The Merger of Griefs

 

I have missed writing and sharing with you. I have realized in the last weeks how important this space is, how sacred. Begun in the first pandemic of coronovirus it now continues through the pandemic of racism and oppression and violence, through storms and illnesses and elections and deaths, and now gathers all our fears and hopes into this liminal space as our nation cries and laments and despairs and prays. 

This is a beloved community. It is safe and sacred. It exists in love and prayer. It is more about spirit than intellect. It continues whether I write or not. Because our beloving and belonging is about a connection realized. 

I confess to a desire to isolate and retreat during these last few weeks, to deal with my grief alone. I realize that was not only improbable but also unrealistic. In sacred space measurement and comparison ceases as all sorrow, all griefs, are gathered up in love. So in my learning about and missing this community I return with this:

Sometime last Thursday after my mother’s interment on a most glorious day and while driving north on I95, again, the horrors of the Capitol insurrection and violence started invading my memories and grief. I was at first resentful (I had been terrified and sickened the day before) until I let go of my initial need to compartmentalize. I realized that this merger of griefs was part of the human condition. I let the other pandemics in as well. Soon my tears, my physically disturbing weeping, were so much more. More intense. More encompassing. I wondered how much salty liquid a person could produce in a short time!!

We have not realized that time when sorrow is no more. We have not realized that moment when tears are wiped away. 

What we may have realized is that tears are heart water and are also part of God’s abundance. They are the outward and visible sign of the inward and spiritual grace of love and mercy and peace. Or the longing for those blessed gifts. 

I do not know how long or what form these griefs will last or take but I do know that I will lean into them with faith and that signs of grace will be returned in abundance in God's time.

I end with Toni Morrison’s quote from Beloved which validates the griefs and the joy which our bodies reflect in this world. “In this here place, we flesh; flesh that weeps, laughs; flesh that dances on bare feet in grass. Love it. Love it hard.”