grief – Southwest Conference Blog

Crawling Out of the Hole

by Jane Jones*

I’m constantly amazed at how the Holy One works – we just have to learn to (as my Gramma Milly would say), “Let go. Let God.”

I suppose I can admit to the fact that as a lifelong “fixer” this is one hard task! I’m used to being in charge of something – I’ve trusted what I’ve known as “The Voice” my whole life, and so when I feel called to take on a challenge, I tend to step up to the plate and get to work.

Often, I’m successful in these attempts, because I believe the Holy One uses me as a tool for the good in this world. I feel humble and grateful to be chosen to help…but what happens when you suddenly find yourself on the other end of fixing?

Four years ago, real life of a different type happened and suddenly, I was the one who needed help at the deepest level anyone could know. A relationship I treasured and totally devoted myself to suddenly ended; my marriage of 22 years ran into a cement wall. I was blind-sided, shocked, heartbroken. In one day, my whole world took a 180-degree turn.

The circumstances swirling around it were ugly, very public, and it all ripped me apart. So much pain, so much doubt about myself, so many details forcing me to step into a life I truly never expected to live – on my own.

I went down a very dark hole, doing all the things another instinct tells us to do to ease the pain, and I wondered how I’d ever crawl out of it again.

This Fixer was in desperate need of being brought back to life.

Here’s the part where the God reveals just how amazing a Being God is…

At the worst time I’ve ever experienced, I was surrounded by a cloud of atypical saints, (most of them not people of faith!) and each one of them contributed to the healing journey I found myself on.

I truly was never alone.

Did you know that the God has many disguises? Do you remember that Spirit can show up in the oddest places at just the right moment (in the wrong place) to give you a poke, reminding you who and Whose you are? Did you know that getting through a life-changing event can change you in ways you never thought you would know and understand; dropping new hope, new strength, new life right at your feet?

These aren’t just buzz words thrown at us during a sermon in any church…this is absolute Truth.

I know this, because I’ve been constantly in awe of how the Holy One works – how the Holy One reaches out – always, and often when you least expect it.

With honest love from friends, family, even people I didn’t know personally, I’m finding my way back. I’m crawling out of that dark hole, one step at a time. I’m also learning about real forgiveness – God’s trademark – and true peace.

The newer me is a modified version for sure, (and a better one, I think) – and as I squint each morning at a much brighter day ahead, I find that I’m not the only one who has suffered such loss. There is so much to grieve about in this world these days…The Voice is telling me that it’s time to get to work again.

What’s different, though, is that instead of being a fixer, I’m now a “mender” because we’re all in this together. We need to patch up the torn places…and keep going.

It feels good to step up to the plate again.

Thanks, Holy One.

*Jane Jones served as the licensed pastor for First Congregational Church in Prescott from 2009 – 2015, has been SWC’s Moderator and Moderator Elect, is almost a former member of COCAM B, and currently sits in on Faith Formation ZOOM meetings. She will be one of the facilitators at the “Doing Grief Community Healing Project” at Church of the Palms in Sun City.

Comfort prayer for a friend

by Rev. Deb Church

Our Father who art in Heaven—
and who is with us, wherever we are…

…hallowed be thy name.
Your name, O God, is holy
and rests in our hearts
and on our tongues
sometimes like honey
sometimes like vinegar
sometimes a blessing
sometimes more like a curse
sometimes coming out in a song of praise
sometimes, escaping in a groan from the depths of our souls
But always, O God, holy is your name…

…Thy kingdom come—
in all the places
and in all the spaces
we are.
Come, healing and wholeness
Come, truth and justice
Come, forgiveness and belonging
Come, mercy and grace
Come, peace and hope
Come, love and Beloved
Come, Reality and Reign of God…

…Thy will be done—
as we trust in you
with hearts soaring
and hearts breaking
anxious and angry
grieving and confused,
as we place our loved ones
and our lives
in your strong and gentle hands,
letting go of control
holding on to hope
letting go of outcomes
holding on with trust
letting go of fear
holding on in Love…

…on earth as it is in heaven—
right here
in the middle of the muck
and mess
as we journey
from dust back to dust
embodied Spirit
walking around in
these bodies
clay pots
cracked
beautiful
broken
whole
Holiness
found right here
in the middle of the muck
and mess
of our world…

Give us this day—
today
now
in these moments
in this moment…

…our daily bread—
what will feed us
what will nourish us
what we need
in these moments
whether we
know it
recognize it
see it
feel it
or not…

