Many events occurred while I was in the Philippines last July. One stood out because it was unexpected. I have grown up at home encountering floods but not this extreme. It occurred luckily towards the end of our stay in the Philippines when the multisite meetings I came for were over.
I was busy preparing for a chemistry demonstration at my cousin's after-school program to be held the next day when it started raining which did not stop. I was in my room when I heard Roxanne my niece and the maid Alma were going up and down the stairs bringing bags of dishes and supplies from the first floor. They were preparing for the worst when the flood water got so high and enters the house. My brother had moved two cars across the street with a parking space higher than his driveway.
The water was ankle-high before noon. The rain was nonstop and high tide was coming by noon. By the afternoon the water was now waist high.
Then sometime in the afternoon there was no electricity and Wi-Fi. We were using the flash on our iPhone. The rain pelted the roof continuously and did not stop till late at night.
From the window I saw people wading through the waist-deep water. They made the most of the situation and just seemed to enjoy it.
Only an inch or two of water got inside the house. My brother's move years ago to increase the height of the first floor really helped.
Electricity and WIFI came back at noon the next day. What a relief.
Facebook the next day showed photos of people making a resort out of the flooded areas in the city. I really like the indomitable spirit of the Filipinos in their cry "We are Filipinos, you are just a flood." We are indeed resilient and earns the distinction of one of the happiest people in Asia.
Dear Lord, we have lost someone dear to us and we are struggling with our overwhelming emotions. We ask that you envelop us with the comfort and peace that only You can provide.We pray for You to lessen this burden as days pass by. Help us to find refuge in Your presence, Lord. Fill the emptiness in us with Your love. We know that better days are coming because You are with us. Help us hold on to that hope, Lord, for we know Your love can take away our sorrow. We pray for our loved one who is now with You in heaven. May their soul find eternal rest as they are now at peace in Your kingdom. This I ask through Christ our Lord,
When someone you love very much dies, the sky falls. And so you walk around under a fallen sky. —Mirabai Starr, Caravan of No Despair
My dear friend Mirabai Starr has suffered many losses in her life, including that of her fourteen-year-old daughter Jenny, which Mirabai writes about with profound vulnerability and wisdom.
There is no map for the landscape of loss, no established itinerary, no cosmic checklist, where each item ticked off gets you closer to success. You cannot succeed in mourning your loved ones. You cannot fail. Nor is grief a malady, like the flu. You will not get over it. You will only come to integrate your loss. . . . The death of a beloved is an amputation. You find a new center of gravity, but the limb does not grow back.
Richard here: Death cannot be dealt with through quick answers, religious platitudes, or a stiff upper lip. Grief is not a process that can be rushed but must be allowed to happen over time and in its own time. Mirabai recounts that the most important step she took was giving herself permission to mourn in the first place:
With reticence at first, and then with mounting courage, I dared to mourn my child. From the very beginning I suspected that something holy was happening and that if I were to push it away, I would regret it for the rest of my life. There was this sense of urgency, as if turning from death meant turning from my child. I wanted to offer Jenny the gift of my commitment to accompany her on her journey away from me, even if to do so simply meant dedicating my heartbeat and my breath to her and paying attention.
And so I showed up.
When a feeling I did not think I could survive would threaten to engulf me, I practiced turning toward it with the arms of my soul outstretched, and then my heart would unclench a little and make space for the pain. Years of contemplative practice had taught me just enough to know better than to believe everything I think—how to shift from regretting the past and fearing the future to abiding with what is. In this case, a totally [messed up] thing. The ultimate [messed up] thing. I sat with that.
I did not engage in this practice to prove something to myself or anyone else. I was not interested in flexing my spiritual muscles. I did it for Jenny. My willingness to stay present through this process was an act of devotion. By leaning into the horror and yielding to the sorrow, by standing in the fire of emptiness and saying yes to the mystery, I was honoring my child and expressing my ongoing love for her. It was not mere mindfulness practice; it was heartfulness practice.
Every individual has their own journey through grief and loss. Mirabai is an example of how we can courageously face and feel our grief in a way that honors the gift of life we have been given.
Reference: Mirabai Starr, Caravan of No Despair: A Memoir of Loss and Transformation (Sounds True: 2015), 227, 223–224.
Eternal rest grant unto her, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon him/her. May she rest in peace. Amen. May almighty God bless us with his peace and strength, the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.
