Monday Morning Musing: Thoughts on Public Grief, Private Grief, and the Autumnal Equinox

The autumnal equinox has arrived.  I’ve long said that this is my favorite season – the changing of the leaves and the cooler temperatures and the return of familiar rhythms always bring a satisfying shift to my soul. 

This year, none of those things seem to matter at all. 

What does feel right is that the unrelenting brightness of summer is waning.  The days are beginning to make some space for the melancholy that I feel deep within.  It rained this past Saturday night and when I heard it on the rooftop I was relieved.  Creation herself was weeping with me.

I was talking with a friend last week about public grief and private grief.  When one’s vocation has a public forward face, it is necessary to be able to maintain a certain decorum while working.  In my case, I must be able to lead a liturgy and preach a sermon and greet people with sincere interest in their wellbeing.  I must be able to lead meetings and help craft budgets and manage calendars and look at administrative tasks with both an immediate and a visionary eye. And I most often do that fairly well.  But the public nature of my grief mixed with my vocation means that my private grief doesn’t match my public persona and that gets….complicated.   When I receive people’s complaints, for instance, I think….I’m sorry that  insert complaint topic here but for the love of all that is good and holy I don’t care about insert complaint topic here.  My husband is dead.  Gone.  Not here.  The fact that you are annoyed about insert complaint topic here just does.not.matter.to.me.at.all.  is where my head and heart default.   And I wonder about the ease of their complaining. Why don’t they think about this for five more seconds before they speak?  Would they remember that Bruce has been gone for less than four months?  Would they remember that far less than half a year ago I was living in an Oncology ICU?   What instinct makes people think that bringing their small quibble to my attention is at all the way to demonstrate their care?  In many cultures I would still be in a period of very public mourning – perhaps it would help if I got out a black armband or sat upon an ash heap.

In part, the apparent ease with which this has been forgotten is likely because, publicly, outwardly, by all appearances….I look just fine.  I can lead a liturgy and preach a sermon and greet people with genuine gladness and so it must be okay to tell me that you’re miffed about insert complaint topic here. 

Yesterday, sitting in worship my brain whipped around to a memory of Bruce sitting in his usual pew.  And my spirit thought it was true.  For about a second and a half.  But that was enough for my heart to get involved and believe it too.  And then I remembered that he wasn’t sitting there any longer and never would again.

This entire post feels like a whining rant and maybe it is.  But instead of thinking I ought to write something more upbeat and less raw, I’m going to sink deeply into the lugubrious nature of this season, which so perfectly echoes the nature of my spirit.

And I want to encourage all of us to engage with one another using a model from childhood:  Stop. Look. Listen. 

Stop, before you unload that complaint, share that rumor or conspiracy theory or hard critique. 

Look at the person before you.  What have they been through?  What are their eyes reflecting back into the world?  Is there pain there?  Is there joy?  How will what you are about to say to them land in their pain or their joy? 

Listen.  Ask them how they are and listen carefully to the answer.  Then listen carefully to what you have to say and ask yourself if it is kind, necessary, or urgent.  Can it wait if there is even an inkling that it would not be a helpful word to share? 

Dear Ones, I acknowledge that I am weary in body and spirit on this first day of autumn.  I feel betrayed by the universe.  I feel the absence of my beloved like a wound left by a jagged knife.  I long for the familiar comforts that come with this season, but seem elusive just now.

Yesterday the Hymn of the Day, sung after the sermon, was a favorite: All Creatures Worship God Most High (ELW 835).   The fourth stanza brought a measure of grace:

All who for love of God forgive, all who in pain or sorrow grieve: Alleluia!  Alleluia! 

Christ bears your burdens and your fears, still make your song amid the tears: 

Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia, alleluia, alleluia. 

Some days….some seasons….we need the repeated alleluia in order to believe what we sing.  This is where I will lean and where I will learn how to integrate my public self with my private grief in ways that honor both.

I am taking a long weekend for a time of autumnal retreat and renewal at the end of this week.  I need this; my soul longs for this.  It will include a hike in the forest where Earth Funeral is reforesting the land with the remains of those in their care, including Bruce and eventually, me.  It will include reading classics about grief.  It will conclude with the gift of my grandchildren and children.  I will write on the other side of it, or perhaps during it.

For now, I leave you with another stanza from that hymn:

And you, most gentle sister death, waiting to hush our final breath: Alleluia!  Alleluia!

Since Christ our light has pierced your gloom, fair is the night that leads us home.

Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia, alleluia, alleluia!