…and forgive us our sins—
Forgive us, O God.
Forgive us
for our messiness
for our mistakes
Forgive us
for the hurt we inflict
without wanting to
and for hurt we long to inflict
that all comes from
the hurt we’ve received
Forgive us
for the hurt we cause
that we don’t know and
for the hurt we cause
because we don’t know
our woundedness
Forgive us, O God…

…as we forgive those who sin against us—
as we look with compassion
at those who hurt us
out of their hurt
as we look with tenderness
at those who hate us
having made us bearers
of the hate they feel
for themselves and cannot name
As we offer mercy
that we have received
to those who deserve it no more than we do
who deserve it no less than we do
Forgive us our sins, O God, with the same freedom
with which we forgive
or not
those who sin against us…

…and lead us not into temptation—
Keep us from going down
easy paths
of self-pity
well-worn paths
of shame and blame
familiar paths
of regret and guilt
paths that are so easy to follow
paths that take us
to no place good…

…but deliver us from evil—
and instead
into Hope
into Healing
into Peace
into Joy
into Love…

…for thine
is the kingdom
and the power
and the glory
forever—
And ever.
And ever.
And ever.
Always.
No matter what.
Amen.
And amen.

From Deb: Here’s something I wrote last night…as a prayer for a dear friend whose husband (who is also a dear friend) was near death. They are both members of my church, and I love them dearly. They’ve been in California for the last several months, while he was receiving treatment for his cancer. He died this morning… I hope and pray that something in this “fleshed out” version of the Lord’s Prayer gave his wife some bit of comfort last night, or perhaps will at some point in the future.

Wilderness

by Rev. Deb Worley

“Behold, I am doing a new thing;
now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?
I will make a way in the wilderness
and rivers in the desert.”

(Isaiah 43:19, ESV)

“Wilderness,” as we all know, can mean different things to different people. Heck, it can even mean different things to the same person, at different times in their life. Wilderness is not a one-size-fits-all endeavor.

Sometimes wilderness might look like unexpected suffering, or soul-wrenching depression, or uncontrollable chaos. Or mental illness. Or cancer. Or a global pandemic. Sometimes wilderness might be found in the midst of profound grief, or deep weariness, or ongoing uncertainty. Or too many responsibilities. Or too few resources. Or not enough young families.

Sometimes wilderness might be individual; sometimes, communal. At times, it might be blessedly short-lived; at other times, seemingly and agonizingly unending.

Wilderness means different things to different people.

As people of faith, we are not exempt from experiences of wilderness in our lives, whether as individuals or as the Body of Christ. We are promised, however, that we will not go through them alone. We are promised that God will be with us.

And not only that–if we are to take Isaiah at his word, we are promised that God “will make a way in the wilderness,” that God will lead us through it, that God will open a path where it had seemed to us there was no path. We are promised that God will be with us in and through and out of the wilderness, to the other side, where “rivers in the desert” await, where there will be healing and wholeness, abundance and life.

We can’t know for sure what that path will look like, or how long it will be, or how many twists and turns and hairpin curves and hills and valleys we will pass through along the way. Nor can we know with certainty when we will step out of the wilderness and find ourselves at the edge of the river, dipping our toes in the water and inhaling deeply and recognizing that we have moved into a place of healing and abundance.

But we can be sure that we will. We can be sure that we will!

Thanks be to God for the promise of new things, new paths, new life…that come after seasons of wilderness.

Peace be with us all.

Deb

Reflections of a Children’s Chaplain

by Dr. Kristina “Tina” Campbell

As we walk the hallowed halls with a deep desire to bring spiritual comfort to patients and families, there are times when we must pause to experience our own humanity. There are times when we must pause to connect with our own spiritual source for perspective, strength, and refreshment. There are times when we must reconnect with our own sense of being human. There are times when we must step back and mourn.

As we view a child’s body pulled from the bottom of a green pool, we must step back and mourn. As we witness teenaged attempts to take their own lives by hanging, gun shot, starvation or overdose, we must step back and mourn. As we witness a nurse drape a newborn baby for transfer to the morgue, we must step back and mourn. As we view the mangled body of a joyride gone bad, we must step back and mourn. As we see the skyrocketing cases of children with COVID gasping for air, we must step back and mourn. As we witness the contorted physical pain of sickle cell, we must step back and mourn. As we view the strained face of a doctor informing a grandmother that there is nothing more medicine can do, we must step back and mourn. Amid panicked fear, threadbare nerves, and lives forever changed or ended, we must step back and mourn.

