Tag: Community

Something is Always Leading Us Home

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The window of our plane showed a grey sky and light rain, leading me to sigh inwardly. We had just arrived in Boston after six days in Savannah, Georgia. The weather in Savannah could be described as – well, perfect. Light breeze, no humidity, and between 65 and 70 degrees every day. The old oak trees that are quintessential Savannah were magnificent, their Spanish moss (which we found out was neither Spanish nor moss) gracefully draped across branches.

Coming home to a place where your body and soul don’t always feel like they belong can be a challenge. When I look out the window as I fly into Boston’s Logan International Airport, I think ‘why are there so many trees?’ It is a disconcerting feeling, a sense of alienation instead of belonging. As I make my way through the airport to ground transportation, I go into another space between – that space between the airport and the home we have made in Boston. I walk through the chain-link gate of our small city house and through the door. I know from experience that I have to immediately do something tangible, something concrete that says to me “You’re home. Rest. Breathe.” Sometimes it’s arranging flowers, other times it’s baking bread, still other times it is just getting unpacked as quickly as possible and removing suitcases from view. Once I have done that, my soul begins to settle – at least for a time.

What I have come to know is that my struggle for home is not unique. I have also come to a greater understanding of a spiritual reality that I have known since I was a small child, but that has grown in its theological significance through the years. And that is that no matter what home I have or find here on this earth, there will always be something leading me farther up and farther in, something always leading me to my true home.

Heimat is a German word with no English equivalent. It is described as “the first ‘territory’ that can offer identity, stimulation and safety for one’s own existence” and can only be found “within the trinity of community, space and tradition; because only there human desires for identity, safety and an active designing of life can be pleased.” I think that the only humans who ever truly experienced heimat are Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden, that perfect place designed by God for his creation. Only in that space was a perfect trinity possible. In a broken world something always disrupts the trinity of community, space and tradition.

Our entire lives can be taken up with the quest for home, the longing for home. And yet, once we think we have found it, something interferes with the perfect trinity we think we have and we find there is something more.

Something is always leading us home. I thought about this as I watched my mom enter her final journey this past fall. Her yearning for home was both spoken and unspoken, a longing fulfilled on a cold November night as her breath stopped, and she entered eternity.

My mom’s longings find an echo in my own heart and soul, a poignant reminder that throughout life’s transitions, moves, stages, and travels something perennially leads us home, not to a physical shelter but to a place of secure identity and complete belonging. My inward sigh is replaced by the deep comfort of knowing that this longing is woven throughout the human story, ultimately guiding us toward that place where the trinity of community, space, and tradition are perfectly restored in the presence of God.

Identity as Performance or Participation

Published on by Marilyn4 Comments

September in the Northeast is a month of warm days, cooler nights, and the lingering magic of summer. The last several evenings we have spent at the ocean, taking long walks during low tide, reveling in the wide-open expanse of beach where those of us fortunate enough, get to stay far longer and later than tourists who have left for homes farther away. It is glorious. There is no other word for the beauty, the rhythmic sound of waves against the rocks and sand, and the light and shadows dancing across the ocean front. “We are so fortunate,” we keep on saying to each other and to strangers with whom we exchange a few words before continuing on our way.

During these last restful, stress-free days I’ve thought a lot about identity. This is not something that would surprise any of you who are familiar with my writing. Identity and belonging and processing those two big ideas and concepts and how they work themselves out in our everyday lives have been a huge part of my child and adulthood. The lonely privilege of living between creates an identity crisis at different points in life, where you struggle to know who you are, and to where and whom you belong. As I’ve written publicly, I have met many others who are on the same journey. Since early in life, many of us have been exposed to diverse cultures and languages; to many different patterns of living and ways of being in the world. Along with this, we live in a world where it is possible to spend a large amount of time curating and cultivating an image for public consumption – performing for a crowd of strangers as it were.

