A kingdom without grief

Over this past year, virtually everyone has wrestled with a frustrating “new normal” that has kept them out of school, church, backyard barbecues, and even Starbucks.

It’s made us reconsider how we view political malfeasance, racial tension, neighborliness, loneliness, and day-to-day survival.

But for many of us the first word that comes to mind is grief. I tend to prefer sadness, which broadens the scope and softens the impact.

And it leads me more quickly to the relief found in wisps of humor, which is how English novelist Hermione Hoby (now living in Colorado) finds her antidote to grief.

Writing in November in The New York Times, she described heated car seats as one of life’s richest blessings. This was something she had never experienced during childhood winters endured in damp socks and British sogginess.

Such seats, she wrote, “deliver a pleasure both maternal and sensual, cocooning you like a child in the lap of some warm benevolent bear.”

Of course, it takes more than a teddy bear to ease the disruption and grief caused by this year’s pandemic, but my wife and I have found comfort in a book published by a psychotherapist friend of ours, Dorothy Holinger.

It’s titled The Anatomy of Grief (Yale University Press, 2020), and, as Dorothy explains, it’s not a self-help book nor a textbook but offers the reader an understanding of the changeable and unpredictable nature of grief—an understanding that has the power to help ease the heartache of a terrible loss.

Eventually, she writes, positive memories of the lost loved one can re-emerge in the consciousness of the survivor. No formula, no prescribed steps exist, says Dorothy, yet, as memories surface of fondness, love, and laughter, grief becomes ennobled.

“When reminiscences delight as well as take the breath away, when memories elicit warm chuckles as well as tears, the leaden weight of grief has alchemized into the gold of a new life.”

Of course, it’s not easy to establish and enjoy the gold of a new life when you’re all alone—with or without an affectionate pet to cuddle. Everyone feels lonely at times, even within reach of other people. In our desperation, we long to have someone pull aside their mask, look fully into our eyes and ask with genuine concern, “Are you OK?”

      For me, the best answer to that question lies in my  acknowledgment of my place in the kingdom of God where I already have companionship, joy, protection, direction, and peace of mind.

In my daily celebration of that kingdom, I’m grateful to have the firm and trusted support of the Bible, which speaks to me at all hours of the day and night, and provides inspiration and healing through a commitment to God’s way of overcoming grief.

As Chris Hall, president of the Renovare Institute for Christian Spiritual Formation, wrote recently in Christianity Today, God doesn’t call us to do things He doesn’t equip us to do.

In our darkest moments, observes Hall, when we look at the world and the homes we’ve been stuck in for so long now that they seem to be closing in around us, God takes compassion on us.

God doesn’t tell us to muster up or feign gratitude. Rather, says Hall, He draws near in our grief. He bursts through our isolation and comforts us.

“The Spirit reminds us that God is the One who places the desire for communion and gathering within us. And while our sorrow may last for the COVID-19 night, joy promises to come in the morning”—in fact, I’d add, every morning!