It’s interesting to me that I chose the topic of my writings in this season to be grief. Little did I know how much grieving was ahead of us as a country, events yet to unfold that would break so many hearts.
This week marks a milestone for us in our “pre-covid” plans, a huge step and transition we would have made as a family that now is no more. It seems to fade as it’s held up to other might-have-beens, other lives no longer lived. I see the heartbreak. I sense the pain.
It’s also interesting to me as I watch the grief of a huge collection of people play out on social media. Grief can look like a lot of things. It often looks like anger. It can look like empathy, or wishing for another end to the story. Sometimes it looks like silence. As we grieve, we tend to wonder why others don’t grieve the way that we do. Grief has trouble with perspective. It doesn’t recognize what is big, what is small, what matters, where history has been or where it might go. Grief eclipses all other sentiment of the soul, making itself loud, drowning out that which would seek to silence it.
I have no authority to lay out a right or wrong way to grieve a tragedy, whatever it may be. To quote Michael Scott, “There is such a thing as good grief. Just ask Charlie Brown.” In all seriousness, I think grief is good. It’s reacting to the pain of a deep wound. To stifle it doesn’t mean the wound is lessened, but that it’s left to fester without a chance to heal. Grief is necessary. I’m not sure it’s always productive, but whether or not it was is a judgement we can only make with the gift of hindsight.
As image-bearers, we must grieve injustice. We must grieve violence and hatred. We must grieve the trampling of other’s rights. As I sit with my grief, I wonder where it will lead me. I wonder what it asks of me. I don’t want to simply lend it an emotional loudspeaker until it is spent and then move on. I want to let it change me, to guide me to deeper love and compassion.
I hope the grief I see collectively expressed does lead past its initial expression to a fully-blooming flower of justice. I pray that I find what is required of me to see it grow.