The holiest of all holidays are those kept by ourselves in silence and apart; the secret anniversaries of the heart.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
“Beware the Ides of March!” is a well-known phrase from Shakespeare's play Julius Caesar. The Ides were on the 15th of the month, several times in the Roman year. On March 15, 44 B.C., Caesar was assassinated. Many years later, March 15, 1964, my mother collapsed in a church service, and died two days later. This year is one when all the days line up the same way as they did 45 years ago. Friday the 13th was first, then Sunday the 15th, then Tuesday the 17th, St. Patrick's Day. That serves as a stronger reminder of life events I can never forget.
My birthday is two days before my mother's. On this date in 1991, I realized that I was exactly the same age my mother had been when she died. I could see in the mirror's reflection how very young age 36 was. My mother and Marilyn Monroe died at the same age, forever young. From that day on, I moved beyond my mother's lifespan, into years she never experienced. I no longer fear that I will die young, as she did. Today I am exactly 18 years older than my mother was on the day she died. I'm glad to be 54, and am determined to live the rest of my life fully, as long as I am here. It's a blessing to be growing older.
March 17, St. Patrick's Day, is the anniversary of my mother's death. In my small private ritual of remembrance each year, I wear something green, since I married into an Irish family, and something black, in honor of my mother. If her grave were closer to my home in Texas, her death date and her birthday would be days I might visit. I don't feel much grief any more, but I always remember her on this day.
When I talk to people who are grieving, I've seen a pattern, borne out in the literature, of an upswing of grief just before the one-year anniversary of the death. We have enough volunteers with our hospice that we are able to make calls to many family members near the one year anniversary. People tell me that they start reflecting as it approaches about all the things that happed a year ago. They review events that led up to the death, and often dread that anniversary date. Some have flashbacks or an increase in vivid dreams. Many people are surprised when I tell them that grief can increase right before the first anniversary. Sometimes just finding out that it's normal to relive those memories helps with the emotions of the time. It's not unusual to experience some grief or a time of remembering each year as the anniversary approaches.
There are many significant dates that we remember, unique to each of us. A few weeks ago, I had the privilege of seeing singer Judy Collins in concert. She told us that night was exactly 50 years since the first day she got paid for being a singer. That date held special significance to her. Some of my significant dates include the date I found my faith again, the date I got engaged, my wedding anniversary, and the birthdays of each of my children. When I talk to people who are grieving, they mention their significant dates, birthdays, anniversaries, the day their loved one was diagnosed with a terminal illness. One mentioned the first day of baseball season, which she had always enjoyed with her mother. Another mentioned her AA anniversary, the date marking her sobriety. She had always celebrated it with her special someone. Sometimes we don't even realize a date is significant until our emotions rise, and we begin to wonder why.
I deal with heightened feelings this time of year for another reason besides the anniversary of my mother's death. My wedding anniversary is on Thursday, but the date brings up a lot of mixed feelings. For the past two years, my husband and I have been living apart from each other, with an uncertain future. To my husband's credit, he's brought me flowers on our anniversary for the last two years, even with his indecision about remaining married to me. We still see each other fairly often, or call, or e-mail. It's not easy to live each day wondering what the future will hold. Although being left was devastating, I have adusted to living alone, have grown from the experience, and have even found some things I like about being on my own. Someday, there may be a definite ending and another date to remember, or we may be able to put our marriage back together. The best I can do is to decide how I will live fully while coping with my circumstances. I used to think that my experience was unique, but I find in this kind of loss, too, there are many who have gone through similar situations.
Life can be a series of endings, with many leading to new beginnings. Sometimes life improves, sometimes it gets harder. We embrace the struggle, and grow deeper. And along the way, our heart remembers those we have loved, and significant days we shared with them.
Sunday, March 15, 2009
Monday, March 9, 2009
Traveling Through the Darkness
Yesterday morning, I was listening to the local classical music station on the way to church. On Sunday mornings, the station broadcasts programs from various faiths. I happened to tune in at the beginning of a broadcast about depression. In only a few minutes of listening, I'm not sure I got all the subtleties of the discussion, but it seemed to me that this faith tradition was saying that depression is a kind of darkness. Since God is light, and we are like God, we should not accept darkness in our lives. Their advice for getting out of the darkness was to claim the light was real, and the darkness was not. I've read or heard other religious doctrines that have said that we are to claim the good things in life as gifts of God, and not accept the difficult things. By doing so, all the hard things will be overcome. I disagree.
I have lived through some difficult times, and have experienced times of darkness. Many others who have lost loved ones have traveled through the darkness. This is a reality we deal with.
Some years ago, Psalm 23:4 took on new meaning to me. Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for Thou art with me. I'd always assumed that verse was primarily talking about the time when death approaches. This verse is a great comfort to dying people, and I agree with the validity of that interpretation. As time goes on, though, I have come to understand that the valley of the shadow of death is also the place where people who are mourning have to travel. Losing someone we love can cast us into a time of darkness. We don't stand still in the valley, we walk through it. The valley may be difficult and dark, but we are not alone. And each loss brings a valley of a different shape and size.
I've been reading two books in the last few weeks, both of which talk about grief. One is a book of fiction, called The Shack, by William Paul Young. In it, the main character enters into a time he calls The Great Sadness. He has gone through a terrible loss that was a result of another person's evil choice, and it has shaken him to the core. Along the way to the beginning of healing, he builds a new relationship with God, while having some unique conversations about many aspects of life, including evil, suffering, and forgiveness.
