that my dad didn't see me make this big step into adulthood. My excitement is a bit tempered by a dull ache. Life is like that, though. We can't out-plan or out-maneuver it. It just comes at us, and we have to find our way through. And, if we would look up and look around, we might discover all kinds of lessons pouring down on us clamoring to be learned.

As I pack my belongings and prepare to leave the parsoange, I do so with some ambivalence. I'll miss living next door the church. The parsonage is a wonderful home (much larger than the one I bought), and Phinney Ridge is a warm and neighborly community. I already am mourning the loss of calling this my home even though I'll still work at the church and spend plenty of time in the neighborhood. I also am expectant about the joys and challenges of being a home owner. The little things like cleaning the crawl space, improving the yard, and planning for the eventuality of replacing the plumbing are adventures that lie ahead. I know that for all who are home owners these are routine chores. For this first time home owner they are marks of the labor that it takes to be a good steward of this little piece of God's world that is now mine to care for. I hope that I will be able to acknowledge how I miss my dad not being here for this part of my life and still maintain excitement for this new adventure. It's important to allow time to mourn losses, whether they be big or not so big, whether they are marked by life changing transitions or little ones.

Most transitions in life are not as dramatic as the death of a parent, spouse, or child, but all transitions bring with them loss and learning. Too often we don't allow ourselves the time and the emotional space to recognize and mourn the losses that come with change and transition. It is important to do so...just to let ourselves experience the fullness of life, including the hard and grieving times. As a people who follow the God of the outcast, we can be assured that we are not alone while we grieve, but that doesn't make the grieving go away - at least it doesn't for me.

good religion, bad religion

This post is similar to the one that I wrote just a few days ago, but the weariness of the people around me has been unrelenting. It seems that every time that I answer the telephone the person on the other end is stressed, tired, hurting, and guilt-ridden. And most of these folks have some bad religion to thank for it all. I thought that I would write a few thoughts to remind myself - and anyone who stumbles across these ramblings - that good religion exists, and that it invites us into the fullness of life and the wholeness of being.

Bad religion is everywhere. It tells us to give until we're depleted, deny the needs of our own souls, and "do" until we're dead. Bad religion coerces and threatens in order to get its way. I know that I fall prey to it more often that I'd like to admit. Sometimes my heart feels heavy, my soul empty, and my mind too full. These are results of bad religion making itself at home in me. It sets up shop. It guilts, coerces, and uses.

Good religion has no place for such things. Good religion invites us into the fullness of life and the wholeness of being. It invites us into Being Itself. Good religion begins with Sabbath. Sabbath is time for God and the standard for justice. Sabbath should never be skipped - yes, I'm "shoulding" on you. Sabbath gives us a rule that demands that we (and all who work for us, people and animals alike) rest from work. In a society in which we work all of the time, I wonder at the changes that taking Sabbath seriously would bring. When we begin with Sabbath, we give ourselves one full day a week to rest at the breast of God, breathing in God's life (ruach). Good religion begins with this concept.

Good religion has no place for violence, threats, and coercion. It doesn't need any of these things because its purpose is different from the purpose of bad religion. Whereas bad religion desires to consume us, good religion desires our perfection in love. Good religion invites us into the quiet of sanctuary and the stillness of prayer. In good religion, we live and move inside of the Holy. From this place of completeness we move into the world as God's witnesses and stewards. You see, whereas bad religion sends us empty into a wounded world, good religion sends us radically connected to Life Itself into the world. It makes a huge difference if we're starting with a full gas tank or an empty one.

I wonder what the world would be like - what we would be like - if we believed in a God that loves us rather than despises us, encourages us rather than threatens us, invites us rather than coerces us. God demands that we offer all that we have and all that we are to God. This offering, though, isn't the death of ourselves, it is our beginning. In the ackowledgement that the world and all that is in it belongs to God, we orient ourselves toward right relationship with the rest of creation. We don't give up on ourselves and give out. We fill up with the connection of life and the radicality of God.

Good religion is an invitation to Life. Sometimes I want to kidnap those around me who won't be still and allow Sabbath. And while my inclination toward kidnapping may be honorable, I believe that it is also a felony. So I pray. I pray that all who are weary, hurting, stressed, and guilt-ridden will experience Life radicalized in God. For those who struggle, I pray that the persuasive power of the Creator and Liberator will buoy them in their hard times and give them strength. I pray that God's grace will shower down upon all who are bending under the weight of their hearts and the pressures of the world. And for those who souls are empty and depleted, I pray for the awesome wonder of the universe to pour into them, the light of the stars offering warmth in the cold corners of their beings. I pray that we all learn to dance with delight completely assured that God is our dance partner, gently leading us through the moves.