Living Palm

on grieving again

2009-11-14T06:58:00.002-05:00

I'm thinking about grief again. In fact, the subject keeps coming up everywhere I turn. Several of my friends are mourning the loss of a loved one, some are mourning the loss of relationship and a few are mourning the loss of certain childhood privileges - for example unconditional love from a parent or ever hearing the words I love you from any trusted adult in their growing up years.

Our nation grieved the loss of thirteen soldiers last week. We lose soldiers all the time, but we sit up and take notice when they are lost on our own soil at the hands of one of our own countrymen. This waste of life haunts us and we try to figure out how to lament nobly and adequately without upsetting our entire emotional landscape.

My friend Margaret lost her mom this week. For over six years since her mom's diagnosis of ovarian cancer she has tried to imagine what these days would be like -- when would they happen, how would she respond, what would moving forward without her mom cost her family? I wonder if she'll really ever be able to answer those questions?

A week ago -- on a Friday morning -- we visited Margaret's parents Toby and Peggy. We arrived at their home and tried to enter the reality of their long good-bye. We walked around their house and behaved as if we'd been invited over for a spaghetti supper -- noticing pictures on the wall, wandering around the space making small talk. To me the whole house seemed lopsided, almost dizzying it its architectural imbalance. None of the weight of lovely furniture, books, china, or beloved piano could balance the floors that seemed to literally slope down the hall toward Peggy's bedroom. For many long months the entire center of their universe was located in that bedroom, their energies absorbed in the tasks of comfort and homely care, love and unexercised grief. It's as if the gravity of their weighty love drew us in. We walked the long hallway into Peggy's room and encircled her with hymn-singing, small talk, Scripture-reading, prayer, laughter.

We are rusty in our hymns, the four of us friends. But we worked through The Church's One Foundation, Great Is Thy Faithfulness, and others, trying to read the old black notes moving up and down between sharps, flats and naturals on the page. We laughed to ourselves that we'd be in a position to sing these great old songs to the man and wife who'd mastered them their whole lives. Peggy was certainly humble to receive our gift with no look of horror at our missed notes in her lovely, large blue eyes. I noticed her eyes most when they were fixed on Toby while he spoon-fed her ice chips. I'm not sure I've ever seen such naked trust in an adult face before.

The whole love between this husband and wife -- it's gritty, imperfect reality -- was far better than any movie story of love I've ever seen. I'm thankful I got to tell Peggy how much I'd learned from her dying. How much I learned about the value of long years with my husband. About the charity that suffers through horrors as well as delights. The charity that causes one spouse to sleep in a recliner chair next to his wife's bedside for night after long night. I also learned -- again-- the violence of death. The sturdiness of our insistence on living is one miserable bugger to someone who is suffering and ready to go to her true home. Everything is ready, everyone is ready but that body that insists on trying to cope with suffering and go on living. Eventually, death comes and does it grim work tearing families apart. I learn each time to embrace the glory of Christ's resurrection more.

I'm thankful for last Friday morning with Peggy and Toby and Margaret and Lori and Andrea and two-year-old Katie. Eventually we swum back out of the gravity of that room and walked back up the hall toward the piano. We sang more. I'm thankful for my new friend Brian Moss who gave us his sheet music to the Psalms that have been sustaining Margaret all these long days. We were asked again later that week to sing another Brian Moss song at Peggy's funeral. Between that and an old Don Wyrtzen anthem that Toby requested, once again, we novices felt humbled to sing for this musical family. And we slid back and forth between the extraordinary extremes of grieving and giggling at the absurdity of it.

Margaret, I'm saving up some funny stories for you. It's occurred to us that your mom might have been able to laugh along with our fumbling, stumbling attempts to sing for her family this week. I know the day will come for you to laugh, too.

In the meantime, tears.

kindness from a stranger

2009-11-04T14:23:00.004-05:00

When is the last time you experienced the kind of generosity that just sort of feels too good to be true? For me, it's been this week from the completely, out-of-the-blue offer from a fellow blogger, Sharon, at Good, True and Beautiful.

She has taken a challenge in the month of November from another fellow blogger: the 30-day giving challenge. On her first day she offered to create a new header or button for anyone who left a comment on her post. Before I could think too long about it (and talk myself out of it) I left my comment. What an amazing -- and somewhat humbling -- experience to accept this gift from a stranger. She not only created an updated header for me, she took the time to ask me questions about what I most wanted and allowed me to ask for several options. And, guess what? She's not selling anything! Just giving it away.