The other book I've been reading is A Grace Disguised, How the Soul Grows Through Loss, by Jerry Sittser. He tells of the struggles he experienced after a drunken driver hit the minivan he was driving, killing his wife, his daughter, and his mother. He was left alone to raise his three surviving children. One of the images he used was so powerful, I'm going to quote it here. It's on page 33 of the book:
I had a kind of waking dream shortly after that, caused, I am sure, by that initial experience of darkness. I dreamed of a setting sun. I was frantically running west, trying desperately to catch it and remain in its fiery warmth and light. But I was losing the race. The sun was beating me to the horizon and was soon gone. I suddenly found myself in the twilight. Exhausted, I stopped running and glanced with foreboding over my shoulder to the east. I saw a vast darkness closing in on me. I was terrified by that darkness. I wanted to keep running after the sun, though I knew that it was futile, for it had already proven itself faster than I was. So I lost all hope, collapsed to the ground, and fell into despair. I thought at that moment that I would live in darkness forever....
Later, my sister, Diane, told me that the quickest way for anyone to reach the sun and the light of day is not to run west, chasing after the setting sun, but to head east, plunging into the darkness until one comes to the sunrise.
I discovered in that moment that I had the power to choose the direction my life would head, even if the only choice open to me, at least initially, was either to run from the loss or to face it as best I could. Since I knew that darkness was inevitable and unavoidable, I decided from that point on to walk into the darkness rather than outrun it, to let my experience of loss take me on a journey, wherever it would lead, and to be transformed by my suffering rather than to think I could somehow avoid it.
The writer went on to talk about how allowed himself a time of solitude every day to deal with the darkness and give himself to grief. In these times, he both suffered and grew deeper. When he wrote the book, three years after the accident, he still was experiencing times of darkness. On page 36 the author wrote:
The decision to face the darkness, even if it led to overwhelming pain, showed me that the experience of loss itself does not have to be the defining moment of our lives. Instead, the defining moment can be our response to the loss. It's not what happens to us that matters as much as what happens in us. Darkness, it is true, had invaded my soul. But then again, so did light. Both contributed to my personal transformation...
In other words, though I experienced death, I also experienced life in ways I never thought possible before, not after the darkness, as we might suppose, but in the darkness. I did not go through pain and come out the other side; instead, I lived in it and found within the pain the grace to survive and eventually grow.
The author of the book is very candid about his struggles, with faith, with fear, and with the meaning of forgiveness. He managed to write a deep, uplifting book after a terrible loss. The focus was more on the struggles we all experience in the hard places, not just on his own journey. I recommend it.
It's often said there is no way out of grief but through. Allowing ourselves to walk through the valley of the shadow of death, trusting that we are not alone in the darkness, will help us reach the other side.
These pictures were taken at Northwest Park in Irving. Thursday, March 5, 2009
Loss of a Pet
My dog Kirby - the flash setting makes his brown eyes blue.
A few days ago, my dog Kirby got deathly ill. He couldn't hold down food or water, and vomited most of the night. When I gave him water in the morning, it all came back up. I took him to the veterinarian, and he treated Kirby for pancreatitis. If I hadn't taken him, Kirby would have died within days. I am glad to say he is getting better each day. He's been going to the vet during the day, where he gets medicines and IV fluids, and I bring him home at night. Kirby can now drink a little water and hold down some food, and has a lot more energy. The vet thinks he'll need one more day of treatment, and then he can stay home with oral medications.
My dog Kirby is a miniature schnauzer, about 8 years old. We got him 7 years ago from an animal shelter. For most of my time in the Dallas area, we lived in apartments or duplexes. When we finally moved into a house with a fenced backyard, I really wanted to get a dog. I like a lot of different furry animals, but member of my family, including me, have asthma and allergies, which limited the pets we could have. Some have had allergic reactions to cats, so I knew we could not have one of those. When we visited my brother's house, my family didn't react to his miniature schnauzers, so I wanted that breed of dog. Miniature schnauzers don't shed, which is really helpful for allergy sufferers. And they are very smart, sweet, loving dogs.
I've realized before how much my dog means to me. There have been times he's found a hole in the fence and disappeared. Fortunately, he's never gone far, and sometimes has found his way back to the front door, where he stands and barks. But in those times where I've had to look for him for a while, I realize how much I would miss him if he were gone. This week, when he was so sick, I started thinking about it again.
Much of my time at home, I'm by myself now, a big change from when my children were smaller. But I am not really by myself, because I have a small animal that keeps me company. He needs my care, and he rewards me with his unconditional love. He's always happy to see me, doesn't get angry or criticize, and is patient. He helps me feel protected, since he'll let me know if a stranger is at the door. I have become very attached to Kirby.
I've had a few dogs before. When I was growing up, we had a mixed breed dog name ZsaZsa. She was a great comfort to me after my mother died, and it seemed like she was the one who listened best to me when I needed to talk about my grief or wanted to cry. I was devastated when ZsaZsa was hit by a car almost two years after my mom died. I didn't see her after she died, but she left a great absence in my life. Years later, my parents got two springer spaniels, which I really liked, but I was almost in college when they became part of the family. They were not part of my everyday life for a number of years when they died of old age, and my grief was much less than with my first dog.
So many times, when I work with grieving people, they say something like “I thought was doing pretty well, and then my dog died, and I fell apart.” Companion animals can be great comfort when we lose family members, and they will often stay with us when we cry, and offer their sympathy in loving ways. Dogs or cats share our grief when the person who's died lived in the house with us. When the dog or cat that has been the pet of a loved one who died then needs to be put to sleep or dies, grief can be surprisingly deep. Animals loved by those we lost often link us to the ones who are gone, and when those animals die, our old grief is resurrected, along with the new grief. Dogs who have kept us company through the ups and downs of life leave a deeper void than we expect.
Loss of a pet is terribly difficult. It's not unusual for people to have more acute grief for the death of a pet than they have for a blood relative, especially if the person who died is someone they don't see all the time. I've known people who work in hospice that can face death every day, but when a dog or cat dies, they need to take some time off to get through the first days of grief. We grieve for those we love, and the more we are involved with them, the bigger void there is when they are gone. Most of us who live with dogs or cats are involved with those pets in many ways, taking walks with them, making sure they have food and drink, keeping them healthy, playing with them. A lot of us sit with small animals on our laps or bigger ones by our feet, and many of us sleep with our pets at night. There's a huge absence when pets die. Grief is a normal, natural response to that loss. People sometimes feel ashamed or awkward talking about their grief over the loss of a pet. The things that are helpful when we lose a loved one also help when we lose a pet: crying, journaling, talking about the loss, finding ways to remember the pet or honor its memory. It's not an easy loss, and it takes time to get through it.
