Once utterly abandoned ...

There will be talk of "moving on".

Some such talk will be done formally, such as in counseling or spiritual direction.

Some such talk will be done informally, such as among family and friends.

Some such talk can have a ring of truth and be right on the mark.

Some such talk can entirely miss the mark and be cruel if it weren't otherwise so thoughtless but well-intentioned.

Some such talk can arise from expectations deep within your superego, from your need to conform to "the right thing to do" as you feel responsible to your God, to others and even to yourself, from ideas that have come from society and from your upbringing.

Some such talk can come from your unconscious self, from dreams, from your own conscious ego.

Some can even come from our departed loved ones in signs and dreams and inspiration.

What confusion can ensue! and what turmoil one might feel of how to discern what to do? and when?

How does one discern?

Much of this talk can come, even if indirectly, such as through subtle (or not so subtle) remarks or hints, that arise from others' needs to know if you're okay, others' needs to cure you and heal you, others' own needs to see and face you with you newly empowered and not to see you in your pain.

I don't have any answers but I did want to affirm that the way you ultimately deal with "moving on" need not be either this way or that, for it is not an either/or approach that will lead you through this journey but a catholic both/and approach. It is both/and because we journey radically alone in our beautiful, snowflake-like uniqueness and also radically united in our wondrous, ocean-like togetherness. It is a paschal rhythm of snow falling, then melting, then flowing together until, once again, totally differentiated we rise as droplets back into the sky, beckoned by the Sun.

In grief, we're all snowflakes and are on our own in our unique journey to healing. This is especially true for the timing and duration of the process, for the special angels and ministries which will accompany us.

In grief, we're all alike, too, in our common humanity, in our experience of grief's physical pains and psychological turmoil, in our movement through mostly the same stages and processes.

Grief, therefore, seems to be much like the rest of our spiritual journey where we invoke because we have been convoked, where we are called as a People but must respond on our own.

Grief comes in waves, just like spiritual consolation and desolation. Its physical and psychological manifestations do have their spiritual concommitants. At first, the waves are high amplitude and high frequency and of long duration, interspersed with moments of respite that come from both shock and from consolations. Eventually, the waves are lower, come further apart and don't last quite as long. The moments of respite, then, last longer. The manner of our consolations, however, may never be quite the same. The bitter taste fades; the sweetest remains; but any frenetic excitement from huge waves of consolation on life's earlier journey give way to a more peaceful and pacific calm, not as the world gives.

On the spiritual journey, our loss of God can take us through a similar Dark Night.

Where you used to be there is a hole in the world, which I find myself constantly walking around in daytime, and falling into at night. Edna St. Vincent Millay


Some thoughts of others below, whether of God, or of your Lover, may speak to you:

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On my own, pretending he's beside me. All alone I walk with him 'til morning. Without him I feel his arms around me, and when I lose my way, I close my eyes and he has found me. Les Miserables

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Time Does Not Bring Relief


Time does not bring relief; you all have lied
Who told me time would ease me of my pain!
I miss him in the weeping of the rain;
I want him at the shrinking of the tide;
The old snows melt from every mountain-side,
And last year's leaves are smoke in every lane;
But last year's bitter loving must remain
Heaped on my heart, and my old thoughts abide.
There are a hundred places where I fear
To go, so with his memory they brim.
And entering with relief some quiet place
Where never fell his boot or shone his face
I say, "There is no memory of him here!"
And so stand stricken, so remembering him.


Edna St. Vincent Millay, 1917

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When we walk to the edge of all the light we have and take the step into the darkness of the unknown, we must believe that one of two things will happen. There will be something solid for us to stand on, or we will be taught to fly. Patrick Overton

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Absence diminishes little passions and increases great ones, as wind extinguishes candles and fans a fire. Francois de la Rochefoucauld

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Remember the truth that once was spoken: To love another person is to see the face of God! Les Miserables

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There have been times when I think we do not desire Heaven, but more often I find myself wondering whether, in our heart of hearts, we have ever desired anything else. C. S. Lewis

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When we honestly ask ourselves which persons in our lives mean the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a warm and tender hand. The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing, not curing, not healing and face with us the reality of our powerlessness, that is a friend who cares. Henri Nouwen, Out of Solitude

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So, in closing, perhaps grief counselors and spiritual directors, sometimes, have more in common than we think?

pax tibi,
jb

a caveat:

I hope that you will abandon the urge to simplify everything, to look for formulas and easy answers, and begin to think multidimensionally, to glory in the mystery and paradoxes of life, not to be dismayed by the multitude of causes and consequences that are inherent in each experience - to appreciate the fact that life is complex. M. Scott Peck


anecdotes, comments & clarifications appreciated

Some such talk can entirely miss the mark and be cruel if it weren't otherwise so thoughtless but well-intentioned.

Indeed! If we but "go with the grief" and live with its bitterness without repressing or distorting, in time it becomes "bitter-sweet," and eventually gives way to sweet mellowness of heart. Such has been my experience through several times of sorrow.

Remember the truth that once was spoken: To love another person is to see the face of God! Les Miserables

I love Les Mis, and although I've heard this passage a hundred times or more, it's difficult for me to listen to it sung without becoming tearful (not a common occurrence for me). So very simple, but so true! And so very beautifully and tenderly sung expressed in the musical.


Thanks for another fine reflection, JB.

Phil

Again, what a wonderful post. The internet, like commercial TV, can be such a wasteland. But PBS (and JB!) can, from time to time, turn it into something else.

When we walk to the edge of all the light we have and take the step into the darkness of the unknown, we must believe that one of two things will happen. There will be something solid for us to stand on, or we will be taught to fly. Patrick Overton

Great quote, and this one alone could be talked about at length. I'm reminded of that wacky warning label that was supposed to have accompanied a kid's super-hero costume: "Warning - suit does not allow wearer to fly." Well, we all could use a suit that allows the wearer fly.

I love your references to Les Miserables. A couple years ago I read the entire, what was it, 1400 page novel. It affected me greatly at the time and still does to some extent. It's hard to put into words, but reading the book, particularly one of that length and that subject material, is like accompanying Hercules on one of his labors. It's an epic.

"My soul belongs to God I know, I made that bargain long ago." - 24601

"Take an eye for an eye. Turn your heart into stone. This is all I have lived for. This is all I have known." [Not autobiographical but such a great musical and thematic point in the musical.]