[God in the Yard] the weeping: freeze-frame celebration
Wednesday, 18 August 2010
Claire asked for a picture considering pilgrimage. L.L. invited me into her back yard for a glimpse into her journey, and a door in my own heart cracked open.
I say “cracked” because I am not brave to push it wide yet, because I am slow to choose vulnerable without confidence that God will be a safe place for me. There is such a difference between what my head knows true and my heart knows true and what my heart is ready to live.
L.L. Barkat opens the fourth chapter of God in the Yard with a quote from David Whyte: “We spend… too little time experiencing the griefs themselves. The result is that these griefs remain hidden and never open us to our joys.”
He is right. There is not room for grief in a world that moves fast beyond the moments that change us. The tide comes in and the tide goes out a hundred thousand times in spite of the havoc we need to experience before we can move whole into life again.
Some things must be grieved in order that we can look into them and see the beauty God wreaks in our suffering – I say “wreaks” because it is a hard word, because that fellowship in Christ’s sufferings means that death must win for Life to triumph.
I know about death. But I don’t know how to grieve with joy. I don’t want to be a victim of my suffering, but so long as I attempt to tamp the pain down and ignore it, so long as I attempt to stanch the tears, I fall prey to its power.
I am twenty-eight years old. I became ill at nineteen. I started collapsing at twenty. I dropped out of school at twenty-one because I was too weak to continue.
I know about death. I have watched dreams die, and I have clung more tightly to dreams I have than I ought to cling. I have watched a love die and I still do not understand how this can be so, how what was there one day could be so gone the next. There are things in my heart that tears cannot touch, things that send me reeling, leave me grasping for an explanation.
I learned how to grieve, but I didn’t learn to grieve well or graceful. I know about death. I know how to avoid the pain of it, how to wall me up and push the love away. I know how to be cold and hard and compassionate without giving my heart to be hurt. I know how to regret on the inside without letting it spill to the outside.
L.L. titles her chapter, “Weep: celebration.” What celebration can there be in the things that tear us apart?
There is no real justification for suffering. No matter how many pretty words and trite, spiritual clichés we apply, it feels absolutely wrong to us. I blame others, I blame myself, I blame God – but there is no one to blame; I was born into it, daughter of Eve, choosing it myself with gnashing teeth and such a deep desire for love it breaks me on repeat.
It is upside down, I know it must be.
I don’t know how to take this chapter in one sitting. I don’t know how to move on. My pilgrimage is at a moving point, at a stopping point. I was reminded this morning as I pulled my clothes on over the brain fog that God can do in an hour what it would take years to figure out on my own.
I don’t want to consider the suffering as the waves sweep toward me and past me up on the shore where I’ve been standing, wishing to see what is on the distant horizon.
I look down with the ache and the shame of my immobility, and there in the water is the sky, and there in the suffering is the memory that it is Jesus’ suffering that my own suffering brings into focus. There is the grace of that hope that echoes over the ages, “Oh give thanks to the Lord, for He is good! His mercy endures forever.” (Ps. 118)
And I know, sometimes “all His waves” that have washed over me must be waves of His goodness, mercy-water that means I am not consumed. He is faithful as the tides, and my hope is sure.
Surely there is room here for celebration. It is not the suffering I celebrate – for that only ensures my victimization. But it is Him in it that we celebrate, Jesus my Savior, the promise that one day all will be right-side up again, that the sky will be in its proper place, that our tears will no longer be an ocean.
So I grieve that I may celebrate. I feel the whole of the endings so that I remember forever. I watch the sky in the waves, appearing and reappearing as they ebb and flow with me in the middle learning to see. Grief is, as Claire puts it, a “freeze-frame.” It stops time as photography stops time, and I turn it over and over in the years and the wearing of it and the weeping of it.
God meets me here, in the unresolved middle places, before the door is thrown wide and the grief becomes too much. He tells me “It is finished” because He bore this – even this – and He has risen victorious in spite of it.
related:
“how grace used to drift in with the night”
“find / the moon”
“playing toward God”
quiet spaces
No. 1 — August 18th, 2010 at 11:47 am
I don’t want to say that suffering is necessary to life. After all, in God’s original plan, and in the re-created, restored earth toward which he is moving, we didn’t and won’t have suffering. But I also see that in music, dissonance resolves, and that resolve wouldn’t be beautiful without the dissonance. There’s an anticipation in the dissonance, and that anticipation is beautiful.
We anticipate God’s ultimate resolve, which we taste in Christ’s victorious resurrection.
Grieve, my friend, because in that grief is anticipation.
Heather´s last [type] ..The Masters Artist- The Artist Prophet
No. 2 — August 18th, 2010 at 12:01 pm
Beautiful. Clear. Deep.
I don’t believe we celebrate the griefs in the sense of wanting them or feeling them to be right. I believe that when we close ourselves off emotionally in one arena, we often close ourselves in other arenas as well. So joy is elusive as long as we refuse to allow grief.
