Have You Mourned
Have you mourned? During this time, this COVID-19 time, we have heard all the media terms; unprecedented, uncertain, unimaginable. In my news app, there is a daily feature called “Good News from Around the World.” I almost never click on it. It is not because I am a dour person by nature. I do not at all take joy in an onslaught of bad news from around the world, as it were. And I do like a cute cat video as much as the next person. But I am a person who has endured some hardship already in this life and I think what I am realizing about myself is that I am better at what my mother’s side of the family called “a stiff upper lip” than I ever imagined. I don’t click on it because I think there is a part of me that is suspicious of people who always want to feel better. (Or make me feel better.) My inner life is one of a poet, a dreamer, a misfit, mystic rebel. All of those dreamy qualities are what enable me to follow a call into ministry. They are all forged in trauma though, and they don’t necessarily keep me from blocking out what is real. They are ways that I learned to detach from what was painful and find some sanctuary in being alive. Ironically, what makes me good at perceiving the real is also my mechanism for escaping it. Who says God isn’t funny?
All of us are finding out by now what emerges in us when we are squeezed. Are you perpetually cheerful? Do you retreat into work and productivity? Are you angry, enraged even? I ask you again, have you mourned? We have lost a lot. I myself, have only begun to mourn. We live in a culture that is extremely grief averse. We can blame some of that on my mother’s colonial Briton ancestry, of course. However, we are in the age of more talk about mental health than ever before. We know the risks of mental health going unchecked and we know how vital community contact is in maintaining a healthy outlook. And yet, real grief frightens us terribly. Doctors offer prescriptions to people after they lose loved ones. We medicate grief as if it were pathological. Perhaps we wonder if we submit to it will we ever come back? If I weep for all I miss because coronavirus has taken it, or changed it, will I suddenly find myself weeping for a lost relationship, or my childhood, or my inability to come clean to someone who deserves the truth? If I start to cry, will I ever stop? And if I am crying and mourning, who will clean the house and do the schoolwork with the children and walk the dog? Let me tell you folks, the dog is okay. She’s had plenty of walks. And our children learn from us. If we want to live in a culture that embraces grief as a wise teacher, a cleansing gift of Spirit, a cathartic release: them we must be brave enough to embrace it and show them how. Mourn. Not because you don’t have things to be grateful for too, but because it is human and necessary. You have permission to mourn. I am. And the truth is, it feels exactly right.
Of course, if you are struggling with mental health or grieving that feels unmanageable, we urge you to reach out for help to our pastoral care team, to a medical professional, or to the distress centre at 403-266-HELP. You are not alone.
Blessings,
Amy
