Introduction
Two weeks ago, when I shared my first live-streaming reflection with you, most of us were just starting to come to terms with our brave, new world: besides our bewildered awareness that life was changing around us so fast that we could hardly imagine, let alone articulate, what it all meant, we experienced ourselves as a people adrift. It was as if a hazy surrealism shaped each day – and that impelled us to grasp whatever illusions offered a semblance of order for our lives:
+ We washed our hands obsessively and stockpiled hand-sanitizers and toilet paper. We struggled to get our tongues around new expressions like social distancing and self-quarantine.
+ And almost overnight millions of older Americans began asking children, grandchildren or neighbors how to make the once ignored, but now essential, intricacies of social media their friend.
By week two, some of the haze had burned off and we practiced maintaining at least six feet of separation between one another save our own families. Solitude had become the new normal – a paradoxical discipline of self-care as well as compassion for our community and country – and college classes were cancelled, elementary schools and restaurants shuttered, states of emergency declared, and cities and states came under mandatory lock-down orders. Anxiety and fear replaced disorientation. Restlessness, too, as Americans are not well practiced at staying still. Strip malls and city centers became ghost towns. Hoarding pushed our frazzled feelings out into the public; causing us to wonder how we, ourselves, would act should push come to shove. Morality and social ethics was no longer an abstraction.
And now, three weeks into the crisis, heroes have emerged – leaders who clearly care for the common good more than self and status – while callous charlatans have been exposed as posers who would condemn the least among us to painful and unnecessary deaths simply to enhance the possibility of re-election or short-term profit. We now know that our time set-apart will not be just weeks, but more likely months, and that the worst is yet to come. Small wonder that many of us are waking up within the grip of an inchoate grief we prayed could never be the truth. And that is what I want to talk about with you this morning: grief – and what the ancient prophets have to say about its healing role in our lives and culture if we embrace it honestly.
Insights
There is a startling confluence between what the prophets of ancient Israel discovered about grief and what our contemporary pioneers into grief work have learned. The Harvard Business Review recently interviewed Dr. David Kessler, who with Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, helped modern medicine come to terms with what is called the “stages of grief.” In this interview, Kessler notes that given the magnitude of the changes we’ve experienced in such a short time, grief is not only natural to feel now, but we should understand that there are a number of types of grief. He tells us:
We feel the world has changed, and it has. We know this is temporary, but it doesn’t feel that way, and we realize things will be different. Just as going to the airport is forever different from how it was before 9/11, things will change and this is the point at which they changed: The loss of normalcy; the fear of economic toll; the loss of connection. This is hitting us all and we’re grieving. Collectively. We are not used to this kind of collective grief in the air… especially anticipatory grief. Anticipatory grief is that feeling we get about what the future holds when we’re uncertain… Anticipatory grief understands that there is a storm coming and there’s something bad out there. With a virus, this kind of grief is so confusing because while our primitive mind knows something bad is happening, we can’t see it – and this breaks our sense of safety. I don’t think we’ve collectively lost our sense of general safety like this before. Individually or as smaller groups, people have felt this. But all together, this is new for we are grieving on a micro and a macro level.
He concludes his interview by saying that when individuals – and cultures – live into the wisdom of grief not only is there a time when we find a peace in accepting realities beyond our control – much like the Serenity Prayer of the 12 Step process in AA – but that there is meaning to be mined from this encounter. “We realize that grief and tragedy are temporary – and they are survivable.” That’s important to keep in mind so that we don’t get locked in the loop of anxiety. But more than that, Kessler concludes that:
We will find meaning in it. (Beyond the fifth stage of grief, acceptance, there is another: meaning. There can be) meaning in those dark hours. And I believe we find light in those times, too. Even now people are realizing they can connect through technology. They are not as remote as they thought. They are realizing they can use their phones for long conversations. They’re appreciating walks. I believe we will continue to find meaning now and when this is over.
I believe Kessler is right. Already all over the Internet some of our finest musicians – students, amateurs and professionals – are sharing songs every day to help us connect the wisdom of our feelings with the reality of this moment in time. One of the most powerful comes from young students in Italy – who know this season of grief better than any of us dare imagine – and they sing an a capella version of a Steven Stills song: “Helplessly Hoping.” Have you seen it and heard it and felt it? It is chilling and tragic and somberly hopeful all at once. (I’ve added it to this Facebook link for those who haven’t seen it.)
When a friend sent me the link, I wept while watching it – again and again – for the courage and grace these young people are tapping into with beauty and tenderness point precisely to the meaning we might re-discover as we; too go deeper into this time of grief. Just this week, the poet, Jane Hirschfield, published this poem that links the wisdom of the grief we feel in our hearts and flesh with our better angels. She calls it: “Today, When I Could Do Nothing.”
