Grieving
Photo by Külli Kittus on Unsplash
Special to United Methodist Insight
To grieve with any level of authenticity, we must not be selective in how we mourn. To name a loss worthy of memory, sorrow, and joy (in a life well lived) is an act of supreme defiance in a world where we store our wealth in a currency named for the Greek word “hidden” or “secret.” We live hidden and transient lives. Everything we value about life, even its inevitable ending, is obscured with each new mass shooting, virus, disease, and missile attack. Those who die remain unseen, off-camera, and hidden beyond well-word catchphrases and slick camera angles.
Even before the pandemic, the affluent West invested heavily in crypto-mourning. This is the process of continually moving our thoughts, prayers, and concerns from one tragedy to another (as one would move currency to offshore accounts) but never asking, “Do these prayers have any real value unless we transfer them as hard spiritual currency into our lives and act upon them?”
While all death is death, the world values the memories of some deceased differently. Thus, we grieve some victims longer and more viscerally than others. We invest in acts of community and corporate sorrow. Candlelight vigils and community gatherings have done what I once thought impossible: made grief cliché, predictable, and ephemeral. Our grief becomes public, or so we claim, and then we move on. We wait for the next tragedy, and the cycle repeats.
The problem isn’t too many people sending meaningless thoughts and prayers. Instead, we’ve made grieving a public media-driven production. Those whose trauma and grief are too immense to step into this spotlight are largely forgotten. For so many, the vast majority of those in hospitals and homes worldwide, there are no witnesses to the realities of grief preparing to be confronted at this time we force each other to call “joyful.” Their grief isn't sensational, but it is real.
How might we grieve authentically in a season that prides itself on calling one and all to “put on” a happy face? Here are a few of my ideas. I hope they contribute to spiritual wholeness and peace in this time of preparation.
How might we grieve authentically in a season that prides itself on calling one and all to “put on” a happy face? Here are a few of my ideas. I hope they contribute to spiritual wholeness and peace in this time of preparation.
Everything we value about life, even its inevitable ending, is obscured with each new mass shooting, virus, disease, and missile attack. Those who die remain unseen, off-camera, and hidden beyond well-word catchphrases and slick camera angles. Even before the pandemic, the affluent West invested heavily in crypto-mourning. This is the process of continually moving our thoughts, prayers, and concerns from one tragedy to another (as one would move currency to offshore accounts) but never asking, “Do these prayers have any real value unless we transfer them as hard spiritual currency into our lives and act upon them?”
While all death is death, the world values the memories of some deceased differently. Thus, we grieve some victims longer and more viscerally than others. We invest in acts of community and corporate sorrow. Candlelight vigils and community gatherings have done what I once thought impossible: made grief cliché, predictable, and ephemeral. Our grief becomes public, or so we claim, and then we move on. We wait for the next tragedy, and the cycle repeats.
The problem isn’t too many people sending meaningless thoughts and prayers. Instead, we’ve made grieving a public media-driven production. Those whose trauma and grief are too immense to step into this spotlight are largely forgotten. For so many, the vast majority of those in hospitals and homes worldwide, there are no witnesses to the realities of grief preparing to be confronted at this time we force each other to call “joyful.” Their grief isn't sensational, but it is real.
How to grieve authentically in a season that prides itself on calling one and all to “put on” a happy face? Here are a few of my ideas. I hope they contribute to spiritual wholeness and peace in this time of preparation.
Don’t sit on it.
Don’t hold it in.
Don’t put it back in the box.
Don’t return it to the sender.
Open the box.
Talk about it.
Look in the mirror.
Stare it down.
Find a word, name it, and claim it.
Say something to anyone.
Allow yourself to have the last word, even if it’s for today. Grief will not win.
You can speak to the grief tomorrow; it will wait.
Richard L. Bryant New 2022
The Rev. Richard L. Bryant
The Rev. Richard L. Bryant serves as pastor of New Sharon United Methodist Church in Hillsborough, N.C. A graduate of UNC-Greensboro and Duke University, Richard has served churches in England; Raleigh, N.C.; as a missionary in Moscow and Northern Ireland; and in Marshallberg, Ocracoke, Burgaw, and now in Hillsborough. His hobbies include piano performance, storytelling, backyard astronomy, and researching his family’s history.