Whether we ate lunch or not, I do know that on that first day after we visited the funeral home, Barb and I went to the house on her campus where various religious groups meet . We went there because it was a clean, well-lit space. Barb knew we needed that peace and that it was there in that space. No one was around, and, as one of the student leaders of an interfaith dialogue, she had a key. So we went and sat in the room where the night before we had munched on cheese and crackers as we mingled with other parents whose kids went to college there. Like my life, the room had transformed from lively conviviality into a place that was now deadly silent and still. And like Barb, I, too, needed to just be still and sit in the sunlight.
We cuddled on the couch and cried some. Up since the wee hours of the morning, we were shakey and exhausted. Then I did something which I did about every two hours for the next week: I pulled out the prayer book . Yes, I actually had my book of daily prayer with me in my bag. (I am a pastor, remember.) Barb pulled down a Bible from one of the shelves in the room, and we did one of the daily offices.
As I read aloud, I could feel myself drawing strength from the words. The familiar words held us. They held us together. As we prayed and read the beautiful words, it was as though we could feel the arms of God holding us, and I was assured that regardless of what lay ahead, I would be ok. Underneath all are the everlasting arms of God, as the psalmist says. I could feel the literal truth of this statement.
In the weeks ahead, I slept with my prayer book and Bible. It may not have been as good as sleeping with a husband, but they didn't take up more than their share of the bed. And they comforted me as nothing else could, for those ancient words of promise and hope and lament were like a lifeline that a drowning person clings to knowing it is the only thing that will save. It was the only thing that had any reality for me. Real Reality.
In the days that followed Bill’s death, I had a clarity about life that is akin to a religious epiphany. I was in a liminal space where it seemed I knew profound things not in my head or heart, but in my spirit, in my gut, right below my belly button. I felt a sense of oneness with the universe I’ve never felt and a deep compassion with all others. This feeling is not like feelings based on hormones that fluctuate moment to moment, but more like a deeper intuition about the Whole, which comes from the spirit.
While exhilarating because I KNEW I wasn’t alone (I could somehow feel people praying for me during this time), this sense of unity with others had its down side. I couldn’t be around others’ suffering at this time because I felt it; added on top of my own pain, others’ suffering, particularly their anxiety, crushed me to the point where I wasn’t sure I could carry on.
Intercessory prayer, though, was something I felt compelled to do because, again, I KNEW it somehow feeds the Spirit that holds us all. There is an essential energy exchange that happens in prayer that is our source of life. As long as I prayed, I could make it. Without that prayer, I was in danger.
Now in my weird cartoon mind, this feeling of oneness is symbolized by the belly button itself, the reminder of our bodies that we are dependent upon another body for life itself, something we all have that connects us all in what Freidrich Schleiermacher, a nineteenth-century German theologian, said is our absolute dependence.
When preaching students asked me whether they should preach to people’s heads or hearts, I told them that they should preach to their belly buttons, that deep spirit within us all that connects to the Holy Spirit, the part that loves eternally and knows that love’s wholeness, justice, shalom is the deep desire of God and the way things are supposed to be. The belly-button, which is the source of both head and heart, is what we need to preach to--our common humanity as fellow creatures on the planet who are aware that they are absolutely dependent upon the grace of God just to exist, the part of us that knows we screw up and can't fix it, the part that also longs for what on this earth is utopia, but which God is at work to bring about--wholeness, harmony, love and care for one another, justice, peace, health, contentment. This is what the story of Christ speaks to and satisfies in me.
Belief that somehow all of what I'm going through is part of God’s dominion in some way helps me get through. NOT THAT MY HUSBAND'S DEATH IS GOD'S WILL. It's not! But I believe that God's still in charge and that God’s Way of Life will prevail no matter what crucifixion Death may trot out to thwart us. In Christ, we cannot be stopped. We just keep living regardless of what Death throws at us. Until we don't. And then we're taken fully up into the Reality of God's Dominion. I believe in the Resurrection. With everything I am, I KNOW the Resurrection is true.
Dying of a heart attack in one’s sleep may be a good way to die, but I am here to tell you that it’s not so great for the person you're sleeping with. So I need a God who's been through the valley and come through on the other side. That's why I trust and love Jesus Christ in a much more profound way than I ever did before. He understands the worst of human pain, went through it to show us what sin does to one another and life together, and conquered its death with the Resurrection. As his Way of Life continued with people who were empowered by the Holy Spirit to live out his teachings in study, prayer, fellowship, and the breaking of bread, God continues to live and work in the world to bring all within Divine Dominion. So I can just trust God to be God and do what I need to do to let that happen for and through me.