Today, when I could do nothing,
I saved an ant.
It must have come in with the morning paper,
still being delivered
to those who shelter in place.
A morning paper is still an essential service.
I am not an essential service.
I have coffee and books,
time,
a garden,
silence enough to fill cisterns.
It must have first walked
the morning paper, as if loosened ink
taking the shape of an ant.
Then across the laptop computer — warm —
then onto the back of a cushion.
Small black ant, alone,
crossing a navy cushion,
moving steadily because that is what it could do.
Set outside in the sun,
it could not have found again its nest.
What then did I save?
It did not move as if it was frightened,
even while walking my hand,
which moved it through swiftness and air.
Ant, alone, without companions,
whose ant-heart I could not fathom—
how is your life, I wanted to ask.
I lifted it, took it outside.
This first day when I could do nothing,
contribute nothing
beyond staying distant from my own kind,
I did this.
Helplessly hoping – the artists, poets, dancers, musicians, painters and sculptors know what we so long ago sacrificed on the altar of bottom lines and balance sheets – that we NEED artists to help give shape and form to what we feel because we can’t yet articulate it. And that is exactly what the prophets of ancient Israel discovered as they lived through slavery, exile, the destruction of the Temple, captivity in the kingdom of Babylon and decades of grief.
Some of you know the Psalms of the Bible – not everyone, of course, because we all know different things as part of the interconnected human community – but some know the Psalms. And ancient Israel’s grief was expressed with agonizing clarity in Psalm 137. As the Euphrates and Tigris rivers flowed, the Psalmist wept this lament: By the rivers of Babylon – there we sat down and wept when we remembered Zion. (That is, Israel.) On the willows there we hung up our harps. For there our captors asked us songs, and our tormentors laughed, saying: “Sing for us one of the songs of Zion now!” Oh my God, how can we sing the Lord’s song in a foreign land?
+ Some know this tune from the realm of reggae, others as an American folk song, and you really old timers know it as “On the Willows” from the Broadway musical, “Godspell.”
Its origins, however, take us back to a time when ancient Israel’s best and brightest were led out of the holy city of Jerusalem in chains for 70 years of bondage in Babylon beginning in 586 BCE. This is the era in which Ezekiel, born into the tribe of Israel’s priests, received his inspiration to live as a prophet to the exiles. Prior to Israel’s captivity, a prophet’s calling was to warn the religious, political and economic leadership of the land that their culture was no longer acting in harmony with God’s grace. The poor and broken were forgotten and left out of the nation’s prosperity. Interpersonal ethics had become crass and merely utilitarian. And a social decadence had taken hold where once justice and compassion guided the day.
According to Old Testament professor, Walter Brueggemann, it was the prophet’s first task to warn their leaders that living out of balance – celebrating excess and ignoring the consequences of selfishness – had consequences. It could not endure forever. When the walls of Jerusalem were “breached, however, and the city plundered,” the era of warning came to a close. Brueggemann suggests that what was true in ancient Israel is equally true today in his book: Reality, Hope and Grief. “I have delineated three contemporary prophetic tasks,” he says, “by paying careful attention to what the Old Testament prophets were doing in the context of their society. It is my conclusion that the three recurring actions of the prophets… are in fact prophetic responses to social conditions and social policy in both the ancient and contemporary realm.” So let me summarize Brueggemann’s insights and then connect them to the sacred texts for this fifth Sunday in Lent.
First, a prophet is called to name reality as it is known by the facts on the ground – especially the reality of those who are most vulnerable. The prophet passionately calls out the “bubble of illusion” people of privilege prefer over radical solidarity. The lies of this reality, Brueggemann ads, are “voiced in endless propaganda and advertising, commending a system of private gratification at the expense of the common good. But this system of fearful greed no longer works, nor does it make anyone happy. It is a fraudulent theory of social relationships.” And don’t we know that now when practicing social distancing and self-isolation incarnates healing for the whole nation while living out in public just for ourselves endangers us all? And what about the sacrilege of telling the old that we should sacrifice ourselves for the greed of the managerial class? I’m with Cuomo when he said, “I will NOT put a price tag on my mother’s life!” Can’t you hear the prophet Isaiah in the 58th chapter of his book shouting to the power brokers of his day: I the Lord HATE your fasts and phony religious ceremonies. I despise them. Is not this the fast that is holy to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free? Is it not to share your bread with the hungry and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, to cover them and not to hide yourself from your own kin? Do this and then your light shall break forth like the dawn, and your healing shall spring up quickly. First, the prophet is called to name reality without illusion.
