*This is part 2 in a series on grief and sorrow going through the book “The Wild Edge of Sorrow” by Francis Weller. To read part 1, click here.
I sat in her room on the floor and played the old hymn ‘It is Well With My Soul’ and worshipped. She loved that song. I would visit her every other week and play worship songs that she loved and we would sing. I would look forward to those times because in those moments she and I were both brought back to simpler times, when we had some sense of normality in our lives. We would leave the current time line, being in a nursing home, having endured health challenges, broken families, the painful things that happened to the both of us over the last 30 years- and we would just be outside of time worshipping Jesus together.
She was my Naomi, and I was her Ruth. She didn’t love me because of what I did for her, but because she just loved. And I didn’t love her because of anything she did for me. I just loved her and had deep gratitude for her being in my life. As I played the music and sat by her bedside, knowing her soul probably had left her body already, and not knowing what was left in that room to fellowship with, I entered into a place of gratitude I did not want to rush. This was going to be the last time I sat in that room and played those hymns outside of time with my Naomi.
If I hadn’t read this book and been so deeply processing every line of it in the weeks leading up to her death, I may not have entered the room where her still body now lay. I may have just stayed outside or not gone there one last time at all. But somehow I didn’t want to miss this moment, this holy moment which unknowingly, I had been being prepared for.
I knew this day would eventually come, but it seemed to come sooner than anyone expected. I don’t think we are ever really ready for a loved one to die, but we can be prepared having done the soul work, to walk through it with peace and reverence. In other words, we can welcome the feelings that emerge when we have prepared the soil of our beings to interface with grief and sorrow.
CHAPTER 1: An Apprenticeship with Sorrow
Much of what is shared here in this blog, and from the podcast I reference, comes from the book, “The Wild Edge of Sorrow”, by Francis Weller.
(*As an Amazon affiliate I may receive a small kickback from your purchases if you use my links.)
“We are remade in times of grief, broken apart and reassembled. It is hard, painful, and unbidden work. No one goes in search of loss; rather it finds us and reminds us of the temporary gift we have been given, these few sweet breaths we call life.”
As chapter one opens, Weller explains that there is a strange intimacy between grief and aliveness, the unbearable and what is most exquisitely alive. I have honestly suffered from this fear of death and the unknown of it. I am a person who really likes answers. I can get obsessed with trying to understand something, and death and the afterlife, and the passing from this to the next, has been a fearful obsession I will not pretend to understand in arrogance as if I have the answers. (That was the 25 year old me!) No, no, the 50 year old me has quite a reverence toward death and what follows.
However, when I started this journey, though grieving the loss of my mother, the loss we endure of a loved one who has passed was not the primary reason for the necessity of ‘grief work’ I sought out to do. The loss that was, and is debilitating in my case, is the life long sorrow and pain of disappointment. There is this sadness, this general deep sadness within me, that doctors say is somewhere between Major Depressive Disorder and Persistent Depressive Disorder. At times I have tried to spiritualize it thinking I was like Jeremiah, the Weeping Prophet. I was just sad all the time. I was sad about the way I was treated, the way others were treated, the misunderstandings, the disappointments, the condition of the world, the fighting and arguing in the world, and just sad that Jesus wasn’t making all the wrong things right. I was sad that I couldn’t make much of a difference.
My other big problem was that I was in denial that sorrow was ailing me, mostly because I felt like I didn’t have the right to be full of sorrow. Here I am in America with “first world problems”, not like those raised in countries at war or in extreme poverty. The conditions that face me and the problems I “suffer from” are nothing, and I need to snap out of it and get on with it! Until reading this book, I honestly didn’t think I had a right to be sad or grieve, nor did I have a legitimate reason to. But now I see things much differently, and I desire to feel the aliveness and get as much out of this precious life as I can.
what have we lost?
When we talk about “loss”, we are talking about more than losing a loved one, but even with the loss of a loved one comes more than just the loss of their presence from our lives. It is important to acknowledge what we have lost.
When I lost my mother in 2020, I didn’t just lose the mom I knew my whole life. I lost the hope of places I’d hoped to travel with her. Memories I will no longer make with her. A refuge where I would go when I needed help, comfort, wisdom, or a place to hide. There is no ‘home’ to visit. No ‘mom’s house’ to go stay at. There is this space where I avoid entering, full of regrets and wishes, because there is nothing good that can come out of stewing on “what ifs”. And there is a fear of getting stuck in a house of sorrow. The problem is that if I avoid sorrow, I will actually be more stuck– so how do we interact with sorrow?