I was recently listening to a talk given by Jonathan Pageau called The Role of Art in Identity. The talk was given at Princeton Theological Seminary for a conference hosted by the Scala Foundation. If you are not familiar with either Pageau or with the Scala Foundation, they are well worth checking out through following the links. They are not, however, the focus of my thoughts here, rather they are the inspiration for wanting to think about identity in this way.

There were many points made by Pageau in the talk, but what stood out to me in particular was the idea that identity and art can be either about performance or participation. This point hit me deeply and I’m searching to figure out why. As I search, I think I am finding some answers. As I listened to the talk, for the first time I felt I had words to describe my discomfort in curating a public image in the way that social media pressures us to do. Too often it is all about performance. Instead of being able to participate in connection and conversation, there is a pressure to perform with the performance directed at people who are strangers, people I don’t know who I subconsciously want to impress. When I fall prey to this, I act and write in ways that are inconsistent with who I profess to be, inconsistent with the loves I have and the values I claim to hold dear. Just writing it makes me see the craziness of it, and yet I don’t think I’m alone in this identity as performance problem.

As I contrast different forms of social media and the pressure I may feel to conform to them, I also search for places where I know my identity is not about performance. One such place is in my Orthodox community where the focus is on the Eucharist and our striving towards Christ and another is here, on this blog.

Early on I think I had conflicting motivations about writing. On the one hand I wanted to become a better writer and to participate in life with others through my words. On the other hand, I found myself drawn to performance, drawn to getting attention through this medium. But at some point, my writing changed. It changed slowly, imperceptibly, but profoundly. It became about the connections I was making. It became about the emails that I received from strangers and friends telling me that they knew exactly what I was talking about. That I had put into words that which they were feeling.

What a profound privilege! Almost every time I wrote, I would hear from someone whose heart resonated with what I was writing. The words and descriptions that I used to convey what I was thinking and feeling became avenues of connection.

This has continued through my writing process. Instead of being left with the hollow reward of likes and shares, I am continually offered an invitation to hear the heart of someone who has read and relates with my words. I contrast that beautiful sense of connection to other times when I am glued to social media and envy floods my soul because someone (often a stranger) I follow is performing better than I am. Someone got a book deal that has me filled with jealousy. Someone is gaining followers and accolades, and I am left wanting. And this I know: Performance will always leave me wanting.

Identity then can be a way of experiencing continuity and community, or it can be fragmented, exposed and vulnerable to whatever performance is popular at the moment. If my identity is about performance, then it changes by the day, sometimes by the minute, depending on who I want to please and on what I desire. The opposite of that comes when I see my identity connected to my interactions with others and my participation within a community. In other words – identity as participation.

Maybe that is why so many third culture kids who are raised in cultures where value is placed on community and collectivist thinking find it difficult to adjust to their passport countries where their identities are suddenly reduced to something as boring as their individual likes and dislikes, desires and wants. But that loaded topic is for another day!

I know I will be thinking (and perhaps writing) more about identity as participation, but for now I am grateful to be in a place where I know what performance looks like because I have experienced the opposite. For I have discovered great peace through writing, and through connection to my faith community and my Creator. I am growing to love the author of my story far more than the story itself, and that is making all the difference.

What about you? Have you ever thought of identity as being about performance or participation? I would love to hear from you in this space or through messages!

In Memory of a Friend, In Memory of a Community

Published on by Marilyn18 Comments

The news came, as it does these days, over the waves of social media. It was the death of a childhood friend, the news posted by her brother. Within minutes, a community of us, some who hadn’t seen Ruthie for many years, others who saw her this past June, and still others who were with her recently were collectively remembering, collectively grieving.

Ruthie was three years younger than me, a classmate and friend of my younger brother, Dan. She was petite and pretty with a smile that radiated from her bones to her face. She came from a dynamic family, all of them uniquely gifted musically and relationally.

