Painting by Jean Suskey
Theo realizes increasingly that sadness is earned, a gift – like life’s mysteries…how sadness and joy can co-exist…how love can grow out of sadness if it is well intended-it can make us bitter or wise. WE CHOOSE. There is an unsatisfied longing deep inside us all…sadness, beauty, gladness, playfulness…
The complete revicky’s piece on grief.
GRIEF
In his book, Theo of Golden, Alex Levi writes that God gave us faces so that we can see each other better (p 269). And, in talking with Asher, the artist who has sketched all the portraits hanging in the town coffee shop, Theo the newcomer to town, who purchases the portraits says to Asher, “In every face I detect sadness.” “Why do you say that, questions the artist?”
“Well, it is subtle and maybe it takes an old man, an expert in sadness, to see it. But it is in every portrait…in some more than others. It is not gloomy or angry or even terribly obvious. It is like a weariness or an unmet longing or disappointment – something we inherit from those who lived before us. But to these old eyes, it is in every face, THE universal affliction- Sadness.
Today, as we focus on the reality of grief, of suffering, loss, sadness, we first need to define or to look at or name this deep reality in our lives. Theo realizes increasingly that sadness is earned, a gift – like life’s mysteries…how sadness and joy can co-exist…how love can grow out of sadness if it is well intended-it can make us bitter or wise. WE CHOOSE. There is an unsatisfied longing deep inside us all…sadness, beauty, gladness, playfulness…
Oh, but wait. I am ahead of where we need to start…we need to name grief and then to seek our help and strength through the biblical eyes of faith, hope and gratefulness.
In her August 2015 LCWR address, Janet Mock succinctly and brilliantly defines what NAMING entails. She writes ”Being able to name is biblical and primal. Names are sacred and when our names are mispronounced or misspelled, there is something deep inside that is affronted. I AM in the Scriptures signifies the most profound name. I AM is how God actively names the Godhead. Notice that God does not say I WAS, nor I WILL BE. God is I AM. What a profound consolation that is for us today, in these times. I AM here, I AM with you, I AM light…
I AM with you until the end of time. Allow yourselves to sink into that truth: I AM with you.”
Now in November 2025, ten (10) years later, in the presence of I AM, we seek to gaze at, to describe, to name our grief, this individual and corporate reality in our lives. Pope Francis wrote that ”We live in a difficult period in history, one that confronts us with threats to health and happiness and even the survival of humanity. Wars rage around the globe, epidemics arise more often, economies seem fragile, and climate disasters are frequent and more destructive…one could say we are living in epochal change.”
On an individual basis, our grief is a reflection of how much we have loved; of the darkness and light in our spiritual journey; in the seasons of our life when what was familiar has been stripped away; when we need to open ourselves to the grace of being rather than doing as we age; when family and friends die; when illness arises; when relationships go awry; whatever the reality …we are called to trust and embrace more and more the mystery of everything…believing that God companions us and offers transformation.
DEFINING/GAZING AT GRIEF
The Buddhist monk, Pema Chodron, teaches that uncertainty, the impermanence of everything, is a primary principle of grief. She sees fear as a natural reaction to moving closer to truth. Naturally, we prefer pleasure to pain, neglect, poverty, joblessness, discrimination. On the other hand, impermanence allows for kindness, compassion and tenderness arising from our desire for grounding and stability. Impermanence is hard.
A second perspective comes to us through Margaret Silf, who asks us to see the chaos, “the mess,” of our lives as something not to fear or eschew, but as something to embrace. The transition through changes will help us to break through to a place where God will make all things new. Although we have been dislodged out of our comfort zone and our head and heart may ache, we ask where God is in all this, i.e., illness. global warming, caving economic and world order, death, divorce, broken relationships within families and social groups, lack of kindness, and disillusionment…
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