Finding a private space in the quiet corner of our hearts, we bow and we weep, because we know if we do not, we will lose our human connection and become mere robots. We are trained, we are hurried, we are present, and yet our calling is to be fully human. In acknowledgement of our common humanity, there are times when we must step back and mourn. Amen.

Dr. Campbell, UCC clergy, BCC, is a Staff Chaplain at Phoenix Children’s Hospital.

Grieving Well

by Rev. Lynne Hinton, Conference Director, New Mexico Conference of Churches

At a worship service a couple of weeks ago at St. John’s UMC in Albuquerque, visiting preacher Rev. Scott Carpenter spoke about five tasks churches need to accomplish in order to thrive. The first task was to grieve well.

This focus on grief as the first task for a faith community to grow strong surprised me. Having been a hospice chaplain for years, I spend a lot of time and thought regarding grief, regarding loss. I understand the need to honor grief but I had never seriously considered it as a necessary function for communities of faith to thrive. And yet, grief is necessary to move forward. And if we’ve ever needed to grieve in churches, it’s now.

Over 600,000 persons have died in our country from Covid 19. Businesses have closed. Churches have had to shut their doors permanently. Dreams have ended. Suicides and mental illness emergencies are on the rise. And in poorer countries, the pandemic continues to ravage entire populations. We need to grieve what has been lost, what we have lost.

In [his book] RealLivePreacher.com, Pastor Gordon Atkinson writes about going to a mountain church in Colorado as part of his annual family vacation. He goes to the little community church alone and he goes to weep.

He writes, “I cry in their church because I can’t cry in my own. I’m not suggesting that we discourage crying at our church. I’m saying I am not ABLE to cry there. Being in charge shuts something down in me, I think. So every summer in Creede I unpack a year’s worth of sorrow, joy, and wonder.

“I cry in church because it is my time to be served. I’m like the woman who prepares the meals for her family each day. One day she comes home, and her children have prepared a meal for her. She bursts into tears because it’s her turn to receive. It doesn’t mean she wants to stop cooking. It’s just nice that it’s her turn.

“I cry for those reasons, but mostly I cry because at Creede Community Church I can see the truth. Sitting in that simple pew on the back row, I see the Church Universal in all her glory and silliness. The truth is, we are not sophisticated at all. We are nothing more than children, sticking our drawings to the fridge with tiny magnets, offering our best to the heavens on a wing and a prayer. We are precious, but perhaps only in His sight.

“I think messy little boys and girls praying in church must be irresistible to God. When God slows down and licks his fingers to slick down my cowlick, I catch a fleeting glimpse of the hem of his robe.

“And a glimpse is more than enough for me.

“That is the moment of true worship, and I always seem to find it in Creede.

“And in that moment, I cry from pure joy and relief.”

Do you have a place where you can weep? Do you have time set aside in your life to mourn your losses, honor the sorrow you carry, and feel free to let your emotions loose? And do you have a place where you receive, a place where you don’t have to be the faith leader or the pastor holding it together, a place where you can be served and know the loving presence of God?

My hope, of course, is that you do and that you have been there this year, that you have wept in sorrow and relief, and that you have been received, and ultimately that you have known joy. That is my hope for us all.

You are the light of the world.

What If One Word Could Say It?

by Kay F. Klinkenborg

What if one word could provide clarity for the wide range of emotions we have all felt during COVID-19 since March 2020? Try: languishing. Dr. Adam Grant wrote an article: “There’s A Name for the Blah You’re Feeling: It’s called Languishing” for the NY Times, April 19, 2021.

I have heard a wide range of emotions this year: anxiety, fear, empty, listless, depressed, trouble concentrating, and life without a defined direction to name a few. And there have been many sad experiences of loss and resulting grief of loved ones and friends. Also grief of the loss of our normal routines, limitations of what, how and when we could do our predictable routines.

Grant notes that “we think about mental health on a spectrum from depression to flourishing… being the peak of wellbeing.” Prior to COVID many have experienced or known someone close who experiences depression. When depressed you feel despondent, worthless, no energy to move forward. “Languishing is the neglected middle child of mental health” states Grant. One of Webster’s definitions: to lose vigor or vitality.

Remember acknowledging that you weren’t functioning at full capacity, but couldn’t say why? You had no overt symptoms or behaviors to indicate mental illness. I recall days of ‘trying to make myself focus.’ Maybe accomplishing one or two of five goals I would have normally set for the day. I have read other articles that comment that during COVID, people were struggling with the long-haul impact of restrictions and the unknown.

