Grief Upon Grief
FROM THE RECTOR
Microorganisms grow exponentially. One cell divides to make two. Two then become four. Four then split into eight. Before long, instead of a handful of new bacteria being produced every replication cycle, millions begat millions. Under the right conditions, what starts small quickly becomes overwhelming in number.
Over the last two years, we have focused a great deal on the replication and spread of the novel coronavirus, but we have also carried within ourselves another burden that has been growing exponentially. Our grief, largely borne out of sight, has been multiplying with each experience of loss. Every social engagement we have skipped, every vacation plan we have scrapped, every birthday and baptism we have missed has increased our experience of what has been taken from us not merely as one more loss to add to a long list of losses but as a multiplier of our grief.
Some losses are much harder to bear than others, but every loss awakens within us that cascading spiral of pain and disorientation that is initiated when another replication cycle of our grief unfolds. When a spouse dies, we experience not only the terrible loss associated with that death, but we also reencounter all the other deaths and losses we have been collecting throughout the years. Standing at a graveside, we feel not only the absence of the one we have come to bury but also that deeper, more profound ache that stems from the multiplied effect of parents long gone, of a marriage that ended in divorce, of a career path that was abandoned years ago, and of all the other griefs we have been carrying with us.
Because of the exponential nature of grief, we sometimes experience a hurt that seems disproportionate to the loss we are encountering in the moment. We weep uncontrollably when we learn about the death of a friend whom we had not seen in years. We react angrily when someone cancels dinner plans at the last minute. We act as if our whole day is ruined because someone snatches up the parking spot we were waiting for. Sometimes those tears well up as if out of nowhere, leaving us scared and frustrated, but judging ourselves or others too harshly will not help. We must remember that each grief encountered is a lifetime of grief awakened.
Grief always collects exponentially, but the pandemic has provided the sort of “ideal conditions” that allow for that growth to take place with ferocious speed. With the right substrate, proper temperature, and sufficient room to grow, a microorganism might be able to replicate ten times faster than if the situation were not specifically tailored for replication. Because we have experienced one loss after another and because we have had to endure those losses more or less isolated from our community of support, we have endured decades worth of grief compressed into a two-year span. As a result, our capacity for weathering even minor storms has been diminished, and a new, more significant loss can even feel life threatening.
Right now, many in our parish community are having a difficult time because of grief. Over the past few weeks, we have experienced several deaths, a few of which have been wholly unexpected and fundamentally disorienting. Even if all of us do not know personally those who have died, we all share in that grief because we are all connected. Our experience of grief may be different, but the grief itself is the same—the same reality of loss and pain and brokenness from which all of us draw in various measures.
The hope that sustains us is not merely that the sum of our collected grief will one day be outweighed by God’s goodness but that the entirety of our loss—no matter how large it grows—cannot in any way diminish God’s saving love. As shown in several of the apostle Paul’s letters, early Christians struggled to make sense of God’s great victory over pain and death in the resurrection of Jesus while friends and family continued to suffer persecution, illness, and death. If God has already won the final victory, why is that victory not fully manifest in our lives now? Why would God let the faithful ones endure such hardship and grief?
The challenge of faith—for them and for us—is to recognize that the nature of that victory, while complete, is not realized in ways that enable us to escape earthly suffering. We may struggle mightily in this world, but because of God’s love in Christ we know that those struggles do not define us. They are not a sign that our faith is meaningless or that God has abandoned us, but, because Christ’s victory was accomplished through the cross, they are the very path we walk toward our own salvation. And, perhaps most importantly, because of Jesus, we know we do not walk that path alone.
In moments like this one, when the burden of grief has mounted up and seems to be growing exponentially, faith like that does not come easily. It is lived and worked out, little by little, one day at a time, among all who share those burdens and pursue that faith together. Our faith does not give us simple answers that make everything okay and eliminate the doubts that surround tough times like these. Instead, it is a shelter to which we return over and over even though the storms continue to blow. “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble,” the psalmist says. We are called to return and rest in the depths of God’s unfathomable love especially when we have no way to make sense of the losses we face. What we can know is that God is with us even in our greatest struggles and that those struggles cannot defeat God’s saving love.
Yours Faithfully,
Evan