This poem reminds me of the power of being present, the ministry that happens when you leave your agenda behind and simply meet people where they are at.
When you are deep in grief it is such a gift to have a person who doesn’t have to fix it, change it or make it anything other than what it is. Grief is often hard, heavy and difficult… woven with hope, healing and brief moments of respite, but so much of the time it is just heavy. People spend so much time wanting and trying to be someplace other than where they are at… missing, longing and hurting for the dreams that have died, the person who is gone or for the things that aren’t the way they wish they were… and doing anything to not feel all that comes with that.
It is a beautiful reminder to ourselves to allow the fullness of what is, knowing that “no feeling is final”. There is a freedom in allowing what is, not fighting it, knowing that it won’t always be this way, but that for now, it is.
If we are lucky, we have these people in our lives who can meet us in the midst of deep grief. Today I would invite you to meet yourself there. Allow yourself to be where you are, meet yourself with the holy reverence you reserve for those you deeply love and allow yourself to be right where you are.
“Let everything happen to you
Beauty and terror
Just keep going
No feeling is final”
For many of my friends this is a “First Christmas” First Christmas without their dad, first Christmas without a significant other, first Christmas for a variety of reasons… and tonight as I am thinking of them I wanted to send a little prayer/letter out to anyone who might be experiencing their “First Christmas”
Dear one,
This complicates things so much. It wasn’t the plan, it wasn’t the way it was supposed to be, and yet… here we are.
You may wonder how you will get through the day, how you are ever to smile again, much less be “Merry”.
Just don’t. For one Christmas just don’t. If you don’t want to put up a tree, don’t. If you don’t want to send out Christmas cards, don’t. If you can’t bring yourself to read other people’s Christmas cards, don’t. And by all means if you want to do it all exactly the same as you always have done, do it! But, perhaps, for this Christmas, you will give yourself a pass.
Let your expectations drop, focus on the love that remains, focus on the memories, and pay attention to the pain. Don’t hide it, don’t shove it underneath a strained “Merry Christmas”, don’t drown it in too much liquor or lull it into a sugar coma with too many sweets. Your pain is inviting you to pay attention.
Your heart has been through so much, it has been torn, bruised and battered this year. It is time to rest, to repair, to heal. But in order to do that you must be willing to pay attention to the pain, which we so often avoid.
I remember sitting on the bed crying, holding my heart wondering if it was possible for my heart to literally break, it felt like there was more pain than my heart could hold. And now I know, yes, the grief manifests itself physically. But at the time, I wondered if I was going crazy. Dear one, you are not going crazy, you have loved much and this loss runs deep.
I didn’t know what I know now, that our hearts are amazing, they are far more powerful than we even realize, and sometimes when it feels like it is breaking it is breaking- breaking open to allow more room for more love, more joy, more gratitude, the the process can be painful.
You are allowed to grieve, to have your time, to have this Christmas be a jumbled mess of everything. Joy, sadness, gratitude, love and perhaps even a moment where it the grief doesn’t feel quite so heavy anymore.
To the extent that you can “don’t anticipate, participate”. Anticipating when grief will hit is like trying to catch a wave in your hand, it just doesn’t work. You will sail by moments you thought you weren’t going to make it through and then something else will hit you that you never expected.
Grief isn’t linear and can’t be treated as such, it is a wild mess of jumbled things that can’t be anticipated, but if you participate. If you allow yourself to fully feel it you will gain trust in yourself again that yes, you can ride this wave, you can do this. You may not know how, but you can.
Pick a phrase, something that will get you through, something for those moments that you need to focus. That first Christmas my mantra was from the Amy Grant song “Breath of Heaven”
Breath of heaven
Hold me together
Be forever near me
Here are a few things I know…
You will be held. In the midst of your darkest night, there will be someone, something that will remind you that you are not alone.
You will make it through this day, it may not be pretty, it may not be what you anticipated, but it will be over. Hour by hour, minute by minute, you will get through this.
You have the right to say their name, to bring up memories, and you have the right to know if that is too hard, if it is too much right now. And it may happen in the same day.
You have the right to turn down invitations, to decide what is healthiest for you, without buying into other’s expectations or guilt.
You have the right to listen to your own grief journey, to listen to your heart.
Know there are others who understand, who have been where you are…
I am waiting in a silent prayer
I am frightened by the load I bear
In a world as cold as stone,
Must I walk this path alone?
Be with me now
Breath of Heaven- Amy Grant
Know that my heart is outstretched to yours and I am holding a candle to light the darkness.
May you be held, may you be loved, may you find peace wherever you are.
With all my love,
Erica
P.S. If you liked this piece here is another post I wrote about dealing with the Holidays. The “Merry” Dilemma
“Though your destination is not yet clear
You can trust the promise of this opening;
Unfurl yourself into the grace of beginning
That is at one with your life’s desire.