Languishing is the void between depression and flourishing—an absence of wellbeing, but you don’t quite feel yourself either—your motivation is dulled, notes Grant. The potential risk of remaining in ‘languish’ is that one might not notice you are slipping toward depression. You might not be experiencing joy or delight and suddenly realize you haven’t felt that for some time.

Say it aloud, languishing, name it. Grant writes that might be the first step to learning more about it; because we haven’t done many studies on languishing. “Languishing is common and shared.” And thus, is not an abnormal reaction. We have not been through a pandemic before.

The professionals admit there is still a lot to learn about this term.

Grant proposes one of the first things to do in coping with languishing is to ‘be in the flow.’ Fr. Richard Rohr in his book, Divine Dance, writes in numerous chapters about the concept of “flow.” To be in the flow is the experience of trusting the moment and staying focused on the smallest of goals. Being present and not letting your mind wonder hither and yon. Don’t spend energy trying to figure out how to control the situation or others or debating solutions for the biggest of problems that professionals/ elected officials are set out to do. Take a deep breath and remember the Creator designed you, and lives in you and all of creation. Don’t go the judgmental path…go the path of discovery the smallest awes.

I find that spiritually to own languishing means I have to name it and experience it and claim that God is a verb in the midst of all that I am witnessing, hearing, and experiencing. Where is God in what I see today? Where is God in what I heard about today from others? Stay in the flow. We have not been alone in this pandemic; nor are we alone post-pandemic.

Second, set boundaries as to when you are not to be interrupted. You need breathing space to rest and process all that has transpired…even…especially even now… as we see a ‘light at the end of the tunnel’ in America as more are vaccinated. All processing doesn’t happen in the exact moment…when we can’t name what is happening. We need to bring some grace to ourselves and others for quite reflective time. A time for energy to be restored. Maybe it is a time when you read a novel, do some craft work, have a project. The important thing…it is your time with boundaries and no interruptions.

Third, pick small goals (Grant). This pandemic was a BIG LOSS. Maybe a short word game, one meaningful conversation with a trusted friend 1-2 times a week to own the gift of that friendship to you and to them. Maybe you color in an adult coloring book. It doesn’t matter the goal…make it a small one. No one is here to judge you about how you spend your time or what you need to do to complete a goal that feels satisfying.

One of the most important sentences in Grant’s article is: “Languishing is not merely in our heads…it’s in our circumstance.” You didn’t cause this…you aren’t making it worse. Many journalists, mental health professionals, and trauma psychologists remind us we are entering a post-pandemic reality. And with that will be some who have some Post Traumatic Stress Disorder for which they need to seek some professional health; particularly if they aren’t eating, can’t motivate themselves to get up, are isolating from others, and feel ‘blue’ beyond what they can manage.

We can now begin with the lists above to address how the post-pandemic awareness of what languishing is and has been in our past 15 months. Give voice, name it, there is power in naming what is happening with you. Your courage to name it…will encourage others to name it too…and that empowers each of you to move forward with positive steps into more ‘thriving’ modes of living.

Kay F. Klinkenborg © May 2021

Church of the Palms

Kay is a Spiritual Director; Retired: RN, LMFT and Clinical Member AAMFT. She chairs the Life Long Learning Board at Church of the Palms, serves on the CARE TEAM, and the W.I.S.E. Steering Committee.

Remembering Our Saints

by Victoria S. Ubben

Halloween 2020, will be a Halloween like no other in the history of the USA. These really are frightening times for our nation and the world. We need not encourage our children and grandchildren to be “spooked” by ghosts and goblins and vampires and bats this year.

Our family knows personally of several people who have died recently from Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), and perhaps your family does, too. (Thankfully, we also know of some who have recovered from COVID-19.) Besides remembering lives lost by COVID-19, this is the time to remember other lives lost due to violence, accidents, or various illnesses and other conditions.

I offer you three ways that you might find comfort in your distress.

1. Music might help. To help me remember all of the saints who have died this year, I recently to listened to a recorded version of Requiem in D minor, Op. D by Gabriel Faure’ (1845-1924) and I share with you a link to a video so that you can hear it also.

Here is an English translation of some of the Latin lyrics that are comforting and uplifting during what is a sad or frightening time to many people:

“May eternal light shine on them, O Lord,
with Thy saints forever,
because Thou are merciful.

Grant them eternal rest, O Lord,
and may perpetual light shine on them.”

