MY LADY WEARS HATS (2) - Surviving The Surprises with Grief
Rev. Richard B. Gilbert, PhD, BCC, CT
The column in Bereavement last year, My lady wears hats, generated more letters than any other column I have written. I was gratified that people found something of and for themselves in that article.
To summarize, my wife has 137 elegant hats, most vintage. She nurtures them, names them, and wears one for church and special, more formal occasions. Every Sunday she tries on three hats and puts me in the sweat box as I am asked to pick the right hat for that particular outfit. Invariably I pick the wrong one. Despite my batting average in this game, it goes on every Sunday. It is ritual. It is part of who we are, individually and together. From that base we could then explore how grief hurts and disrupts because it touches who we are, how we relate to the person we love and see no longer, and the loss of rituals that once defined us and gave us meaning and that now heighten our hurt.
The hat story continues. In early October we vacationed in England, spending time in London, Bath and Oxford. One of the highlights of our trip was to attend a very special Choral Evensong offered as part of a two week remembrance of the 1000 th anniversary of the birth of Edward the Confessor, monarch, spiritual leader and founder of Westminster Abbey. We were charmingly hosted by the Dean of Westminster Abbey and his lovely wife. We sat in reserved seats, the first row. Two choirs sang powerfully. The large crowd sang the hymns with gusto. Prayers. Remembering a spiritual leader and friend in the distant past, but in ways that made it fresh, contemporary, compelling us to rethink our call to serve God.
For weeks Sharon worked on the right hat. What a beauty, a 1915 hat. Carefully it was packed, traversed the “pond” and the local traffic to the hotel, then the underground that day, for the liturgy. Sharon looked elegant, beautiful, and, to my surprise, was the only woman I saw with a proper hat. Times have changed!
Another reminder of the dependability that comes within relationships. You can imagine my surprise when, at the Thanksgiving service, as the ushers scurried about trying to find the offering plates, Sharon, albeit in a less vintage hat, offered (and the offer was accepted) the use of her hat for the ingathering of the offerings. I was gratified by her flexibility and equally stunned.
Surprises. They are the sparks of life and love, the adventures that produce the twists and turns that shake off our comfort levels and lethargy to dig deeper into the meaning and potential of life and love. Most of the time the element of surprise, even ones with significant impact, draw forth a new energy, a new vitality, life and love.
For those of us who grieve, however, grief itself is a surprise unmeasured, unprepared for and, in most instances, one welcomed. Even for those of us who have anticipated a death, even welcomed it as a gift to those who suffer, it is still a surprise. It uproots, disrupts, redefines, spins us out of control, spits us who knows where, and seems to demand more than we can give. Traditions, even those involving hats, seem pointless for a time.
In addition to the surprise that grief is, there are the other surprises that jolt us to a harsher view of life’s realities. “You should be over this by now.” “Get on with your life.” “Quit your complaining. Look how many years you were together.” “You can have another baby.” These are tough enough, but about these surprises … “I prayed and prayer and God didn’t answer.” “God took my baby away.” “My religious leader said a few nice words, but didn’t really know my loved one and hasn’t seen me since the funeral.” “I go to worship and all I see is the casket and the empty promises of God.”
A most demanding surprise that can accompany grief is the reality that much of our faith and the rhetoric of our religion or religious traditions have lost their meaning. Trust, another word for faith, seems crushed. The safety we felt with God seems violated. Sacredness is tarnished. It doesn’t mean that we no longer believe, though that could be the case, but that what God seems to be offering is not solace, but emptiness. The promises of eternal life, even for the love one we miss, doesn’t match the depths of pain we experience as we try to face life alone.
In this world that is constantly challenged, seeing the very symbols or foundations of life rendered meaningless, spiritual crisis can and does surprise us. The spiritual words and promises that are meant to comfort us are frequently viewed as one more disappointment.
Maybe this is why the 23 rd psalm is both so meaningful, and so frustrating. It is meaningful because it captures the wilderness, loneliness, despair and futility that can accompany our grief journey. We identify with walking “through the darkest valley”. That surely can be our grief experience. It is so easy to grab on to those words and miss the two key words that transform the despair, in time, to hope. Through and with . We are not asked to stay in the valley, but to walk through it. That means there is an exit, a moving on, not in forgetting our loved one but remembering them in new ways as the person or people who are always with us. Even when we feel abandoned by our loved one, our friends, our religious leaders, even God (did you notice that there was no roar of thunder?!), we are not alone as we walk the walk, talk the talk and lament the lament. “I fear no evil; for you are with me.”
Spirituality that is healthy is always about moving toward, finding meaning in the wilderness, discovering, even if only briefly at times (it is never a mirage; it is reality) those kind and gentle oases that nurture us and feed us. Slowly the element of surprise is shoved aside by a sense of healing and rediscovery that enables us to take the ever-so-slow steps of grief and spiritual discovery.
Surprises are fine when using hats to gather the offerings at church. Surprises are fine when they spark new celebrations, fun, better outcomes and deeper experiences of love. If we are to risk investing in love then death is the risk of that investment. It should come as no surprise, but it always does, because of the interruption of love. That love may feel interrupted, but it doesn’t have to be “gone.” And God is never “gone.”
Prepared for the Faith column, Bereavement magazine
The Reverend Richard B. Gilbert, PhD, BCC, CT
December 6, 2005