I have a support group listing that I give out on a regular basis to grieving people in the community. The last group I have on the list is a pet loss support group, here in Dallas at the SPCA, Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. They have a counselor available that people can call for grief support. One of our hospice bereavement volunteers used to work at the Dallas Zoo, and he has found the SPCA group very helpful. Those who work with large zoo animals have long-term relationships with those animals, who sometimes live as long as a human. When a zoo animal dies, especially if that animal died suddenly in the prime of life, that can devastate staff members. My friend the bereavement volunteer has held some grief groups at the zoo for his co-workers.
I've also collected a list of some pet loss websites that I give out to people who are struggling with the loss of a pet. Some of those I've found to be helpful are http://www.pet-loss.net/
http://www.petloss.com/
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2006/08/12/HOGOJKDEE21.DTL&type=printable http://www.sptimes.com/2006/03/19/Floridian/Letting_go_of_Dakota.shtml
http://www.griefhealing.com/comfort-grieving-animal-lovers.htm
I know the day will come that my dog Kirby will reach the end of his life. When he does, I will grieve, and I will let myself mourn. He's been a great little dog, and I love him. I'm glad that he's going to recover from this illness. I hope he stays healthy for a long time before he's gone.
Thursday, February 19, 2009
Bereavement Coordinator
The most miserable people in the world are the people who are self-centered, who won’t do anything for anybody, except themselves. In contrast, the happiest people are the people who deliberately take on themselves the sorrows and troubles of others. Their hearts sing with a strange wild joy.
E. Stanley Jones
When I meet new people, the question about where we work often comes up. When I answer “I’m the bereavement coordinator for a hospice,” I get a lot of interesting reactions. Some people are taken aback, and some people want to know more. Hospice is something many people talk about in hushed tones, as if the very mention of the word means bad news, a death sentence. Hospice unfortunately is not always known for what it is, a great help to people in one of the most stressful times of life. When a terminally ill person is expected to live 6 months or less, and curative treatment is no longer an option, hospice can do a great deal of good. At this time, the focus of medical treatment can turn from cure to comfort.
Hospice care is done as a team approach. Patient care is done most often in homes but also in nursing homes and other settings. Nurses are experts at relieving pain and other symptoms, under supervision of the hospice physician. Chaplains provide spiritual and emotional support, and often help the family with funerals or memorial services. Social workers help families in a number of ways, helping with advanced directives, finding resources of various kinds, giving emotional support and counseling, helping with nursing home placement if needed, and giving information about funeral and burial options. Home health aides provide personal care when the patient can no longer care for him or herself. Volunteers visit patients in homes or nursing homes, sit with patients to give caregivers a break, help with administrative tasks, and can help with bereavement support. Hospices do not just serve the patient, they also support the family members through all parts of the process. Hospices are required to offer bereavement support for thirteen months after the patient dies. That’s where my position fits in.
Most bereavement coordinators are either chaplains or social workers, since hospices are required to have those professionals on staff. My background is in social work. Before I became the bereavement coordinator, I was the social worker with our children’s hospice and home health program, helped with the children's bereavement program, and visited occasional adult patients. I’d also been an intern with the agency when I was getting my master’s degree, and had helped the bereavement coordinator make calls. I was fortunate to be hired for his job when he transferred to our branch office that was closer to his home.
Visiting Nurse Association, or VNA, as best known in the community, is the oldest hospice in Texas, and one of the few nonprofits in the Dallas area. VNA was founded 75 years ago to provide nursing care for the poor, sick, disabled, and dying in the community. We provide a number of services that help people stay in their homes, including Meals on Wheels for Dallas County, home health, long term care, Eldercare, rehabilitative services , and hospice care. In the late 1970s, before the Medicare hospice benefit was approved by Congress, 26 hospices in the United States were chosen for a pilot program to help define what hospice should be and demonstrate its helpfulness. Our hospice was one of those chosen for the pilot program. We have a wonderful, experienced staff, which includes a chaplain who has been with us for over 25 years. VNA's website is http://www.vnatexas.org/ . We're planning a website expansion in a few months, and I hope we'll have a section with our bereavement activities at that time.
I provide bereavement support to the families of patients who have been on hospice, and also to others in the community. We provide support in a number of ways. Every family member on our mailing list receives letters with literature about grief and a quarterly bereavement newsletter, which I help write and edit. I also send other materials as requested, after I talk to the family members.
A large part of my time is spent on the phone making calls to family members of patients who have died, talking to them about how they are doing, and helping them with any questions about grief. I am part educator, mostly listener. I also get calls from people in the community who have had losses, and help them find support and resources. We call family members periodically through the year. After many of the calls, I send more information by mail or e-mail, including a list of grief websites, a grief bibliography, articles about specific kinds of losses, and information about my support groups and others in the community. Each loss and each person is unique. Some find most of the help they need by talking to other people. Others prefer gathering information, and may work through grief by doing things like journaling, self-expression in the arts, or getting online on discussion boards.
VNA has a number of meetings that I set up and help facilitate. All of our meetings are open to the community, not just to hospice families. We schedule 6 week grief support groups several times a year, some of which I lead and some which are led by another social worker. I hold two-hour seminars on grief and a holiday workshop. VNA also has a memorial service which includes music, readings, a short message, and a reflective time where the attendees can light a candle for their loved ones. Planning the service has been one of my duties. Some of the songs I've written have been used in the services, and were composed with those in mind.