2. Inspirational Prose might help. To help us remember all the saints who have died this year, find some prose or poetry with strong visual images. Here is one of my favorites:

Gone from My Sight by Henry Van Dyke (1852-1933)

I am standing upon the seashore. A ship at my side spreads her white sails to the morning breeze and starts for the blue ocean. She is an object of beauty and strength. I stand and watch her until at length she hangs like a speck of white cloud just where the sea and sky come to mingle with each other.

Then someone at my side says, “There, she is gone!”

“Gone where?” Gone from my sight. That is all. She is just as large in mast and hull and spar as she was when she left my side and she is just as able to bear the load of living freight to her destined port.

Her diminished size is in me, not her. And just at the moment when someone at my side says: “There, she is gone!” There are other eyes watching her coming and other voices ready to take up the glad shout: “Here she comes!”

And that is dying.

3. Biblical readings and liturgy might help. To help us remember all the saints who have died this year, turn to the ancient scripture, liturgy, and religious traditions. Try reading these aloud (either alone or 6 feet apart from others). Here is a benediction with which to close.

One Voice: With clean hands and pure hearts, hold fast to the faith of the saints who went before us.

Many Voices: In our living and in our dying, we all belong to God.

One Voice: With hopeful hearts and expectant spirits, receive the blessing of Almighty God.

Many Voices: In our living and in our dying, we all belong to God.

One Voice: Thanks be to God! Amen.

We Are a Lenten People, Too! A New Way of Doing Grief This Covid-19-Easter Season

by Shea Darian

Year after year on Easter Sunday we joyously proclaim, “We are an Easter people!” But, Easter Sunday 2020 came and went. We find ourselves still wandering through a Lenten desert – not knowing when or how the nightmarish suffering and everyday losses wrought by the Covid-19 pandemic will end.

Passover prayers echo from our lips as losses mount in every state and nation. We collectively grieve illness and death, economic woes, lack of resources and healthcare, and not being able to live, learn, work, play, or worship as we normally do. Every aspect of culture is full of change that brings loss, and loss that brings grief.

There is a profound gospel message to be found in our grief this Easter season that requires some real daring to receive. It is this: Our beloved resurrection story does not change the fact that our grief will always be with us. Grief is as much a part of our human story and experience as is the Love of God.

The healing potency of Easter Sunday that often gets buried in the reverie of joyous celebration is that this holiest of days is set at the intersection of the Lenten and Easter seasons. It is that place in the Christian calendar where sorrow and joy, despair and hope, life and death meet to remind us that God’s love is present with us through it all. The same is true for grief. Although grief is often misunderstood to be synonymous with sorrow, like Easter Sunday, grief is found at the intersection of celebration and suffering. So, as we make our way through the Easter season, we have no choice but to take our grief with us.

We humans grieve when we lose what we cherish. But despite the fact that grief is born out of all good things in life, we often regard grief as an enemy to be eradicated. I beg you to consider (and invite your loved ones to consider) that grief is not the enemy. In fact, grief is that part of us that serves as a motivator and catalyst for healing – if only we will give grief a chance to work its wonders.

This wisdom story from India, retold in my forthcoming book, Doing Grief in Real Life: A Soulful Guide to Navigate, Loss, Death & Change, serves as an allegory for the intense challenge grievers face in responding to grief:

A youth wanted to befuddle the elder of the village. The old one was said to be exceedingly wise. But the young challenger imagined that youthful wit could outdo the wisdom of the rickety old sage. So, the youth caught a little bird, carried it to the elder, and hiding it between young hands not yet worn or weary, the youth announced:

“I have a riddle for you, old one. Here in my hands is a bird. Tell me – is the bird alive, or is it dead?”

The youth delighted in the game. There was no way for the elder to win. If the old one ventured to guess “dead,” an open hand would release the little creature and the bird would fly free. If the elder guessed “alive,” the youth would set a fist and crush the bird at once.

But the old one looked into the eyes of the young seeker and replied with care, “The answer, my child, is in your hands.”

Such is the puzzle of grieving. Grieving is a life-and-death challenge to which our spirits inquire, however silently or soulfully: “How will we hold our grief?” Will we crush it with silence, denial, a forced sense of victory, or will we open ourselves to grief as a teacher that reminds us how to live fully and freely?”

In our culture, we mistakenly view grief as something that happens to us, like a Covid-19 virus from which we desire to quickly recover. But grief is as common to the human condition as hope or love. Proposing that we “recover from grief,” is like proposing that we recover from being human. There is no such thing as a cure for grief. There is only this: learning to grow our capacities for grieving in ways that inspire healing. Grieving and healing, in fact, are one and the same.