I had the chance to see Ruthie in early June at a reunion for those of us connected to Pakistan. It was the first time I had seen her since 1993 when she visited Cairo with her boyfriend Mark, the man who would later become her husband. We had just left our beloved Maadi community and moved to a different area of Cairo. I was getting used to a new flat in a new part of the city, the kids were anticipating a new school, and my husband was starting a new job. In the midst of all that new came the familiarity of an old friend. Every morning before she and Mark went off exploring the city we would laugh and talk. Every evening we would do the same. The familiar mixed with the new, a gift of memory and discovery.

As I talked to her this summer, I brought up the memory. I was delighted that she, too, remembered. I learned that it had been a key moment in her life with Mark. I knew as I was speaking with her that cancer cells were overwhelming her healthy cells, that she was fighting a hard battle with the tools of chemotherapy, gifted doctors, and prayers of “Thy will be done.” I saw the deep love that she and her husband had formed through the years, a love large enough to embrace four biological and twelve adopted children. But I knew that I only saw and heard a fraction of what her journey had included.

The service was at two in the afternoon, Albanian time. It was broadcast as a gift to many around the world who, through computer screens, could participate in honoring her life.

As I sat in my living room in Boston, miles away from Albania, I began to see others from my Pakistan family and community sign on. With each one, came a rush of memories and thoughts. Ruthie was little sister, mentor, friend, classmate, big sister, and more depending on who you were and how you knew her. Most of all, she was one of us.

In our small community we shared tragedies like they were our own. When a father or mother of one of our friends died, it was like losing a beloved family member. The limbs on our missionary community tree stretched wide and when one of them was gone, no matter how we lost them, it meant leaves and fruit, nourishment and love were gone. These many years later we still feel losses when we hear of the death of someone we loved, someone we knew. No matter if it was another lifetime, they were part of us, and we feel the ache. The names still come to me – Dale, Carolyn, Angela, Val, Joy, Roy, Stan, Tim….and these are only a few of the ones that we have lost. Some were long, slow deaths, others were quick, tragic accidents – no matter, the way they died, their deaths put another nail in a community coffin.

Yesterday we grieved the loss of another. Yet, it was not only her life that we grieved. It was all of it – the loss of one brought up many other losses. In grieving for Ruthie, we had permission to grieve for lost community, lost time, and lost childhood. In grieving the loss of one of us, we once again felt saudade, that wistful longing for what no longer exists. In seeing her life, the adult version of Ruthie featuring a life lived large with joy and love, we perhaps questioned our own scarcity and unwillingness to live large, our inability to love with abundance and live generously.

“Everything precious is costly” were words that were said of Ruthie at the memorial service. Her beloved Mark, her children, her parents, her siblings, and her community are already experiencing the costly loss of wife, mom, daughter, and sister. And we on the periphery, we hear those words and know their truth, for we have lived and witnessed an extraordinary and precious community, gone but still glimpsed in memorials and memories.

But this much I will tell. What’s lost is nothing to what’s found, and all the death that ever was, set next to life, would scarcely fill a cup.

Frederick Buechner

Grieving and the Casserole Ladies

Published on by Marilyn5 Comments

Several years ago, a colleague at my work place lost her father to a tragic accident. It was right after Thanksgiving and the family was paralyzed with grief. Tragedies during holidays are a degree more painful as shock mixes with holiday expectation, creating a numb disconnect. A couple of day’s after the tragedy, my colleague’s roommate, a dear friend of mine, called me and said “I don’t know what to do! There are no church ladies. No church ladies means no casserole ladies! How are we going to help this family?”

Initially I responded in stunned silence. It has been years since my friend went to church, so why the church ladies, the casserole ladies? “What do you mean?” I asked. My friend went on to say that growing up she knew that whenever there was something hard or life changing, like funerals or births, there was a guarantee that the family would not have to worry about meals. Whether they knew the family or not made no difference, the casserole church ladies would show up like fairy godmothers with delicious and plentiful food. With everything else that a grieving family or community was going through, at least they wouldn’t have to wonder how to feed people. Like magic, casseroles, brownies, cookies, seven-layer salads, jello salads, rolls, bread, and Robert Redford cake would appear at their doorways. There was no expectation of conversation and no expectation of reciprocity. It was a “We are so sad. We are so sorry. Here! Have a brownie!” It wasn’t to minimize the grief, rather it was tangible support in the form of food.