One of my hospice's unique programs is a monthly bereavement luncheon. In the years we've been holding these, I've had a lot of support from sponsors in the community, and have been able to hold luncheons at no cost to the attendees, with speakers about some aspect of the grief process. We've had professionals from a number of the groups offering service to the bereaved in the community, and talented lay speakers with life lessons to share. I have learned from each one. We also hold a quarterly luncheon in a Dallas suburb. When I took my position, organizing events was the most stressful part of my job, because I'm something of an introvert. Now I really enjoy the meetings, and especially the luncheons. They can get quite big. Sometimes 75 or 80 people attend.
People often wonder if it's hard to work with bereaved people. I find it's actually quite rewarding to have so many significant conversations with people about those they have loved and lost. At first, when I worked with hospice patients in internships and as a new social worker, I found the work to be partly rewarding and partly heartbreaking. I asked one of the nurses how she could keep doing such difficult work for so long. She told me that she felt like she'd been given a gift, an ability to provide care that was so needed and so significant. She knew she could help people at an incredibly difficult time, and make it easier for them. Not everyone can stay calm in a crisis, but hospice staff learn how to handle just about everything. And in the same way, I've learned that my personal and professional experience helps me to walk with others at a time when a listening ear, a calm voice, and a bit of information can be a tremendous help. I am grateful to be doing this work.
E. Stanley Jones
When I meet new people, the question about where we work often comes up. When I answer “I’m the bereavement coordinator for a hospice,” I get a lot of interesting reactions. Some people are taken aback, and some people want to know more. Hospice is something many people talk about in hushed tones, as if the very mention of the word means bad news, a death sentence. Hospice unfortunately is not always known for what it is, a great help to people in one of the most stressful times of life. When a terminally ill person is expected to live 6 months or less, and curative treatment is no longer an option, hospice can do a great deal of good. At this time, the focus of medical treatment can turn from cure to comfort.
Hospice care is done as a team approach. Patient care is done most often in homes but also in nursing homes and other settings. Nurses are experts at relieving pain and other symptoms, under supervision of the hospice physician. Chaplains provide spiritual and emotional support, and often help the family with funerals or memorial services. Social workers help families in a number of ways, helping with advanced directives, finding resources of various kinds, giving emotional support and counseling, helping with nursing home placement if needed, and giving information about funeral and burial options. Home health aides provide personal care when the patient can no longer care for him or herself. Volunteers visit patients in homes or nursing homes, sit with patients to give caregivers a break, help with administrative tasks, and can help with bereavement support. Hospices do not just serve the patient, they also support the family members through all parts of the process. Hospices are required to offer bereavement support for thirteen months after the patient dies. That’s where my position fits in.
Most bereavement coordinators are either chaplains or social workers, since hospices are required to have those professionals on staff. My background is in social work. Before I became the bereavement coordinator, I was the social worker with our children’s hospice and home health program, helped with the children's bereavement program, and visited occasional adult patients. I’d also been an intern with the agency when I was getting my master’s degree, and had helped the bereavement coordinator make calls. I was fortunate to be hired for his job when he transferred to our branch office that was closer to his home.
Visiting Nurse Association, or VNA, as best known in the community, is the oldest hospice in Texas, and one of the few nonprofits in the Dallas area. VNA was founded 75 years ago to provide nursing care for the poor, sick, disabled, and dying in the community. We provide a number of services that help people stay in their homes, including Meals on Wheels for Dallas County, home health, long term care, Eldercare, rehabilitative services , and hospice care. In the late 1970s, before the Medicare hospice benefit was approved by Congress, 26 hospices in the United States were chosen for a pilot program to help define what hospice should be and demonstrate its helpfulness. Our hospice was one of those chosen for the pilot program. We have a wonderful, experienced staff, which includes a chaplain who has been with us for over 25 years. VNA's website is http://www.vnatexas.org/ . We're planning a website expansion in a few months, and I hope we'll have a section with our bereavement activities at that time.
I provide bereavement support to the families of patients who have been on hospice, and also to others in the community. We provide support in a number of ways. Every family member on our mailing list receives letters with literature about grief and a quarterly bereavement newsletter, which I help write and edit. I also send other materials as requested, after I talk to the family members.
A large part of my time is spent on the phone making calls to family members of patients who have died, talking to them about how they are doing, and helping them with any questions about grief. I am part educator, mostly listener. I also get calls from people in the community who have had losses, and help them find support and resources. We call family members periodically through the year. After many of the calls, I send more information by mail or e-mail, including a list of grief websites, a grief bibliography, articles about specific kinds of losses, and information about my support groups and others in the community. Each loss and each person is unique. Some find most of the help they need by talking to other people. Others prefer gathering information, and may work through grief by doing things like journaling, self-expression in the arts, or getting online on discussion boards.
VNA has a number of meetings that I set up and help facilitate. All of our meetings are open to the community, not just to hospice families. We schedule 6 week grief support groups several times a year, some of which I lead and some which are led by another social worker. I hold two-hour seminars on grief and a holiday workshop. VNA also has a memorial service which includes music, readings, a short message, and a reflective time where the attendees can light a candle for their loved ones. Planning the service has been one of my duties. Some of the songs I've written have been used in the services, and were composed with those in mind.
One of my hospice's unique programs is a monthly bereavement luncheon. In the years we've been holding these, I've had a lot of support from sponsors in the community, and have been able to hold luncheons at no cost to the attendees, with speakers about some aspect of the grief process. We've had professionals from a number of the groups offering service to the bereaved in the community, and talented lay speakers with life lessons to share. I have learned from each one. We also hold a quarterly luncheon in a Dallas suburb. When I took my position, organizing events was the most stressful part of my job, because I'm something of an introvert. Now I really enjoy the meetings, and especially the luncheons. They can get quite big. Sometimes 75 or 80 people attend.