If only it were that easy . . .
We cuddled on the couch and cried some. Up since the wee hours of the morning, we were shakey and exhausted. Then I did something which I did about every two hours for the next week: I pulled out the prayer book . Yes, I actually had my book of daily prayer with me in my bag. (I am a pastor, remember.) Barb pulled down a Bible from one of the shelves in the room, and we did one of the daily offices.
As I read aloud, I could feel myself drawing strength from the words. The familiar words held us. They held us together. As we prayed and read the beautiful words, it was as though we could feel the arms of God holding us, and I was assured that regardless of what lay ahead, I would be ok. Underneath all are the everlasting arms of God, as the psalmist says. I could feel the literal truth of this statement.
In the weeks ahead, I slept with my prayer book and Bible. It may not have been as good as sleeping with a husband, but they didn't take up more than their share of the bed. And they comforted me as nothing else could, for those ancient words of promise and hope and lament were like a lifeline that a drowning person clings to knowing it is the only thing that will save. It was the only thing that had any reality for me. Real Reality.
In the days that followed Bill’s death, I had a clarity about life that is akin to a religious epiphany. I was in a liminal space where it seemed I knew profound things not in my head or heart, but in my spirit, in my gut, right below my belly button. I felt a sense of oneness with the universe I’ve never felt and a deep compassion with all others. This feeling is not like feelings based on hormones that fluctuate moment to moment, but more like a deeper intuition about the Whole, which comes from the spirit.
While exhilarating because I KNEW I wasn’t alone (I could somehow feel people praying for me during this time), this sense of unity with others had its down side. I couldn’t be around others’ suffering at this time because I felt it; added on top of my own pain, others’ suffering, particularly their anxiety, crushed me to the point where I wasn’t sure I could carry on.
Intercessory prayer, though, was something I felt compelled to do because, again, I KNEW it somehow feeds the Spirit that holds us all. There is an essential energy exchange that happens in prayer that is our source of life. As long as I prayed, I could make it. Without that prayer, I was in danger.
Now in my weird cartoon mind, this feeling of oneness is symbolized by the belly button itself, the reminder of our bodies that we are dependent upon another body for life itself, something we all have that connects us all in what Freidrich Schleiermacher, a nineteenth-century German theologian, said is our absolute dependence.
When preaching students asked me whether they should preach to people’s heads or hearts, I told them that they should preach to their belly buttons, that deep spirit within us all that connects to the Holy Spirit, the part that loves eternally and knows that love’s wholeness, justice, shalom is the deep desire of God and the way things are supposed to be. The belly-button, which is the source of both head and heart, is what we need to preach to--our common humanity as fellow creatures on the planet who are aware that they are absolutely dependent upon the grace of God just to exist, the part of us that knows we screw up and can't fix it, the part that also longs for what on this earth is utopia, but which God is at work to bring about--wholeness, harmony, love and care for one another, justice, peace, health, contentment. This is what the story of Christ speaks to and satisfies in me.
Belief that somehow all of what I'm going through is part of God’s dominion in some way helps me get through. NOT THAT MY HUSBAND'S DEATH IS GOD'S WILL. It's not! But I believe that God's still in charge and that God’s Way of Life will prevail no matter what crucifixion Death may trot out to thwart us. In Christ, we cannot be stopped. We just keep living regardless of what Death throws at us. Until we don't. And then we're taken fully up into the Reality of God's Dominion. I believe in the Resurrection. With everything I am, I KNOW the Resurrection is true.
Dying of a heart attack in one’s sleep may be a good way to die, but I am here to tell you that it’s not so great for the person you're sleeping with. So I need a God who's been through the valley and come through on the other side. That's why I trust and love Jesus Christ in a much more profound way than I ever did before. He understands the worst of human pain, went through it to show us what sin does to one another and life together, and conquered its death with the Resurrection. As his Way of Life continued with people who were empowered by the Holy Spirit to live out his teachings in study, prayer, fellowship, and the breaking of bread, God continues to live and work in the world to bring all within Divine Dominion. So I can just trust God to be God and do what I need to do to let that happen for and through me.
If only it were that easy . . .
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