I knew in that moment exactly what she was talking about. I’ve been a recipient of the goodness of the casserole ladies and have experienced this tangible comfort many times. One time it was an entire Christmas feast, another time a week’s worth of freezable meals. Just one long year ago during a family crisis, my son opened the door to a massive lasagna and huge container of salad, enough food to feed a family of 30. Words would have been ineffective and difficult, but food? Food was perfect.

Yesterday a friend sent me the cooking newsletter that comes out of the New York Times. It was a couple of paragraphs – simple and timely, titled “Grief and Cooking.” There it was – a perfect description of the role that food plays when there is a tragedy or crisis.

Food plays a central role in our reaction to tragedy, to death and grieving. It’s why casseroles appear on the doorsteps and countertops of those experiencing it, why we feel the urge to roast chickens or assemble lasagnas when the news is grim. Food is comfort of a sort, and fuel as well, for anger and sorrow alike. We cook to provide for those we love and for ourselves. In the activity itself we strive to find relief, strength, resolve.

Sam Sifton from NYTimes newsletter: Grief and Cooking

Right now, more than anything I wish I could make a casserole for the grieving families of Uvalde, Texas. where I imagine sleepless nights barely ending as nightmare days begin, an entire community forever changed. I wish I could make them a roast chicken and stuffing, homemade cranberry sauce and finish it off with my specialty apple cake. Or maybe a delicious lasagna with fresh garlic bread, because when you are grieving, carbs are necessary. Like many of you who are miles away, unconnected to the tragedy other than the human capacity of empathy and grief recognition, I still long for concrete ways to enter into their suffering.

I can’t make a casserole and a loaf of bread for the grieving families of Uvalde. But I can make a casserole and a loaf of bread for a neighbor who is hurting. I can take the heart and warmth of my kitchen and cook it into food. I can translate love, care, and prayers for courage into bread dough, delivering a loaf packed full of empathic goodness to someone in my world who is desperate for comfort.

And as I measure and whisk, I will pour my prayers for Uvalde into the mix, praying that somehow, as impossible as it seems, comfort will come.

[Image by RitaE from Pixabay]

Therapy in a Hair Salon

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I feel something oddly comforting as I walk into the hair salon. It smells of conditioner and peroxide, of hair color and shampoo. Everything is black, grey,and chrome. Sleek black chairs with chrome swiveled bases, black framed mirrors, grey baskets on black shelves, shiny black sinks with chrome fixtures, silver sprayed plants, and a vintage grey metal trunk serving as a resting place for a plant and magazines. The look is sophisticated and sleek, luring me in with a vision of all that I am not.

For I am neither sleek or sophisticated and, though I should feel out of place in this space, I don’t.

A lovely young woman with shiny dark hair and smiling brown eyes greets me, laughing as I confess that I look a fright.

“When I saw myself on a video chat the other day, I was so puzzled. I thought my grandmother had come back from the dead only to greet me through 21st century technology, and then I realized it was me!” I said shaking my older than middle aged head.

“Ahh! We’ll get you fixed up in no time,” She said leading me to a chair.

As she expertly worked my hair we chatted and my sad, busy week suddenly felt not so bad, not so sad.

We talked about the pandemic, about masks, about the vaccine hesitation in different communities. We talked about family and loneliness, about fear of others and the sadness of loss. We talked about long summer beach days and picnics on the sand, about her favorite television show centered on Persians in Los Angeles.

None of us has made it through this past year unscathed. Instead, we bear the wounds of disconnection and the discomfort of fraught friendships. We hold this tension in our bodies and our souls. We are more desperate than we know.