People often wonder if it's hard to work with bereaved people. I find it's actually quite rewarding to have so many significant conversations with people about those they have loved and lost. At first, when I worked with hospice patients in internships and as a new social worker, I found the work to be partly rewarding and partly heartbreaking. I asked one of the nurses how she could keep doing such difficult work for so long. She told me that she felt like she'd been given a gift, an ability to provide care that was so needed and so significant. She knew she could help people at an incredibly difficult time, and make it easier for them. Not everyone can stay calm in a crisis, but hospice staff learn how to handle just about everything. And in the same way, I've learned that my personal and professional experience helps me to walk with others at a time when a listening ear, a calm voice, and a bit of information can be a tremendous help. I am grateful to be doing this work.
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
Chasing Canaan
I'm taking a break from subjects of loss and life today to post a link to a MySpace page. My youngest son is the acoustic guitar player and one of the vocalists for the music group Chasing Canaan, and they've just put up five songs on their MySpace page that they recorded in December. The website is http://www.myspace.com/chasingcanaan. Their group has five vocalists, some that also play instruments, an electric guitar player, a bass guitarist, and a drummer. Most of them have been students at Centenary College in Shreveport, and have sung together in Centenary College choirs.
Years ago, I was part of a similar group, Marturion. We had five vocalists and about 20 instrumentalists, including string players, brass, woodwinds, piano, percussion, and guitars. Most of us were music students or recent graduates of Bowling Green State University. We recorded a few cassette tapes and an LP, and did concerts mostly in northern Ohio. That was before there were contemporary Christian music radio stations or an industry, and the LP was never widely distributed. I still look to that recording as the best work I've ever recorded. Members of our church wrote and arranged all the songs we performed, and some of my songs were included on the LP. I've been thinking lately that maybe part of my reluctance to record my songs comes from comparing anything I could do now with the quality of that old recording. It's probably time to let that go and create something new,
It's so nice to see my son loving music as I did, having fun and making a difference in a group that's doing their own original music. They're really good, too! I wish Chasing Canaan much success. The songs sound great!
Years ago, I was part of a similar group, Marturion. We had five vocalists and about 20 instrumentalists, including string players, brass, woodwinds, piano, percussion, and guitars. Most of us were music students or recent graduates of Bowling Green State University. We recorded a few cassette tapes and an LP, and did concerts mostly in northern Ohio. That was before there were contemporary Christian music radio stations or an industry, and the LP was never widely distributed. I still look to that recording as the best work I've ever recorded. Members of our church wrote and arranged all the songs we performed, and some of my songs were included on the LP. I've been thinking lately that maybe part of my reluctance to record my songs comes from comparing anything I could do now with the quality of that old recording. It's probably time to let that go and create something new,
It's so nice to see my son loving music as I did, having fun and making a difference in a group that's doing their own original music. They're really good, too! I wish Chasing Canaan much success. The songs sound great!
Sunday, February 8, 2009
Loss and Faith Part II
A few years ago I read a letter my mother had written to my grandmother after she'd returned from a retreat at her church, some time in the year before she died. She wrote of her strengthened relationship with God, how He'd become so much more real to her, and of her love for Him. It may be that the strength of my mother's faith carried our family into church every week, and was the foundation for my early believing. My father was also a churchgoer, but not as expressive about his faith as my mother was.
I remember being a devout little girl, thrilled when my first communion day came around. I loved the mystery, the rituals, and the symbolism of the church. I was impressed each Good Friday when all the statues and the altar were shrouded in black, and then on Easter when the color white was much more prevalent. The Catholic churches of my childhood used the Latin mass, and I can still recite parts of the liturgy. From first grade through sixth, I went to parochial school, and stayed in the church long enough to go through confirmation, where I was to choose a confirmation name. I decided to take the name of a saint whose holy day fell on November 22, my father's birthday. She was St. Cecilia, patron saint of music. Confirmation names are not legal names, and I don't use the name Cecilia. But I do remember choosing the patron saint of music to watch over me in a special way. Maybe she did.
An untimely death can wreak havoc with the faith of a family, and so it was with mine. Even a simple thing like how the news of a death is relayed can say unintended things about the nature of God.
“God needed your mommy in heaven,” a well-intentioned person told my 6 year old brother. As an adult, he still remembers what he thought. “I need my mommy. God is mean. I don't like God.” I don't remember if I had a similar thought, but I do know my expectations about how the universe was supposed to work got shattered. Bad things did happen to good people. The world no longer felt safe. It didn't make sense.
My father's second wife came from a Protestant tradition. The rules were strict back then about what Catholics called a “mixed marriage”. The new spouse was to promise to raise all children in the Catholic faith. My parents were also expected to follow the Catholic rules about birth control, which meant only the rhythm method was acceptable. And it didn't seem to work very well.
I don't know all of my stepmother's stories, but she did become bitter toward the Catholic church, and she, my father, and their son joined her church some time when I was still in Catholic school. Many years later, when we were talking about motherhood, she told me how hard it had been for her. I'd already known she'd gotten pregnant a month after she got married, but this day, she told me she had wanted to nurse her son. The priest told her she had to wean him at 6 weeks and get back on the rhythm method. She said she got pregnant again, right away, and I could still hear hurt and anger in her voice. I have to assume she had an early miscarriage, because my sister and I never knew about a second pregnancy. This may have been the last straw, angering her enough that she no longer wanted any affiliation with the Catholic church. She went from trying to follow the rules of the faith of the family she married into to disparaging it, bringing up things like questionable practices of the popes and abuses during the Crusades. If the stories we've heard in the past few decades about sexual abuse by priests had been known at that time, I'm sure she would have brought these up as well.
I've been thinking about when things happened in my family, and realized that my brother was born, and my mother must have had her second pregnancy, some time in my 6th grade year. That was the year my sister and I were told we would not be going on to Catholic high school. Since public school junior high started in 7th grade, I chose to leave parochial school after 6th grade. My sister was more reluctant, but left the same year I did. Our situations were very different. She was outgoing, popular, the girl voted May Queen in parochial school. I was the shy, sad child who was the target of bullies. I anticipated that going to public school would be a way to start over. It was a good choice for me, but harder on my sister.