A comforting friend
When you are going through something so deep, so painful, the closest and well meaning friends can still only offer a drop in the bucket of the comfort our soul needs. The attunement required to let our soul be seen and heard and breathe with confidence doesn’t exist. Even someone going through the very same thing has an individual need and uniquely receives comfort and peace. As I began to think about what it means to welcome sorrow, that Holy Visitor, I wondered if sorrow itself was able to befriend me and see me and know what I need?
As Weller puts it in the book, grief knows where to take us.
Next, let’s look at some key takeaways from chapter one and take time to process how we can engage in this soul work.
What to work on in our apprenticeship
In order to tolerate the rigors of engaging the emotions, memories and images associated with our grief and sorrow, we need to fortify our interior ground. We fortify this soul-soil with a focused awareness and this is important to prevent us from parts of us slipping away and developing complexes. (I won’t go into that in this post, but maybe we’ll refer back to it later.) For now, we should focus on these two things:
We need to develop and/or strengthen a practice that can offer us ballast, something to steady us in difficult times.
We need to develop the ability to stay present in our adult selves when grief arises
A BALLAST, IN PSYCHOLOGICAL TERMS
Developing a ballast is a metaphor for cultivating psychological stability, emotional balance, and firmness of character, which provides resilience against life's challenges. It can be a practice offering ballast can come in forms such as playing the piano, drawing, dance, or meditation. We can find this stability in many forms, but what I have discovered is that a discipline or routine that you can fully control can be quite stabilizing. For example, I have a morning practice of putting frankincense resin (this is the specific resin I use) in my incense burner, put on Jon Thurlow Worship, sit quietly with my tea or coffee, and open up my Bible or devotional.
There have been seasons where I struggled to paint or play the piano, but it takes zero creative effort to turn on my incense burner and open up YouTube. This has been a constant for me; it’s like it anchors me. And as I have gotten stronger, I have added to that practice, and in times of distress, I have gone back to the basic turning on the incense and music.
Now think for a second, do you have something that you do daily or can do daily that requires little effort from your mental and emotional tank, but could be built upon for developing a steady ballast?
The Ability to Stay Present
Sometimes I would be talking to my therapist or my husband, even, going into a deeper place, retelling a memory, and I would start to slip into a child-like place. My heart would race, my eyes would well up with tears, and my voice would even get softer and quieter. In recent years, I noticed that when this happens, in the actual moment, I am aware that it is happening. In that moment, my present adult-self almost acknowledges and comforts my child self. While others who listen and attune to us in these moments can be helpful, what I am learning to grow in is my adult self being able to see the pain and comfort those child-parts. Hopefully, I am explaining that well enough.
The point is, this is something that must be practiced and developed. We can’t just go to therapy and let it all out, then when the time is up, wipe our tears and get in our car and carry on with our day.
developing the practice
One of the greatest reasons we don’t share our deep pain and grief with others is time. We know we don’t have the time to sit and honor those griefs that need to be shared, heard and received. We also don’t know if the hearer will appreciate them the way we do, they way they need to be ‘contained’. These are the most vulnerable places in our soul and we don’t know if they will be accepted, loved and honored by others.
Even when I was in therapy sessions I would find myself hesitating to share because I only had one hour and sometimes it took 45 minutes just to get to the place underneath to open it up. So how do we give ourselves the time we need? Well, this is the practice we must develop.
Firstly, we must believe that this is necessary and worthy practice. We need to make room in our days and schedule, margin, so that when a moment strikes us, we can stop what we are doing and pay attention to the grief that is arising.
Secondly, we must set aside time to read, journal, process, and just allow our inner-man to see the grief and stop looking away from it.
My prayer is that through this deep work you get more connected to yourself and Jesus. I pray for those walking through this process, like myself, you would grow stronger and healthier each day.
If you are just starting to open yourself up to grief work I suggest you start here, listen to this podcast. Then come back and read this again, process slowly. Take your time to look at and honor your grief. (Adam Young, The Place We Find Ourselves, this specific podcast episode)