We are created for each other, for community, for the kindness and conversation of both strangers and friends. The stylist may never realize the impact she had, the therapy she gave on that black and chrome chair, but in the comforting conversation of a stranger I found myself relaxing. I left more whole, more thoughtful, and less of a fright.

Thanks be to God.

Image by bigpromoter from Pixabay

A Salute to All of Us

Published on by Marilyn7 Comments
Photo credit – Stefanie Sevim Gardner

Here’s to the moms, homeschooling when they always said “I’ll homeschool when it snows in Djibouti… or Miami … or Chiang Mai.” In other words “Never” and never has suddenly become now.

Here’s to the restaurant worker, who is suddenly furloughed from an eighty hour work week.

Here’s to the teachers turning their carefully thought out lesson plans into online classes.

Here’s to the young woman who just got a job at Target excited for her first paycheck only to find out there will be no more.

Here’s to the nurse, carefully isolating herself from her family to keep them safe.

Here’s to the student, lonely and feeling trapped.

Here’s to the graduate who will not be able to walk.

Here’s to the bride, who tearfully postponed her wedding Unsure of when it can be rescheduled.

Here’s to the women and men setting up home offices and new systems, trying to continue their jobs.

Here’s to the grocery store employee, wiping down carts and checkout counters with bleach.

Here’s to the healthcare workers, on the frontlines of care.

Here’s to the priest and the pastor, the imam and the rabbi, praying for congregations in crisis.

Here’s to the homeless, fighting one more difficult day, one more crisis in a long list.

Here’s to the families trapped on three sides of the globe, to the third culture kid trying to get home, to the parents and siblings, brothers and sisters separated.

Here’s to the family grieving with no funeral, the community rallying with no physical contact, the church seeking to function while apart.

Here’s to the poor and the refugee – those whose reality has changed little, but whose hope looks even bleaker.

Here’s to the helpers, the doers, the prayers, the seekers, the scholars, the researchers, the neighbors, the givers, the comforters, the organizers, the activists, the optimists, the pessimists, the realists, the pragmatists, the lonely, the sad, the fearful, and the angry.

Here’s to our collective humanity and image bearing. May we reach across what divides us and open our hearts wide to the God who loves us. May we be willing to give of our abundance and receive from our need. May we have patience and resilience, may our eyes be open wide to the world and our small part in that world.

And may God be with us and comfort us.

Advice from a friend in Shanghai:

Since we got a head start with the COVID-19 over here in China, some friends have asked me for advice in navigating this time. Take only what’s helpful for you!

  1. Stay at home. Yes, I totally understand the urge to resist this, but the sooner you can accept it and stay home, the better it will be for everyone, including you.
  2. Assume that you could be the carrier. I haven’t been too worried about contracting the virus myself, but I became much more careful when I started thinking how I could potentially spread it to others.
  3. Don’t bring germs into your house. Wash your hands as soon as you come home. In Asia, we take off our shoes at the door, and this might be a good practice for everyone right now. Consider changing your outer clothes or showering if you’ve been out in a public place. Don’t forget to clean your phone and your keys!
  4. Focus on what you can control (yourself). There are too many things that are outside of your control right now. Instead, find ways you can boost your immune system and/or prevent your exposure. For many Asians, that means wearing face masks and opening the windows. I personally use essential oils to support to our immune systems and buy fruit for my family like a mad woman. Whatever strategies can strengthen you, whether it’s making grandma’s chicken soup or deep cleaning your house, I say go for it!
  5. Take care of your own physical, emotional, and spiritual health. The stronger you are, the better you can survive and even thrive during this time. Get enough sleep, eat well, exercise daily. Pray like crazy. Turn off the news. Watch something funny. Call a friend. Do a conference call with a group of friends. Listen to a podcast. Read a book. Get e-therapy. Learn something new. Go for a walk or a drive. If you have a balcony or a yard, sit outside in the fresh air and sun.
  6. If you have faith, put it into action. Trust in God. Meditate on His promises. Listen to worship music. God is greater than our circumstances, and He provides for us even in times of uncertainty. Be a light during this dark time. Don’t give in to fear or settle for mere self-preservation; your neighbor needs the hope and the love that you give, albeit in creative ways. Look out for those who are isolated, struggling, or vulnerable to domestic violence.
  7. Be generous. Give a gift card to someone who is not able to work during this time. Support your church even though the services have been cancelled. Pay your employees. Order take-out. Support small businesses. Donate blood. Give a phone call to someone who is vulnerable. Send a card to someone in a nursing home. Offer to shop for someone else. Donate to a food bank. Sew cloth masks. There are endless possibilities to sow seeds of generosity during this time. [From my friend Ruth and used with permission.]