I was no longer in Catholic school, and had no encouragement to go to the church I was raised in. I could have gone to my father and stepmother's church, but I had no desire to do so. It didn't take long for questions about the fairness of God, and later the existence of God, to come to the forefront. By the time I was 13 or 14, I had become an agnostic, believing as many do that God was probably an invention of weak people who needed something to believe in. It's easy to lose faith when you are a child who feels forgotten by God. My life was so painful. Did that mean I was being punished for being a bad person? Or did God simply not care? I did not feel protected, and I did not feel loved. Somehow, it was easier to believe there was no God than that God let so many bad things happen to me. I'd been a child of faith. Didn't that count for something?
No one told me at the time that sometimes the painful things in life cause us to question everything we believe. Mental health professionals now call this “a change in the assumptive world,” or a paradigm shift. The things we assume to be true are found to be false. Bad things happen to good people. Prayers are not answered in the ways we think they should be. People that should be there to protect us die, or are too wrapped up in protecting themselves. These are hard lessons for anyone. Faith can change when life does not go well.
It was something of a relief to be sent to my aunt and grandmother's house when I was 15, but I went back into living in a family of devoted Catholics. My grandmother spent time every day on her knees, and I was uncomfortable knowing she was praying for me. I was expected to go to church, but felt disconnected and disbelieving in the church services. The rituals of the church and the faith of my childhood did not seem powerful enough to help me.
California culture was very different from Ohio. In Ohio, it seemed like most people got married, stayed married, and went to church. I was a sophomore in high school, and remember a classmate telling me she'd moved in with her boyfriend because her mom was now on her third husband, and she didn't want to live with her any more. People my age were sexually active, and some used drugs. One of my required classes was philosophy, where conventional ideas of faith were challenged daily. A lot of people believed God did not exist, or was irrelevant. I did meet people in my high school, though, that were “Jesus People.” California, the home of the “flower people” and the hippie culture, was experiencing an outpouring of the Spirit. Somehow, among those who were dropping out, getting high, and indulging their appetites, God started moving.
I decided to go to church with my friend Portia. It was a small Pentecostal church in a storefront in downtown San Clemente. I was a bit afraid of some of the rough-looking characters who were part of the congregation, and was taken aback by one man who said he'd been in prison when he found Jesus. And yet, hearing the testimonies of these people whose lives were changed by faith, I decided I wanted to believe. I asked God to help me, and started to find faith again. In that church, I started the journey that led to healing. It was a hard struggle, but I realized that God loved me even if I was an utter mess. I now understood “Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me.” I've been a wretch.
I still cringe a bit when people of faith tell me that God had a plan for everything, and nothing happened that He didn't mean to happen. I've had people tell me there was a wonderful master plan in my mother's sudden death at age 36, leaving three children behind. If I am so selfish to think her death was to bring me into some place of ministry to the bereaved, I then think, what about my sister? She struggled with depression until she was in her forties. She is involved in a church now, but it took many years for her to get there. And what about my brother? I don't think he ever really got past feeling like God was mean, and he doesn't feel the need to go to church, if he believes God exists. He's had his struggles, too. We all have.
Many of the people I talk to see death as the culmination of a good life, a natural process of going home. And when someone dies old and full of years, having left a legacy of a life well-lived to children, grandchildren, and even great-grandchildren, it's easier to come to peace with that death. It's often an affirmation of lifelong faith. These deaths do feel like homecomings, and the funerals or memorial services can feel like family reunions.
I've also worked with people whose loved ones died in accidents caused by someone else's drunk driving or by carelessness, by murder, by suicide, by drowning, and other causes. Did God take those people, snatch them away in the middle of life? Is that the master plan? That doesn't make sense to a lot of those who are affected by these deaths.
I mentioned in an earlier post a minister who spoke at one of my bereavement luncheons. She lost a brother when they were both teenagers, and a son when he was a child. She said she doesn't believe God takes people. She believes He receives them, with open arms. If they die tragically or too soon, she believes that God mourns with those who loved them. To me, that makes more sense.
There are a lot of people who believe strongly in predestination, Everything that happens was supposed to happen, and they must accept whatever God gives them. Questioning seems wrong, showing a lack of faith. It is true that becoming reconciled to a loss is part of healthy grieving. But for many, long before reconciliation comes wrestling with “Why?” I heard a grief expert talk once about the necessity of asking why. He was saying “Why?” is a question of protest, and a question we need to ask when we've gone through a major loss. We may never get the answer, but it's still part of the process.
Paradigm shifts. Changes in the assumptive world. Asking why. These can all be a part of healthy grieving. A person of faith does not need to feel guilty for wrestling with his or her beliefs when the world changes. It's okay to feel angry that God allowed something to happen, and to go through doubts.
When I had gone through all my questions, my protests, and my loss of faith, I found a faith that was no longer the one given to me by parents. My early faith was one where I accepted the teachings my family followed. After I went through some of the really hard things of life, I found God was there, after all, grieving with me, and wanting to comfort me. My faith now is my own, chosen, held to, and forged through the fire. Going through loss ultimately led me to a place of strength. I am a survivor. I'm also a believer.
I remember being a devout little girl, thrilled when my first communion day came around. I loved the mystery, the rituals, and the symbolism of the church. I was impressed each Good Friday when all the statues and the altar were shrouded in black, and then on Easter when the color white was much more prevalent. The Catholic churches of my childhood used the Latin mass, and I can still recite parts of the liturgy. From first grade through sixth, I went to parochial school, and stayed in the church long enough to go through confirmation, where I was to choose a confirmation name. I decided to take the name of a saint whose holy day fell on November 22, my father's birthday. She was St. Cecilia, patron saint of music. Confirmation names are not legal names, and I don't use the name Cecilia. But I do remember choosing the patron saint of music to watch over me in a special way. Maybe she did.