Most of us have only a vague understanding of what grief is and how it affects us. So, let me give you a crash course: There is no universal grieving path. Researchers have proven many times over that stages and phases of grief are a myth from the past. Even so, our foremost grief experts continue to argue among themselves about how grief and grieving ought to be defined. Each one of us (grief experts included) come to grief and grieving from our own unique vantage point.

Through three decades of studying grief and grieving, a question pounded at the door of my psyche: Given our endlessly divergent paths of grieving and healing, is there some sort of navigational tool that might prove to be universally relevant and useful to grievers and healers? For years, I doubted that any bona fide answers existed. But, the grief-related suffering I witnessed in my ministry and personal life prompted years of exploration and pondering.

Suddenly, without warning or effort, I caught the thing – my theoretical Model of Adaptive Grieving Dynamics (MAGD). It flashed into my consciousness: a picture of the human grieving process that expands in all directions. It’s a view of grieving in which all of a griever’s physical, psychological, social, and spiritual responses to grief are relevant. Not a paint-by-numbers grieving model, but a picture of the grieving process that provides a sense of relational direction – whatever a griever’s unique responses to grief might be.

Engaging in all four of the MAGD’s grieving dynamics in ways that are meaningful and effective for you – is the essence of adaptive grieving. Together these responses provide needed release, relief, and reprieve from suffering, and help to recreate life and relationships as you adjust to personal, social, and environmental changes brought about by a grief-striking loss. Specific grieving responses (emotions, thinking patterns, behaviors, physiological changes, spiritual perceptions, etc.) fall into one or more of the following categories:

Lamenting: Experiencing and expressing grief-related pain, distress, or disheartenment.

Heartening: Experiencing and expressing what is gratifying, uplifting, or (even, surprisingly) pleasurable within the grieving process.

Integrating: Perceiving the life-shifting changes brought on by a grief-striking loss and incorporating these changes into everyday life.

Tempering: “Taking a break” from grief – that is, suppressing grief-related suffering, or avoiding grief-related changes and realities that distress or overwhelm a griever physically, emotionally, mentally, and/or spiritually.

As you become more familiar with these four universally relevant grieving dynamics, take note of your strengths and needs for balance in the grieving process. Learn from the strengths and growing edges of others. Be careful not to set up camp in only one type of grieving response, because just as each type of response can be a path to healing, each has its limitations. As the good book says, “There is a time to weep and a time to laugh…a time to mourn and a time to dance…a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing…a time to search and a time to give up…a time to be silent and a time to speak” (excerpts from Ecclesiastes 3:4-7). And so it is with seeking a balance of lamenting, heartening, tempering, and integrating as we grieve the losses of a lifetime.

During this Covid-19-Easter season, we write our own grieving biographies as we choose. Our grieving choices will determine whether our grief-related suffering and healing serves to diminish or enhance our relationships with one another, and with everyone and everything the world over.

Right now, as we tune into the palpable pulse of suffering at this extraordinary time in our world history, may we bravely and humbly open our hands to grief. May we allow this God-given gift of our humanity to work its healing powers. Because, we are an Easter people and we are a Lenten people, too.

Cocoon

by Davin Franklin-Hicks

I was hurt really badly some time ago. It was the kind of hurt that you carry in every cell. It was the kind of hurt that wakes you up and refuses to let you sleep. The pain was excruciating at times and settled into an intense ache the times in between. The ache was physical. The ache was emotional. The ache was spiritual. It felt unending. It redefined the word “harm” for me and those closest to me. I didn’t know I could hurt so much day after day after day after day and still not die. I know that now, though.

When I was harmed I was shocked. I couldn’t believe what had happened to me because there was no way I could have anticipated it. My life was solid. I had an amazing family, a job I adored, and friendships that were brilliant and full of life. I had dreams that I was pursuing. I had love at the ready. I had lost a lot of weight. I was exercising. I felt great. I was fully alive to myself and my world more than I had ever been in my 37 years of life up to that point. And then everything changed to such a degree that the life I knew before seemed like it was someone else’s. My lived experience of harm negated all the previous lived experiences of safety. That’s what trauma does to you, locks you in.

Even though I had been safe in this world more often than not, this one event of harm was rewriting me, it seemed. Like a virus that takes over your electronics, it just invaded the depths of my soul and started laying down new patterns of thinking that were the worst, fear-based stuff I had ever known. I thrashed and railed against this reality. I was crawling my way forward and collapsed more than I moved.