Second, the prophet works to overcome our personal and social inclination to deny our broken reality and maintain the “bubble of illusion.” This is what is now known as the six stages of “grief work” where we move from denial into anger at the mess we’re in. Then from anger into trying to bargain with God or anyone else to get us out of this pain; from bargaining another stage is depression where we are overwhelmed by the magnitude of our suffering – then, as the Serenity Prayer says, acceptance – God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference – which is where we can find the meaning of grief in for our lives. Brueggemann writes that even in the face of calamities like the pandemic there are those, like the President, who will continue to lie to us, asking us to trust the old “pathologies that have produced immense suffering,” while benefiting only a few. They “keep reiterating the mantras of greed all the while disregarding the huge loss, in terms of human possibility, that is happening before our very eyes — the loss of moral possibility, the loss of generous neighborliness, and the loss of well-being that depends upon a viable human fabric of solidarity.” Another prophet, Jeremiah, cut to the chase in chapter 7 when he said: “If you truly amend your ways, if you execute right relationships and respect with one with another, if you do not oppress the alien, the orphan or the widow, or shed innocent blood… then I will let you dwell in a place of safety, the land that I gave of old to your fathers and mothers forever.” Owning our loss honestly – and grieving it in full – is the second prophetic task.
And third, the prophet is called to help us practice patience and prayer – what the wisdom keepers call self-emptying – so that free from ego and ideology there is space within to listen for the holy. I am moved by the way Eugene Peterson reworks some of the old wise words of Jesus with great insight about this self-emptying in The Message. Again and again I keep going back to his restatement of the opening verses of the Sermon on the Mount. The old way tells us: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” The newer parsing by Peterson puts it like this: “You’re blessed when you’re at the end of your rope because with less of you there is more of God and God’s grace.” There is more room within us without all that inner chatter and fear, shame and denial that drowns out our ability to hear the holy in a solemn stillness. Grief often comes to us to clear out the clutter so that when a word of hope is articulated, we can honor it. And this is the real genius in Brueggemann’s analysis: he is convinced – and has convinced me, too – that time and again God speaks to us from our grief through the dreamers and artists of our generation. We will not hear a healing word from those in power nor from elected officials or even the preachers and teachers. Rather, the healing word – the hopeful song – the movie, novel, poem, dance or work of art that points us in a new direction will come from our artists who are uniquely attuned to the prophetic imagination.
Think what you may of Paul Tillich, the German theologian who was an early
O world of spring and autumn, birth and dying!
The endless cycle of idea and action,
Endless invention, endless experiment,
Brings knowledge of motion, but not of stillness;
Knowledge of speech, but not of silence;
Knowledge of words, and ignorance of the Word.
All our knowledge brings us nearer to death,
But nearness to death no nearer to God.
Where is the Life we have lost in living?
Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?
Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?
The cycles of heaven in twenty centuries
Brings us farther from God and nearer to the Dust.
Reality – grief – and hope – naming the source of our wounds, entering into them with humility and courage, and nourishing emptiness and silence in order to hear the still small voice of the Lord calling to us from our artists and dreamers: these are the three prophetic tasks for our generation. Now I know that’s a lot of analysis for a Sunday morning– especially in a culture that wants quick fixes and sentimental spirituality. But as we feel this grief – and it is real – the magnitude of this moment cries out that we not waste it. Like Fr. Richard Rohr says: this is a teachable moment – one in which our values can play a significant part in the rebuilding of our culture, our economics and even our faith communities. Heather Cox Richardson, American historian at Boston College, articulated it well:
Our country is reordering itself as we hunker down for this crisis. Already our work habits, our social habits, our shopping habits, and our personal lives have been knocked into new grooves. It is a mistake, I think, to imagine that when we finally get a handle on this disease, America will go back to what it was before coronavirus... We are learning that many of us can work from home—how will that change our urban and rural spaces? We are learning that our lives depend on a strong government response to pandemics and economic dislocation—how will that change our government? We are learning that our families and friends are even more important than even we knew—how will that change our priorities? The questions raised by this life-changing crisis are open… and so, suddenly, is America’s future.
I think Ezekiel was challenged to rethink his world, too when looking out upon the valley of dry bones: this is not a literal story from history, of course, but an artistic rendering about how God empowers us to trust and love when all around us fear rules the day. This is a story about rebuild-ing human community by God’s grace in God’s time rather than relying upon the pathologies and ideologies that brought us here in the first place. Looking out upon the brokenness of his people the prophet imagines the Lord asking: Can these bones live. To which the bewildered Ezekiel says: “Only Thou knowest, Lord.”
Well then, get to it, man: prophesy to these bones – listen and speak in my love rather than your fears – and let’s see what happens. “So I prophesied as I had been commanded; and as I did, suddenly there was a noise, a rattling, and the bones came together, bone to its bone. I looked, and there were sinews on them, and flesh had come upon them, and skin had covered them; but there was no breath in them.” You get what’s going on, right? This is a prophetic dream – a revelation about trust and reclaiming God’s vision for our era – and it is coming to the people through Ezekiel’s creative imagination, one of ancient Israel’s first blues artists. Like John Lennon, Ezekiel starts singing, “Imagine all the people, living for today aha you may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m ot the only one.” Are you with me on this?