Until Then….

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Early mornings are the best. Those dawn hours when the sun has broken over the horizon but the world is still sleeping; the hours of slow wake-up, sounds of birds breaking the silence of night.

It is early morning and right now it is easy for me to believe that someday this will all be redeemed. 

I remind myself of this when I feel particularly burdened by our world. It is the lifeline of my faith, and I believe it in the marrow of my bones. 

So if one day this will all be redeemed, how am I supposed to live? It would be easy to dismiss this as God’s problem, not mine; to decide that I needn’t go out of my way to do anything special. But the privilege of partnering with a redeemer in “Thy Kingdom Come” is compelling. 

I learn daily more of what it means to participate in kingdom building. I learn that my job is not to ridicule, to withold grace, to tell people to stop having thin skin, to condemn, to gloat, to despair, to withdraw, to be disgusted. My job, my mandate is to build bridges and seek the kingdom. My job is to love God and my neighbor, to seek the welfare of the places I live, to fight for human flourishing. 

My job is to walk in the words of the prophet Micah and do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with my God. 

There will be a day when the Kingdom of Heaven will come, and on that day I know this – all of this will dissolve into nothing in the light of the Glory of God Himself.

Until then may God heal my eyesight. May he heal our collective eyesight. 

Until then, nations will come and go. Party affiliations will change. Politics will swing from right to left and back again. This is not the Kingdom of God. Every system on earth was designed by imperfect people who were all about life on earth and not about treasure in Heaven.

Until then, may he show us his beloved ones of every tribe and every nation. May we not dismiss stories or perspectives. May we be ones who listen and learn, who are willing to admit we are wrong. May we not justify our wrongs or rationalize our sins. May we be people who see beyond the crisis of the day and beyond our own inadequacies. May we comfort the hurting, give grace to the angry, hear the other side, build bridges of peace, and always fight for the persecuted. 

May we see the world through the Creator’s eyes of love and grace.

Until then…, 

The Four C’s of Crisis Care

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Kintsukuroi-Collage
[Photo Credit – Godfuel.org]

With many thanks to Melissa Dalton-Bradford 

When you first meet Melissa Dalton-Bradford, one of your first thoughts is “She is the sort of beautiful that makes me feel beautiful.”  Your second thought is life is not fair because she is incredibly smart, speaks at least three languages, and is a talented performer.

But when she begins to talk and you learn her life story, you are convinced life is not fair. Melissa buried her 18-year old son a few days after he began college. She laid a son who had been full of life and joy and talent into a coffin. The tragedy belongs in the album of the unexplainable and my throat catches when I think about this, about the loss of this boy to the family, to his church, to his community.

As I listen to Melissa, I don’t stay in that album for long, because she compassionately moves the listener to a different album – an album of hope.

I had the privilege of meeting Melissa in Amsterdam this past weekend. She was the last speaker in what was a conference full of excellent breakout and main stage sessions. I walked away with thoughts on grief and comfort whirling in my mind. It will take a long time to process.