I would have stayed there. Laid there. Died there. I would have.

But I didn’t.

And that wasn’t because of me.
It was because of them.
Those people.
Over there.
Coming here.
Holding me.
Loving me.
Reminding me. This isn’t forever. This will change. This will pass. It always does. We are here.

Broken and beaten things need time to heal. A battered soul is the same. We need rest. We need nourishment.

What happens then if the thing you need to have to get better is the very thing you cannot access? I needed to sleep so my body and brain could heal. I couldn’t sleep though because my body and my brain were broken.

I needed to eat so my body and my brain could rebuild. I was unable to eat. I couldn’t swallow water without intense revolting nausea, let alone any food. I couldn’t take anything in as I was desperate to keep all the bad stuff out.

I couldn’t eat. I couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t heal.
Yet I was healing.
Slowly.
Ever so slowly.

You see, I was eating. I was sleeping. It just didn’t look like what it did before. I wanted my life back. I wanted to be able to live and move in this world in the same way I had moments before the harm. I wanted to feel hunger. I wanted to feel rested. I wanted to feel ease. When I thought about eating and sleeping during the worst times of post-traumatic stress, I was comparing it to what I used to be able to do. I was longing for a time that was so different than my own. Of course I was. How could I not?

The bit by bit bites and the minute by minute sleep that I was able to have access to slowly changed the healing process in my body, mind, and spirit. It was slow going, but it was going.

I was not alone. That was what changed it for me. That’s why I didn’t die on the floor of grief and unimaginable sorrow.

When you are that broken and that beaten in some way, you can’t begin to think the next thought of what you should do, let alone act on the next thought. Action was not possible for me. I was needing to be in an idle state, tucked away with comfort, medicine, kindness, compassion, and grace. Where does someone go to get that on Amazon? There is no kit to be purchased. Trust me. I looked.

What I described for you is something that happens from people just being. Those people over there that came over here to hold me, comfort me and love me just sat with me, listened to me and reminded me of who I am. They encouraged me to eat. They encouraged me to sleep. They encouraged me to keep trying. Sometimes I was helped by them mightily, other times I was too far within to hear them. Yet they remained.

You know how you never know what to say when someone tells you bad news? It’s because you don’t need to say anything.
You don’t.
There’s nothing that will fix it.
Nothing.

We hate that feeling, don’t we? We want to have some type of control over the world around us and it is so very strong when we see someone we love hurting. We want to alleviate pain when we see it. We want to skip to the end or hit rewind even though that doesn’t exist. It’s our first reaction, though.

We can’t remove pain. It has a function. It is there for a reason. The focus then is not on removing the pain, but in tending to the harm until the pain subsides as it does with healing.

Your presence is a balm, especially when it is a steady, dependable presence.
Your words, when found from places of love will be far more meaningful than when they come from a place of fear that just wants the pain to stop.

Gradually, there were words shared with me that helped me. That could only have come after being together for awhile. They only were fitting because of the tending that had come before.

Some of the things said to me in the tending that I was able to make use of were really vital because of the love that existed. I believed the sender of the message more because of the care they held for me.

I said, “I feel so much hatred. I don’t want to be a hateful person”
They said, “You are an inhospitable environment for hate. It won’t stick. It can’t. There’s too much love there.”

I said, “I don’t want to relapse because of this. I am so scared to relapse.”
They said, “We’ll sit with you until that passes. We are here to help you not use again. This trauma will not take your recovery.”

I said, “I can’t eat anything, I can’t even swallow water, I can’t do this.”
They said, “How about for today, you eat just a tiny bit more and I will eat a tiny bit less because it hurts me too.”

I was not alone. That was what changed it for me. That’s why I didn’t die on the floor of grief and unimaginable sorrow.

Your love, when expressed through presence or communication, is a magical thing.

Those people over there that came over here to hold me, comfort me and love me wanted my pain to stop. They tried things too. We all did. It just wasn’t effective so we stopped trying to stop pain and redirected our efforts toward living in the moment we were in, with the people we were with, and with the capacity we had. That was enough. That was more than enough.

We created space for healing even though it was so inconvenient and not at all what we wished we would be doing.

We created it still.

I read a joke on some social media platform at some point in the last year at some random time of night and it stuck with me, as random things so often do.

The joke was, “Do you think a caterpillar knows what it’s doing when it’s building its cocoon or is it like, ‘What am I doing’ the entire time?”