What wasteful and precious generosity. I am grateful. Thank you, Sharon. May our most generous Father multiply blessing (and time!) back to you and your family. For me, on this occasion, it was truly more blessed to receive.

Happy All Saints Day

2009-11-01T12:43:00.038-05:00

O may Thy soldiers, faithful, true and bold,
Fight as the saints who nobly fought of old,
And win with them the victor’s crown of gold.
Alleluia, Allelu...

--For All the Saints, William How and Ralph Vaughan Williams

I'm on a week-long "comp time" vacation and since my work is in my church I chose to worship with another congregation today. There's approximately ten churches within walking distance of my house so I picked the Presbyterian church about four blocks away and loved the joy of wrapping up in my fall coat and walking to worship almost as much as the service itself.

I do not know why I do not do this kind of visit more often. It is a true gift to be able to walk into a church on a Sunday morning and not have to do a single thing other than be greeted by God and His people and to respond in worship along with them. It is a beautiful reminder of the universal Church and my place in its family. I do not go in with an ignorance that the grass is greener there; that they don't have their own concerns, strifes, disagreements and disobediences to contend with, but for that one service I am able to be blissfully ignorant.

I also find that every time I do this I cry during the Lord's Supper. I can't get over the beauty of people of all types and backgrounds re-enacting this holy remembrance each week. (although my church does not do this each week, still...) I truly almost lost it in my pew this morning watching the minister break the loaf of bread and bless the cup. The drama of people giving each other a place in line to wait for their taste of this holy, ancient supper is magnificent to me. The undying symbolism of our Lord's broken body and blood that purchased these men and women around me for God is brighter when I'm outside of my normal place of worship. The ordinary tastes of yeasty bread dipped into rosy, sweet juice do not detract from the glory, but only enhance the mystery for me.

This is All Saints Day. I've never celebrated All Saints Day, not ever before in my lifetime. In fact, up until an embarrassingly few years ago I wasn't sure if that was even an appropriate remembrance for a Christian. In the fuzzy catechism of my upbringing, saint-remembering equaled saint-worshipping and wasn't that an awful lot like ancestor worship of the pagans? It was a joy to sit in this marvelously, gloriously ordinary gathering of neighborhood people and join in the remembering of the men and women who also had been purchased for God -- by the same body and blood we remembered together today -- but who were no longer physically present in the weekly bread line of communion. I did not recognize one single name or photo projected onto the screen during the lovely special song from the worship team, but it didn't matter. My heart and mind and body were lifted with hope of that future rest. I am loathe to admit that I could barely remember the names of the saints my own congregation had lost this past year. Shame on my forgetfulness -- not my lack of sentimentality over death, mind you -- but my utter self-absorption in the here and now-ness of my own life. This is shallow living and shallow worshipping and I no longer am content to live and worship that way.

After the benediction, I walked the four or so blocks to the coffee shop, drawn by the desire for more of this season's pumpkin-flavored coffees and sweets. Rounding the neighborhood back toward my house, I stopped in the memorial park between the high school and the police station. It seemed fitting to savor the intinction of muffin and latte in the midst of my community's fallen, but not-forgotten, soldiers. Surrounded by the vibrancy of swirling autumn leaves and scampering squirrels I read the signs of the dead and remembered.

For all the saints, who from their labors rest,

Who Thee by faith before the world confessed,

Thy Name, O Jesus, be forever blessed.

Alleluia, Allelu...

2. Thou wast their rock, their fortress and their might;

Thou, Lord, their captain in the well fought fight;

Thou, in the darkness drear, their one true Light.

Alleluia, Allelu...

3. O may Thy soldiers, faithful, true and bold,

Fight as the saints who nobly fought of old,

And win with them the victor’s crown of gold.

Alleluia, Allelu...

4. The golden evening brightens in the west;

Soon, soon to faithful warriors comes their rest;

Sweet is the calm of paradise the blessed.

Alleluia, Allelu...

5. But lo! There breaks a yet more glorious day;

The saints triumphant rise in bright array;

The King of glory passes on his way,

Alleluia, Allelu...

6. From earth's wide bounds, from ocean's farthest coast,

Through gates of pearl streams in the countless host,

Singing to Father, Son, and Holy Ghost,

Alleluia, Alleluia!