Heavenly Father, I come to You today to ask for Your joy. I know You are the source of all joy, and I ask that You would fill my heart with Your presence. Help me to see the good in my life, even when things are tough. Help me to be grateful for all that You have given me. And help me to share Your joy with others. Amen
For Dr. Barbara Holmes, our faith invites us to choose joy amid crisis and injustice:
Our current circumstances require resilience and the steadfast belief that joy is a healing inner event and a spiritual practice.…
BIPOC folks who remember the ways of the elders have seen it in action. Performance of joy while the wounds are still being inflicted is not a display of otherworldly strength. It is an act of faith that God will not give us more than we can bear.…
We are not required to fight for our reality; we can just live it. We can be weird and whole and as shapeshifting as necessary, for we are being called to another purpose. We are being invited to awaken to our true nature as spirit beings, energy sharers, and prophets of potential. The joy spoken of in Holy Scripture is accessible, but also has a certain “beyondness” to it: The world didn’t give it and the world can’t take it away. As we hear from Jesus in John 16:22: “So you have pain now; but I will see you again and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you.” [1]
Brian McLaren describes the radical trust and resilience that spiritual practices can offer in difficult times:
We have to prepare ourselves to live good lives of defiant joy even in the midst of chaos and suffering. This can be done. It has been done by billions of our ancestors and neighbors. Their legacy teaches us to see each intensifying episode of turbulence as a labor pain from which a new creative opportunity can be born. Life will be tough; the only question is whether we will become tougher, wiser, and more resilient.… The communities that learn and teach … spiritual resilience will become vital resources for everyone. (We can hope that some Christian communities will take part in this work.) These individual and communal practices will help us dump bitterness, fear, disappointment, and toxicity and refuel with mercy, vision, anticipation, and equanimity. They will help us ignore what deserves to be ignored and monitor what needs to be monitored. They will help us reframe our narratives, so we can mourn, grieve, and lament … even as we imagine, celebrate, and labor for the birth of a better future.…
To trust in the process is another way of saying to trust in an intelligence wiser than current human intelligence, to trust in a love deeper than current expressions of human love, to trust in a desire stronger and wiser than current expressions of human desire. Christians refer to this wisdom, love, and desire as God or the Divine or the Creative Spirit, and others can find their own ways of naming it…. To use familiar biblical language, we will need to walk by faith through the valley of the shadow of death [Psalm 23:4], always holding anticipative space for something beautiful to be born, especially during the most painful contractions. [2]
Holy Spirit, You are the Comforter and the Giver of Life. I come to You today to ask for Your help in finding joy in my life. Help me to see the world through Your eyes and to see the beauty and goodness that You have created. Help me to be filled with Your joy and to share it with others. Amen
Dear God, as I come to You today I lay my past at Your feet.
I pray for the strength to let go of my past, to no longer hold on to the hurt and pain that has weighed me down for so long.
Help me to embrace the present moment, to find joy and peace in the here and now.
I surrender all of my fears, regrets, and doubts to You, trusting that You will help me to move forward and find healing.Fill me with Your love and grace, and help me to forgive myself and others who have caused me pain.
Remind me that You are with me always and that I am never alone.
I ask for Your wisdom and guidance, that You may lead me on the path to wholeness and freedom.
Help me to see the beauty and goodness in the world around me and to live in gratitude for all that You have given me.
May Your presence be with me always, as I let go of my past and embrace the hope and promise of a new day.
God asks only that you get out of God’s way and let God be God in you. —Meister Eckhart, sermon on 1 John 4:9
Father Richard describes the spiritual discipline of detachment as the practice of “letting go”:
In the larger-than-life people I have met, I always find one common denominator: in some sense, they have all died before they died—and thus they are larger than death, too! Please think about that. At some point, they were led to the edge of their private resources, and that breakdown, which surely felt like dying, led them into a larger life. They went through a death of their various false selves and came out on the other side knowing that death could no longer hurt them. They fell into the Big Love and the Big Freedom—which many call God.
Throughout most of history, the journey through death into life was taught in sacred space and ritual form, which clarified, distilled, and shortened the process. Today, many people don’t learn how to move past their fear of diminishment, even when it stares them down or gently invites them. This lack of preparation for the “pass over,” the absence of training in grief work and letting go, and our failure to entrust ourselves to a bigger life, have contributed to our culture’s spiritual crisis.
All great spirituality is about letting go. Instead, we have made it to be about taking in, attaining, performing, winning, and succeeding. True spirituality echoes the paradox of life itself. It trains us in both detachment and attachment: detachment from the passing so we can attach to the substantial. But if we do not acquire good training in detachment, we may attach to the wrong things, especially our own self-image and its desire for security. [1]
Each time I learn to let go of what I thought was necessary for my own happiness, I invariably find myself in a larger place, a larger space, a deeper union, a greater joy. I’m sorry I can’t prove that to you ahead of time. We only know it after the fact. I used to read every book I could as a young man thinking if I understood good theology, good philosophy, good psychology, I’d know how to live the so-called perfect life and it would show me how to open the door in front of me. Now, in the last season of my life, I realize that what’s in front of me is still largely darkness—but it doesn’t matter anymore. That’s because letting go has taught me that I can look back, not forward, back at the past of my life and I can truthfully say, “What have I ever lost by dying? What have I ever lost by losing?” I have fallen upward again and again. By falling I have found. By letting go I have discovered, and I find myself in these later years of my life still surprised that that is true. [2]
References:
[1] Adapted from Richard Rohr,Essential Teachings on Love, selected by Joelle Chase and Judy Traeger (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2018), 199.
[2] Adapted from Richard Rohr, The Art of Letting Go: Living the Wisdom of Saint Francis (Boulder, CO: Sounds True, 2010).
5. Meditation
https://youtu.be/FsCKAZcuRMY?si=S7tVIp3m_jKucGx5
6. Sharing
7. Prayer and intentions
Prayer for letting go of control
Almighty God, I come before You today confessing my struggle with control.
I acknowledge that I have been holding onto things that I should be releasing to You and that this has caused stress and anxiety in my life.
I ask that You help me to let go of my need for control and to place my trust fully in You.
I surrender all my worries and fears to You, knowing that You are in control of all things.