I think something similar is happening in the story from St. John’s gospel where Jesus weeps and his friend Lazarus is brought back from the dead. The action in this story is a personalized restatement of the valley of dry bones. A first century Jewish/Christian artistic midrash on Ezekiel. Three quick insights:
+ First, the focus of this story is Lazarus – brother of Mary and Martha of Bethany – and one whom the text tells us, “Jesus loved.” Scholars point out that Lazarus is the first person we’re told that Jesus loved. Up until this point, Jesus acts as a teacher – compassionate but still a bit removed – but now he’s acting in love. And notice who he loves: Lazarus whom the Bible describes as sickly from the Greek word, asthenes, which can be translated: diseased, without strength or insignificant. This is a story about paying attention to those who are vulnerable and forgotten with love so that the facts on the ground can make God’s love flesh.
+ Second, when Jesus sees how broken-hearted Mary and Martha are over the death of their brother we’re told that Jesus wept. And that little word, wept, is deceptive and genteel in English. But in Greek it means to grieve with an agitated shudder. An excruciating cry of pain that shakes the whole body. The death of Lazarus upsets the equanimity of Jesus and rips his heart apart.
+ And third, in this agitated state, the broken-heart of Jesus cries out like Ezekiel for Lazarus to rise up! Like the prophets before him, Jesus trusts God’s love and prophesies to the corpse in a cave behind a stone to come into NEW life. And however you make sense of this story – and I trust in multiple layers with all my heart, soul, strength and might – Lazarus does exactly that. He steps out of death into new life. And just so that we don’t miss the radical and upside down meaning of this story: do you recall what Lazarus, Jesus, Mary and Martha do after this restoration of life? They retire back in Bethany to partake of the Passover Feast. After all the death – after the grief and the anguish and the fear and the heart-break – there is a festival of freedom and feasting at the table of new life. The symbolism is just too strong to ignore.
Conclusion
I believe that is part of the promise for those of us honoring our collective grief: a new way of living shaped by love. Just last week there was a hand-printed sign taped to a pole in Pennsylvania that said: “And then the whole world walked inside and shut their doors and said, ‘We will stop it all!’ Everything – to protect our weaker ones – our sicker ones – our insignificant ones – and our older ones.! And nothing, NOTHING, in the history of humankind ever felt more like love than this.” But to get there we have live into this extended, shared Lent for this is how we shall be emptied, cleansed and moved beyond denial. I think that’s what our artists are helping us to see: by honoring their wounds and grief they are helping us open our hearts to love and tenderness and creativity.
When I do that, open my heart to grief, a little song I wrote called “Small Is Holy” keeps popping up. It comes from my experiencing God’s healing love at a time when I felt insignificant and vulnerable. It comes from my being a volunteer at L’Arche Ottawa and sharing love with people who only ask me if I can be trusted in love. And it comes from discovering that because I can only do a very little bit to make anything better, that small is holy. This song has been swimming around in my head for a while and I could never find a way to really share it in public until right now. It just didn’t feel right – but now it does – this small song about the enormity of God’s love in my little and quiet life. May it be a little blessing for you…
Thinking big and acting strong – led me into all that’s wrong
Hitting bottom taught me well strategies to get through hell.
Touch the wound in front of you – that’s all you can really do
Hold it close – don’t turn away – make room for what is real today.
Small is me, small is you, small is holy and rings true
Small is hard, small reveals the way our hearts can be healed
I been bullied, I been screwed – lost sometimes but won a few
Paid it forward, grabbed it back – hit the jack pot, got the sack
Hurt those who are dear to me – broke their hearts so bitterly
Been forgiven but don’t know why: grace trumps karma - most every time…
The blues has its own beauty if I have the ears to hear
The song inside my sorrow’s singing: let go of your fear.
The wisdom of the sacred is often upside down
So many times I missed her… when she tried to come to town
I tend to trust too slowly while the sting of shame it lasts
My heart gives up its habits incrementally not fast
Don’t push too hard – don’t say too much
Don’t go too fast – trust human touch
And when I fall, get up again let losing be the way to win.
Small is me, small is you, small is holy and rings true
Small is hard, small reveals the way our hearts can be healed
I tend to trust too slowly while the sting of shame it lasts
My heart gives up its habits incrementally not fast
Don’t push too hard – don’t say too much
Don’t go too fast – trust human touch
And when I fall, get up again let losing be the way to win.
Small is me, small is you, small is holy and rings true
Small is hard, small reveals the way our hearts can be healed
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