It stuck with me because it’s clever and I enjoy humor that wonders about the world around us rather than judges the world around us. I think of that joke on occasion, especially when I see a butterfly (pssttt… spoiler alert, that’s what comes out of the cocoon).

Today, I thought of this joke while brushing my teeth, no butterflies in sight. Something clicked.

I didn’t know I was building a cocoon.
Then the next thought.
I wasn’t.
They were.
I let them.
I had to.

I was a broken and beaten being and they wrapped me up. They waited. They stayed.

None of them knew how to do it and neither did I. We were clueless.
The thread was in the visits, in the expressions of love, in the sharing about their own lives as it reminded me that the world is still happening and that helped me reconnect to it. I cried. They cried. That was some strong, vibrant thread that we had at the ready and didn’t even know.

Our capacity to love is endless and boundless when it meets with others’ capacity to love.

A five-minute phone call is enough if that is what you have to give.
A meal together is enough if that is what you have to give.
A text message is enough if that is what you have to give.
It is not the amount of time of the offering, its the offerer.
It’s you.
That’s the balm.

The hurdle to all of this is our own doubt and fear. We think if we get too close to pain it will hurt too much when it is the exact opposite. Pain hurts less when tended. My goodness, though, isn’t it hard to know that when you are thrashing and railing and afraid? Isn’t it hard to know that when someone you love is the one thrashing and railing and afraid?

I am still cocooned in a lot of ways, but that is changing as I have been emerging more and more.
I laugh far more than I cry these days.
I listen to others far more than I need to be listened to.
I see the transformation more and more. It’s reminiscent of my life before. It’s not the same. It never can be the same because the past doesn’t exist in the present. It is a beautiful, full, vibrant life, though.

I have cocooned others recently, without even knowing it. Just from being and responding I have been able to hold others well too.

That innate thing that prompts a caterpillar to begin the next step for life to be nurtured and continued is the very thing within each of us that prompts us in our living.

We want to emerge. We want to be better, stronger, alive. We think we don’t know how to do that, but we do. It’s within you. It’s within me.

It starts with a prompt, that feeling inside, that nudge to reach out and connect. That is the thread of life, the thread of love reminding you of its presence. It is at the ready, waiting to be woven into sanctuary for one another. It will amaze you as you weave it and will dazzle you when it’s done.

My Favorite Spiritual Place!

by Jim Cunningham

I know stress up close and personal. I will not bore you with the details.

My spiritual journey has taught me that when stress becomes a problem it is a spiritual “disease or dis-ease.” Stress is normal to life but stress becomes a problem when I forget the resources God has gifted to me and to all of us. My inspiration of my thinking on this is the quote:

“You are not always free to choose the circumstances in which you find yourself in life, but you are always free to choose the attitude with which you will address the situation” – Victor Frankl

Stress also becomes a problem when I hold onto stress.

Consider the photo above…

I use this multiple times a day but at bedtime it become my “spiritual throne!”

What do I do here…

I consciously choose to “let go” of the physical waste my body no longer needs.

If I could not or chose not to “let go” of this waste, it would create pain, disease, and eventually death.

So, this moment on the “throne” invites me to ask what are the stresses… the fears, the anger, guilt, frustration, pain, anxiety, worry, despair, events, people etc. that I have taken in during the day which if I hold onto it will disrupt my sleep, cause me pain, contribute to disease/dis-ease, or contribute to my death.

God help me let go of all of all this and flush it from my body, mind, and spirit. The key to letting go I have learned is a spiritual gift: forgiveness. I can “hold on” or “let go” and the key to letting go is forgiveness.

When my son died the grieving process required a “letting go.” Therefore I had to forgive to find the healing to go on living… this does not mean forgetting. It was a process not a moment in time. I had to forgive death… forgive God for the reality of death… forgive the overwhelming pain… forgive that the future that would be forever different… forgive those who did not understand my journey, etc.

So, not only do I need to forgive myself, or others, but all that contributes to stress… to forgive cancer, forgive my anxiety disorder I live with, forgive chronic pain, forgive accidents, forgive congested traffic, forgive aging, forgive prejudice, forgive ignorance, forgive fear, forgive divorce, forgive being laid-off/unemployed, and on and on…

I can CHOOSE to hold onto the stress in my life life or I can acknowledge it, forgive it and let it go and live fully in the moment! My choice and my choice alone.

I continue to work at letting go everyday. I have found it to be my path to peace. I am grateful to God for all who have helped me learn and live these important life coping skills.

I welcome your thoughts, reactions, your coping insights.

Learn more about me, and how I help others to let go, in my bio.