Today however, I want to share the four C’s of crisis care: Compassion. Community. Comfort. Commitment.  These thoughts primarily come from Melissa and are just the briefest summary of all she has to say. I would urge those who want to dig deeper to like the Facebook page On Loss and Moving Forward as well as take a look at Melissa’s second book On Loss and Living Onward: Collected Voices for the Grieving and Those Who Would Mourn with Them. 

Compassion

“When others help us heal, they too suffer in some way. Suffering is the modest price of real friendship.” Wayne E. Brickey in Making Sense of Suffering.

I’ve spoken about compassion before in several pieces, but here was another reminder that we begin and we end with compassion.  We don’t “patch grief with proverbs”[Melissa Dalton-Bradford] We sit with them. The root of the word ‘compassion’ means “to suffer with.”  Melissa quoted a line “To comfort me you have to come close. Come sit with me on my mourning bench” from a piece called Lament for a Son. * So we come close, we sit, and we wait.

Commune

To commune means to ‘show up.’ If you talk to people who are grieving about what helped the most, they will tell stories with tears running down their cheeks about how people showed up. They came to appointments and to drop off dinners and desserts; they came to funerals and they made phone calls or just dropped by. We can’t do grief without communing and community. And we must bring community to the grieving.

Comfort

Melissa reminded us that we each bring a strength to the grieving process and to those who grieve. Your strength may not be casseroles. Mine certainly isn’t. But we all have something to bring. She gave the illustration of two artists who painted pictures of her son that captured his life through their art. They gave what they could. Are you an artist, a blogger, an accountant, an organizer, a driver? Come and bring your strength to the one who is grieving.

Commitment

“All grief will outlast conventional comfort”

“Grief is its own country, its own land mass.”

Melissa Dalton-Bradford

Whoever created a ‘time line’ for grief should be challenged to rethink that idea.

Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, pioneer of the conscious dying movement, lived to regret having described the common features of the grief journey as stages. She came to see that everyone grieves differently and that science collapses in the face of the mysteries of the heart. There is no map for the landscape of loss, no established itinerary, no cosmic checklist, where each item ticked off gets you closer to success. You cannot succeed in mourning your loved ones. You cannot fail. Nor is grief a malady, like the flu. You will not get over it. You will only come to integrate your loss, like the girl who learned to surf again after her arm was bitten off by a shark. The death of a beloved is an amputation. You find a new center of gravity, but the limb does not grow back.

When someone you love very much dies, the sky falls. And so you walk around under a fallen sky.**

Grief knows no timeline. Three months from now, your friend will still be grieving over her failed marriage. Two years from now, even as she moves on, there will still be times of grief.  Ten months from now, your other friend will still dream that her child is coming back, well and whole.  Fifteen years from now, a wife will still go to the grave side of the man she pledged her life to and who she thought would be there on her 15th anniversary. Ten years from now the third culture kid or refugee will still feel the weight of grief when they read the news and see “their” countries on the front page. Compassion, community, and comfort need to continue for the long haul.

I wish all of you could have heard this talk on grief and the hope that emerged from the ashes of Melissa’s healing. If she is speaking in your area – GO! But in the meantime, her books hold her story and her story brings comfort.

As I was thinking about Melissa’s talk, reflecting and writing this piece, I saw a picture of the fine art of Kintsukuroi. Kintsukuroi is the art of repairing a broken pot with gold:

“When the Japanese mend broken objects they aggrandize the damage by filling the cracks with gold, because they believe that when something’s suffered damage and has a history it becomes more beautiful.” *

When we are willing to sit with people in their grieving, we are part of this restoration. We help to fill the cracks with gold instead of sawdust, and the damaged, grieving one heals and becomes stronger and more beautiful.

*Barbara Bloom | Photo of Kintsukuroi

*http://www.iskandar.com/waleed911/griefwalterstorff.html

**Excerpt from CARAVAN OF NO DESPAIR forthcoming from Sounds True (November 1, 2015)