Awake your spirit to adventure;
Hold nothing back, learn to find ease in risk;
Soon you will be home in a new rhythm,
For your soul senses the world that awaits you.”
Lucky for us the lessons we most need to learn keep showing up.
Sigh…
I have been antsy lately, crabby and feeling overwhelmed by pretty much everything. Instead of going to the things that I know bring me closer to my center, closer to a little bit of peace- getting enough sleep, working out, finishing one project at a time- I have been starting more and more, cramming more and more on my little plate and feeling the pressure of trying to keep it all contained on on the plate. My soul has been craving space, silence and expansiveness with a large dose of grace, but instead it has been on a steady diet of have to’s, shoulds and ought to’s crowding out any space for grace.
Luckily I was reminded last night of the gift of being given grace by another when you can’t give it to yourself.
Then today, I came across this blog post, and was reminded this quote by Thomas Merton:
“The rush and pressure of modern life are a form, perhaps the most common form, of its innate violence. To allow oneself to be carried away by a multitude of conflicting concerns, to surrender to too many demands, to commit oneself to too many projects, to want to help everyone in everything is to succumb to violence. More than that, it is cooperation in violence. The frenzy of the activist…destroys his own inner capacity for peace. It destroys the fruitfulness of his own work, because it kills the root of inner wisdom which makes work fruitful.”
“So often when this issue gets talked about, I feel like it is portrayed as a problem of wilting flower women who just want to make everyone happy. I don’t mind disappointing people so much as I’m voraciously and indiscriminately interested in the world. I want to learn everything, be everywhere, collaborate with everyone. In thoroughly modern terms, I’ve got major FOMO about anything that fascinates me.”
One of my greatest strengths is also one of my greatest weaknesses. Life fascinates me, and there is so much to learn, discover and experience. And so many amazing people to befriend, to share life with, to adventure through life with. And yet, this quote, and my recent days have reminded me that I can’t do all things, be all things to all people. It reminds me to give myself the gift of stepping back, of taking a deep breath, of centering first and moving from there, giving myself more of the grace that was gifted to me.
So my reminder for myself, “Make space for grace”.
“How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.”
I choose to spend mine lately seeking beauty, with the lens in the tangible world and in the in the middle of heart-filled encounters with friends in the more intangible world of sacred listening. And when I saw this little gem it resonated deeply.
Since delving deeply into photography I have discovered that beauty is so much more abundant than I ever realized. We are taught that beauty fits into a certain mold, reminded by advertisements, and our culture in subtle and overt ways that beauty is this rigid, definable thing… and yet, our souls know differently.
There are always themes that tend to emerge when I pay attention.
Right now it has been the significance of small kindnesses, the need, both physical and emotional of so many that is so evident at every turn, AND the flipside, of the ability of all of us to meet those needs at various times and in various spaces and how so often when it is right it takes so little effort. Also, this idea that I am called to meet those that I can, but also to trust that others will step in as well, and to learn to discern when, where and how to step in, to fix, to let things be, to release.
In paying attention I have been reminded of many things:
I have been reminded that not every problem is mine to solve,
I have been reminded that I have a lot more to give than I realize,
I have been reminded that kindness- no matter how large or small- can transform moments, individuals and lives,
I have been reminded of the power of presence,
I have been reminded of the gift of being present,
I have been reminded that I am much happier when I pay attention to where my joy, my love, my kindness overflows and giving from that space,
I have been reminded that I need to include myself in the grace and kindness I offer.
“And so it’s like this thing like I don’t think faith is given in sufficient quantity to individuals necessarily. I think it’s given in sufficient quantity to communities. The same with that whole thing like God will not give you more than you can bear. I don’t think God will give you more than a community can bear. And we’ve individualized this thing of faith so much.”
And ever since hearing this interview I have had many things from it that I have been pondering and playing with. One is how many times I have been taking on things that are not my own, letting the heaviness weigh me down and missing out on being present for those who are here in front of me who I am called to be there for. I have been missing the grace that is present in so many ways. And secondly, the freedom that is granted when we can rely on each other to help shoulder the burden.
Currently one of the families that I love and cherish is going through a difficult time, and seeing the community rally around them, seeing the love that is shared, the prayers that have been sent, the ways that they have been held has only reminded me that we are that community. We are here to offer grace, to offer love, their burden is too much to carry alone, but together, together we will walk through it.
That word,
GRACE
has been showing up in my reading, my conversations, my thoughts and prayers a lot lately.
So I am paying attention.
Grace, the power of it, the spaciousness in it, the lightness of it. It is something that has been fun to play with, to continue to ponder.
And so I ask you. What have you been paying attention to lately?
Erica Staab 