Grief itself? I don’t know how to take it either. I really don’t. Except maybe the way Deidra opens it to us today in that link you added (so perfect to do that).
L.L. Barkat´s last [type] ..Seems It Was Yesterday
No. 3 — August 18th, 2010 at 12:04 pm
I know this feeling of no room for joy, all the while keeping the door to grief shut. I didn’t know it at the time, but anger was a missing emotion. I didn’t want to feel anger. Thought it was ungodly. Until a trusted mentor helped me understand, there was nothing ungodly about feeling anger. Then, I allowed myself to entertain the idea. God has the key that will turn the lock to release joy. “God can do in an hour what it would take years to figure out on my own.” But, we don’t usually see the many years before that one hour. Sometimes, it takes a trusted friend to help us. It did for me. Hugs… xxoo…
Bonnie Gray | FaithBarista´s last [type] ..Sidelined — Going Off Script
No. 4 — August 18th, 2010 at 1:08 pm
“God meets me here, in the unresolved middle places, before the door is thrown wide”
Amen.
No. 5 — August 18th, 2010 at 2:10 pm
that is a stunning photo – it looks like we’re veiwing under the world’s skin. And I love the deep thoughtfulness and honesty and beauty of your writing. Thank you for sharing so much with us.
No. 6 — August 18th, 2010 at 2:30 pm
I agree with Sarah about your photo.
You present beautifully the meaning and questions you find through your reading of “God in the Yard”. Much of what you write is a kind of poetry of your soul, I think.
Maureen´s last [type] ..Thought for the Day
No. 7 — August 18th, 2010 at 2:30 pm
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by heatheragoodman, L.L. Barkat, L.L. Barkat, Kelly Langner Sauer, Kelly Langner Sauer and others. Kelly Langner Sauer said: "the weeping: a freeze-framed celebration" – @thehighcalling Photoplay, and @llbarkat 's #Godintheyard chapter 4 photo http://bit.ly/cL71qw [...]
No. 8 — August 18th, 2010 at 5:49 pm
Thank you, Kelly, for this reflection. I’m sorry you’re hurting so much. I don’t understand why some — including you, and me — have to suffer more than others. Yes, we certainly need to grieve our broken lives and dreams — which is where I’m at, just now, so your honest sharing is deeply appreciated. I guess we tend to feel that mourning for ourselves, for what we’ve lost, is “not okay”. That God in us ought to be enough! I’ve been depreciating myself this week for having to take time just to drift, not even thinking much, just “being”. My must-be-done-or-else list just falling away even though some things are too important to just ignore. But that down time is also part of the grieving process, isn’t it?
I pray that God will speak to you today, and bless you richly. Reading your post encouraged me. Thank you.
No. 9 — August 18th, 2010 at 8:47 pm
Thanks for opening your heart to us. I hope it lessened a teeny bit of your grief and let in a sliver of joy.
No. 10 — August 18th, 2010 at 9:23 pm
this is really ministering to me today…i have only experience deep, deep grief two times. once in the aftermath of my own sin and two with my dad. both very different kinds of griefs where i found no joy in the midst of it…but in His own unique way God showed me of the joy to come…and i held on to that…still holding on to that.
Melissa | Madabella: made beautiful´s last [type] ..Detour Revival
No. 11 — August 19th, 2010 at 9:34 am
i have no words, only my own heart. i am learning with you.
No. 12 — August 20th, 2010 at 9:31 am
a stunning story of life and pilgrimage .. as always your image speaks through the essay
No. 13 — August 20th, 2010 at 4:50 pm
Can a person really be compassionate without giving away bit and pieces of their heart? If yes, why bother? If not, just give it away. God has plenty of love with which to fill it up again (and again and again).
Lovely picture. Where you laying on your belly in the wet sand to take it? ;-)
Blessings.
A Simple Country Girl´s last [type] ..Something I am Not Writing
No. 14 — August 20th, 2010 at 5:19 pm
So I grieve that I may celebrate.
this meets me where i’m at today … in an in-between, in a waiting, in a grief i don’t know how to grieve yet. a good reminder that these are two sides, and that He encompasses them both.
No. 15 — August 20th, 2010 at 10:36 pm
“II have watched dreams die, and I have clung more tightly to dreams I have than I ought to cling.” so true that we all grieve in some way. More than we know. Gorgeous photo.
No. 16 — November 14th, 2010 at 4:29 pm
[...] is present in my dark see? this is who i am. remember how / the birds were eaten / by the sky the weeping: freeze-frame celebration “how grace used to drift in with the night” quiet spaces “playing toward [...]
No. 17 — May 3rd, 2011 at 6:59 am
[...] present in my dark 7. see? this is who i am. 6. remember how / the birds were eaten / by the sky 5. the weeping: freeze-frame celebration 4. “how grace used to drift in with the night” 3. quiet spaces 2. “playing toward [...]