An untimely death can wreak havoc with the faith of a family, and so it was with mine. Even a simple thing like how the news of a death is relayed can say unintended things about the nature of God.
“God needed your mommy in heaven,” a well-intentioned person told my 6 year old brother. As an adult, he still remembers what he thought. “I need my mommy. God is mean. I don't like God.” I don't remember if I had a similar thought, but I do know my expectations about how the universe was supposed to work got shattered. Bad things did happen to good people. The world no longer felt safe. It didn't make sense.
My father's second wife came from a Protestant tradition. The rules were strict back then about what Catholics called a “mixed marriage”. The new spouse was to promise to raise all children in the Catholic faith. My parents were also expected to follow the Catholic rules about birth control, which meant only the rhythm method was acceptable. And it didn't seem to work very well.
I don't know all of my stepmother's stories, but she did become bitter toward the Catholic church, and she, my father, and their son joined her church some time when I was still in Catholic school. Many years later, when we were talking about motherhood, she told me how hard it had been for her. I'd already known she'd gotten pregnant a month after she got married, but this day, she told me she had wanted to nurse her son. The priest told her she had to wean him at 6 weeks and get back on the rhythm method. She said she got pregnant again, right away, and I could still hear hurt and anger in her voice. I have to assume she had an early miscarriage, because my sister and I never knew about a second pregnancy. This may have been the last straw, angering her enough that she no longer wanted any affiliation with the Catholic church. She went from trying to follow the rules of the faith of the family she married into to disparaging it, bringing up things like questionable practices of the popes and abuses during the Crusades. If the stories we've heard in the past few decades about sexual abuse by priests had been known at that time, I'm sure she would have brought these up as well.
I've been thinking about when things happened in my family, and realized that my brother was born, and my mother must have had her second pregnancy, some time in my 6th grade year. That was the year my sister and I were told we would not be going on to Catholic high school. Since public school junior high started in 7th grade, I chose to leave parochial school after 6th grade. My sister was more reluctant, but left the same year I did. Our situations were very different. She was outgoing, popular, the girl voted May Queen in parochial school. I was the shy, sad child who was the target of bullies. I anticipated that going to public school would be a way to start over. It was a good choice for me, but harder on my sister.
I was no longer in Catholic school, and had no encouragement to go to the church I was raised in. I could have gone to my father and stepmother's church, but I had no desire to do so. It didn't take long for questions about the fairness of God, and later the existence of God, to come to the forefront. By the time I was 13 or 14, I had become an agnostic, believing as many do that God was probably an invention of weak people who needed something to believe in. It's easy to lose faith when you are a child who feels forgotten by God. My life was so painful. Did that mean I was being punished for being a bad person? Or did God simply not care? I did not feel protected, and I did not feel loved. Somehow, it was easier to believe there was no God than that God let so many bad things happen to me. I'd been a child of faith. Didn't that count for something?
No one told me at the time that sometimes the painful things in life cause us to question everything we believe. Mental health professionals now call this “a change in the assumptive world,” or a paradigm shift. The things we assume to be true are found to be false. Bad things happen to good people. Prayers are not answered in the ways we think they should be. People that should be there to protect us die, or are too wrapped up in protecting themselves. These are hard lessons for anyone. Faith can change when life does not go well.
It was something of a relief to be sent to my aunt and grandmother's house when I was 15, but I went back into living in a family of devoted Catholics. My grandmother spent time every day on her knees, and I was uncomfortable knowing she was praying for me. I was expected to go to church, but felt disconnected and disbelieving in the church services. The rituals of the church and the faith of my childhood did not seem powerful enough to help me.
California culture was very different from Ohio. In Ohio, it seemed like most people got married, stayed married, and went to church. I was a sophomore in high school, and remember a classmate telling me she'd moved in with her boyfriend because her mom was now on her third husband, and she didn't want to live with her any more. People my age were sexually active, and some used drugs. One of my required classes was philosophy, where conventional ideas of faith were challenged daily. A lot of people believed God did not exist, or was irrelevant. I did meet people in my high school, though, that were “Jesus People.” California, the home of the “flower people” and the hippie culture, was experiencing an outpouring of the Spirit. Somehow, among those who were dropping out, getting high, and indulging their appetites, God started moving.
I decided to go to church with my friend Portia. It was a small Pentecostal church in a storefront in downtown San Clemente. I was a bit afraid of some of the rough-looking characters who were part of the congregation, and was taken aback by one man who said he'd been in prison when he found Jesus. And yet, hearing the testimonies of these people whose lives were changed by faith, I decided I wanted to believe. I asked God to help me, and started to find faith again. In that church, I started the journey that led to healing. It was a hard struggle, but I realized that God loved me even if I was an utter mess. I now understood “Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me.” I've been a wretch.
I still cringe a bit when people of faith tell me that God had a plan for everything, and nothing happened that He didn't mean to happen. I've had people tell me there was a wonderful master plan in my mother's sudden death at age 36, leaving three children behind. If I am so selfish to think her death was to bring me into some place of ministry to the bereaved, I then think, what about my sister? She struggled with depression until she was in her forties. She is involved in a church now, but it took many years for her to get there. And what about my brother? I don't think he ever really got past feeling like God was mean, and he doesn't feel the need to go to church, if he believes God exists. He's had his struggles, too. We all have.
Many of the people I talk to see death as the culmination of a good life, a natural process of going home. And when someone dies old and full of years, having left a legacy of a life well-lived to children, grandchildren, and even great-grandchildren, it's easier to come to peace with that death. It's often an affirmation of lifelong faith. These deaths do feel like homecomings, and the funerals or memorial services can feel like family reunions.
I've also worked with people whose loved ones died in accidents caused by someone else's drunk driving or by carelessness, by murder, by suicide, by drowning, and other causes. Did God take those people, snatch them away in the middle of life? Is that the master plan? That doesn't make sense to a lot of those who are affected by these deaths.
