Scenes of Grief And Signs Of Healing

Modern psychology describes the early stages of grieving, in Sigmund Freud's classic phrase, as a "painful dejection" best coped with in three stages. We face up to the fact of loss, however shattering the loss may be. We consign the once here and now relationship to a special place in our memories. And finally, we invest ourselves in other relationships and causes. At each stage, it helps to have caring people present who accept us in whatever stage of letting-go we may or may not be, and who offer us realistic assurance that things will get better.

Along with this widely accepted perspective on grief, there is another that may be especially important at this holiday season, when economic recession and the wrenching losses it is imposing are making ordinary grieving even more difficult. It is the perspective of faith. My thoughts about it are shaped by a few more experiences I had at the Grief Recovery Gathering about which I wrote last time. The first was with Cap. (Again, no real names are used in the vignettes.) He summed up well the kind of feelings many were experiencing that afternoon: Sometimes it still feels like it did those awful days after Jimmy died in the storm, when I told God I'd never trust him again, but being around all of these good people makes me realize just how far I've come and that the pain really is getting better. I think I'm almost ready to let God back into my life.

Not everyone, however, found in this particular gathering the solace and encouragement that Cap did. For Brenda, it activated memories of her most intense grief rather than the relief she experienced from it. A debilitating illness in her late 20's had put an end to Brenda's promising career, destroying not only her mobility but her dreams. Both the ease and the optimism with which reunion group members moved around to greet each other were, as she put it, like salt poured into wounds. Nevertheless, Brenda went on to say, I keep coming because I want to be here, and to keep on hoping that both my body and my mind are going to stop hurting so much.

Tom had still a different reaction to the celebratory tone of the gatherings. It was the hugs that got to him the most: These folks are connecting with each other so beautifully, he told me, but I'm still feeling sorry for myself for feeling so alone. She was my whole world. I don't know if I'll ever be able to reach out to anyone again, even in the way that just friends do.

What can we say, from the perspective of faith, about these three fellow strugglers? About Cap, whose son drowned during Hurricane Katrina, we can say a word of thanks that he is beginning to understand that God is not a Zeus-like, capricious storm-gatherer. Rather, God is the Holy One who seeks in love to make us holy in His glorious presence. And God does this through all circumstances, good and bad.

As for Brenda, we can say a word of thanks for her courage. She still feared that there may be nothing ahead for her except debilitation, dependency, and an early death. But she is facing the prospect by looking deeply into the faces of others struggling with losses not as great as hers, but gaining courage in the process. At one time, she was her church's organist, and so her next words should not have surprised me. They were from the fourth verse of the magnificent hymn, "For All the Saints." Then, she quoted, "steals on the ear the distant triumph song."

Finally, there was Tom, still holding himself back from those who care about him. One of his grown children summed up his blocked grief work especially well. As Tom summarized it, Junior really jumped all over me yesterday because he thinks I'm not being fair with either my family or my friends. They want the old Tom back, he said, not the Tom who acts like he doesn't care about them anymore and isn't holding up his end of anything. Tom's son put his finger on the central issue at stake. Love is not supposed to die, even when the people we love do. Tom got the message. The last thing he said to me that afternoon was that it was time for him to start opening himself to others again, no matter how much he missed his wife.

This Christmas season, a lot of people who are grieving the loss of a job, a home, or a secure future, on top of the loss of a loved one, are finding it especially hard to rejoice about very much. Except those who know from the depths of their souls that there are good things that do last forever. And that the greatest among them is love --- their own, ours, and God's, in Christ. Venite adoramus.

God Rest You Worried Gentlefolk

The Sunday afternoon was sunny and delightfully cool, the Fall leaves were gorgeous, and the refreshments kept coming as the room kept filling. Happy greetings, broad smiles, hugs, and mounting chatter said it all: for those who had felt deep sorrow, there were now times of joy and a readiness to celebrate new life. To this particular gathering, everyone who had ever participated in a grief recovery group at the sponsoring church was invited, and a large number came.

Just east of the food table, I struck up a conversation with a man I will call Sam, who was having difficulty getting into the festive mood, having only recently lost a daughter to cancer. Right now, Sam told me, it feels like I'm almost unhinged. Our exchange remained free of interruptions long enough for him to say more about what the hinges in his life were and how he felt them to be coming apart. I have found Sam's analogy very helpful not only to understanding what happens in the grieving process, but to getting through it, especially in these times. With a recession upon us, the question of how to celebrate Christmas is already more intense than usual, and for people who are suffering a significant loss --- whether of a loved one, an income, a secure retirement, health, or hope --- it can be overwhelming.

As I talked more with Sam that day, what kept coming to mind was the Latin word for hinge, cardo, and with it an association to "cardinal," not in the sense of the beautiful bird that makes frequent appearances in our back yard, but in the sense of the cardinal "virtues." From Plato and Aristotle all the way through Saints Ambrose, Augustine and Aquinas, human life at its best has been consistently characterized as a state of completeness (or, "perfection") and as a process of achieving it (as in "be perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect" [Mt. 5:48]). Whether as the state or the process, completeness comes from bringing everything that makes us the human beings we are --- specifically our impulses and desires, our will, and our reason --- into an inner harmony and peace. Our accomplishing this "hinges" on developing certain dispositions or habits, which to the ancients meant virtues or excellences of character.

Four dispositions in particular came to be viewed as the hinges upon which completeness of life turns: moderating our cravings; maintaining courage and being reasonable in the face of fear and the temptation to impulsive actions; and treating people fairly --- giving everyone his and her due. For the ancients, these four dispositions --- temperance, courage, wisdom, and justice --- became the cardinal ("hinge") virtues upon which all other virtues such as honesty, fidelity, service, and leadership turn.

Sam's feeling of becoming unhinged revolved around his inability to stop himself from binge drinking; fifteen years of sobriety collapsed overnight in the pain of losing his daughter. Immediately after Sam spoke of feeling unhinged by his binges, he went on to say that it was as if he were losing a vital part of himself. And he was right. From the perspective of striving to develop the cardinal virtues, controlling our appetites and our impulses --- that is, exercising moderation from a tempered spirit --- is a defining characteristic of being human. What Sam discovered is that grieving a significant loss can weaken one or more of the habits which are necessary to our becoming whole.

Most certainly, grief is a feeling of painful dejection. But it is also a sense of a faltering of the best that is in us. And in our grieving, we both need and deserve from others not only their acceptance and encouragment, but also their gentle reminders of who we are at our virtuous best --- temperate, courageous, thoughtful, and fair-minded --- and of the importance that becoming that person again holds to both our well-being and to our integrity.

There may be no better time to work on strengthening the cardinal virtues within us than the present moment, which threatens to unhinge us altogether, whether we are in grief or not. Legitimately angry over what greedy and unscrupulous people on Wall Street have done to us, and seduced by the cajoling of economists to spend ourselves out of the downturn, we can all too easily throw moderation and practical reasoning to the winds in a desperate attempt to drive out the sadness seeping down the walls of our households by extravagances we cannot afford and fantasies we cannot sustain. We can lose courage to take the message of Advent at face value and fail to trust that in the Lord's presence we do not have to be afraid of anything, ever again. And we can deceive ourselves that having less this season somehow absolves us from seeing to it that those who have still less receive even more.