I mentioned in an earlier post a minister who spoke at one of my bereavement luncheons. She lost a brother when they were both teenagers, and a son when he was a child. She said she doesn't believe God takes people. She believes He receives them, with open arms. If they die tragically or too soon, she believes that God mourns with those who loved them. To me, that makes more sense.
There are a lot of people who believe strongly in predestination, Everything that happens was supposed to happen, and they must accept whatever God gives them. Questioning seems wrong, showing a lack of faith. It is true that becoming reconciled to a loss is part of healthy grieving. But for many, long before reconciliation comes wrestling with “Why?” I heard a grief expert talk once about the necessity of asking why. He was saying “Why?” is a question of protest, and a question we need to ask when we've gone through a major loss. We may never get the answer, but it's still part of the process.
Paradigm shifts. Changes in the assumptive world. Asking why. These can all be a part of healthy grieving. A person of faith does not need to feel guilty for wrestling with his or her beliefs when the world changes. It's okay to feel angry that God allowed something to happen, and to go through doubts.
When I had gone through all my questions, my protests, and my loss of faith, I found a faith that was no longer the one given to me by parents. My early faith was one where I accepted the teachings my family followed. After I went through some of the really hard things of life, I found God was there, after all, grieving with me, and wanting to comfort me. My faith now is my own, chosen, held to, and forged through the fire. Going through loss ultimately led me to a place of strength. I am a survivor. I'm also a believer.
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
Loss and Faith, Part I
When I started to think about all the ideas I want to explore in talking about loss and faith, I realized this topic can't be covered in just one blog post. I decided to start with a story about a song.
Several times in my life I've watched a lunar eclipse. There was always something mysterious and unnerving about the moon slowly disappearing. Little by little, the shadow across the moon would grow, until the moon finally went dark, and I could barely see its outline. When the moon was fully covered by the shadow of the earth, there was a period of time it stayed dark. Then the moon began to appear again, little by little, until it returned in all its brightness. Five or six years ago, the lunar eclipse happened on a night where clouds kept blowing across the sky, making it hard to see the moon in its journey from light to dark to light again. And yet, I kept watching, transfixed.
I started thinking about my spiritual journey. There have been times I have lost sight of God, and times when I've wondered where he was. I've even had some years when I was convinced God did not exist. My life was clouded by the shadow of grief, and I could not see God through that darkness. I am thankful I was put into a place where He began to speak to me through the love of others, and I experienced His light and joy again. Since then, I've had hard times, but have realized He is always there, in His love and care, even when I can't see Him. I'd been trying to figure out how to compare a lunar eclipse to a loss of faith for about a year before I finally was able to write these lyrics:
One November night,
The moon began to hide.
In the shadow of the earth
The moonlight slowly died.
I kept hoping for the light,
But all was dark
On one November night.
When the shadow hid the moon
And the sky went black
I wondered, in the night,
When would light come back?
One morning before dawn,
A shadow came to stay.
My life changed when sorrow came
On a cold spring day.
God had hidden or was gone.
Darkness fell
One morning before dawn.
When the shadow touched my soul,
And the days turned black
I never thought I could be whole,
But the light came back.
One November night
The dark moon reappeared
From the shadow of the earth.
The moon was always there.
I watched as the sky grew bright,
And all was well
On one November night.
Shadows move so slowly when eclipses come.
Darkness almost made me think
That light would never come.
When God seemed so silent,
When every thing went wrong,
Though I could not see Him,
He was never gone.
When the shadow touched my soul
And the days turned black
I never thought I could be whole,
But the light came back.
And when the darkness seemed to last
Before the moon grew bright,
I found a story from my past
On one November night.
One November Night, ©2005 Sue Rafferty
Several times in my life I've watched a lunar eclipse. There was always something mysterious and unnerving about the moon slowly disappearing. Little by little, the shadow across the moon would grow, until the moon finally went dark, and I could barely see its outline. When the moon was fully covered by the shadow of the earth, there was a period of time it stayed dark. Then the moon began to appear again, little by little, until it returned in all its brightness. Five or six years ago, the lunar eclipse happened on a night where clouds kept blowing across the sky, making it hard to see the moon in its journey from light to dark to light again. And yet, I kept watching, transfixed.
I started thinking about my spiritual journey. There have been times I have lost sight of God, and times when I've wondered where he was. I've even had some years when I was convinced God did not exist. My life was clouded by the shadow of grief, and I could not see God through that darkness. I am thankful I was put into a place where He began to speak to me through the love of others, and I experienced His light and joy again. Since then, I've had hard times, but have realized He is always there, in His love and care, even when I can't see Him. I'd been trying to figure out how to compare a lunar eclipse to a loss of faith for about a year before I finally was able to write these lyrics:
One November night,
The moon began to hide.
In the shadow of the earth
The moonlight slowly died.
I kept hoping for the light,
But all was dark
On one November night.
When the shadow hid the moon
And the sky went black
I wondered, in the night,
When would light come back?
One morning before dawn,
A shadow came to stay.
My life changed when sorrow came
On a cold spring day.
God had hidden or was gone.
Darkness fell
One morning before dawn.
When the shadow touched my soul,
And the days turned black
I never thought I could be whole,
But the light came back.
One November night
The dark moon reappeared
From the shadow of the earth.
The moon was always there.
I watched as the sky grew bright,
And all was well
On one November night.
Shadows move so slowly when eclipses come.
Darkness almost made me think
That light would never come.
When God seemed so silent,
When every thing went wrong,
Though I could not see Him,
He was never gone.
When the shadow touched my soul
And the days turned black
I never thought I could be whole,
But the light came back.
And when the darkness seemed to last
Before the moon grew bright,
I found a story from my past
On one November night.
One November Night, ©2005 Sue Rafferty
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