Church member Holly Tanguay’s message addresses the topic of grief and self-compassion.
Sermon
“Grief makes artists of us all as we weave new patterns in the fabric of our lives.”
by Greta Crosby, a UU minister and author or Tree and Jubilee, a book of meditations.
Today’s sermon will be almost as much poetry as prose. It will also be quite personal. Any wisdom I have to share with you today comes from the lessons I have learned in the last year. May my experiences provide comfort and guidance to you as you too grieve or deal with other deep emotional pain now or in the future.
When we lose someone dear to us, someone who was part of our daily lives, the fabric of life feels deeply torn. It may continue to feel torn for a long time. Yet, as we inch forward, we inevitably begin to weave new patterns. We pick up the remaining old threads, gather in threads of support from our communities, and spin new ones from fresh experiences and from our own growth. Somehow, even when we did not believe it possible, we each, the shuttle on the loom of our own lives, keep weaving and new patterns emerge.
I have lived that quote for the last 370 days. On July 10 of last year my husband Bob died of T cell lymphoma. I know I have many companions on this journey of grief. Many of you have suffered recent losses or face them in the near future. Actually, recent and near are irrelevant. Significant losses remain with us for all time. Losses yet to come call us to prepare no matter how far off we hope they are.
My message is one of hope. I have experienced a deepening in the currents of my life through grappling with the loss of Bob, and I have received unexpected gifts from the process of grieving.
I do not say that the death of a loved one is a gift. Far from it. Even when death comes at the end of a long and rewarding life, even when we see it coming, even when we know it is not a tragedy, the loss is stark.
Prague by Stephen Dobyns
The day I learned my wife was dying
I told myself if anyone said, Well, she had
a good life, I’d punch him in the nose.
How much life represents a good life?
Maybe a hundred years, which would
give us nearly forty more to visit Oslo
and take the train to Vladivostok,
learn German to read Thomas Mann
in the original. Even more baseball games,
more days at the beach and the baking
of more walnut cakes for family birthdays.
How much time is enough time? How much
is needed for all those unspent kisses,
those slow walks along cobbled streets?
I also do not say that grief can or should be “gotten over” though people are told to get over their losses . Michael Lee West, expressed his feelings about such messages vividly in American Pie.
“I was tired of well-meaning folks, telling me it was time I got over being heartbroke. When somebody tells you that, a little bell ought to ding in your mind. Some people don’t know grief from garlic grits. There’s somethings a body ain’t meant to get over. No I’m not suggesting you wallow in sorrow, or let it drag on; no I am just saying it never really goes away. (A death in the family) is like having a pile of rocks dumped in your front yard. Every day you walk out and see them rocks. They’re sharp and ugly and heavy. You just learn to live around them the best way you can. Some people plant moss or ivy; some leave it be. Some folks take the rocks one by one, and build a wall.”
There are more options than walls of course – sculpture, or stones engraved with poetry, to name a couple.
Loss connects us to our deepest needs: the need for shared pleasures, for touch, for love and for meaning in our lives. Even as we yearn backwards for the treasures we once had, grief reminds us to treasure life now and drink of it deeply.
Any new grief also connects us to every other loss we carry. Some of those losses may have been well mourned and stand ready to welcome a new loved one into the company of cherished memories. Others may have left wounds not fully healed by time. The pain of those can be newly intensified. Still others may have been sealed up without healing at all, leaving us unaware of buried suffering that was never comforted.
As we struggle to cope with a new tear in the fabric of our accustomed lives there are perils and opportunities. Some of the time we must just “soldier on,” cope with settling the estate, paying the bills, mowing the lawn and caring for others and ourselves as best we can. But, if we only soldier on, only stay positive because that is what our loved one would want, only keep chin up and eyes on horizon, we will miss the chance to hold and comfort ourselves, the chance to grow through our grief, developing deeper compassion for ourselves and others, renewing our awareness of how sacred each life is, including our own.
Several months after Bob’s death I attended a five day intensive course on Mindful Self-Compassion in Sedona, Arizona. The course was developed and taught by Christopher Germer and Kristin Neff. I chose this particular course because I had met one of the presenters and because I have always been unusually gifted in self-criticism. We all are likely to possess too much skill in self-criticism but my inner critic, believe me, has a black belt. The course I attended combines Buddhist wisdom and practice with modern psychology and neuroscience. Participants learn and practice mindfulness and self-compassion techniques in an atmosphere of openness and mutual support.
It was a transformative experience. In the months since Bob’s death my home had been filled with the new life of my daughter and granddaughter. My sorrow had been measured, manageable. I feared that deeper grief would pounce on me when I least expected so I set myself the task of facing my sorrow during my time away. Halfway through the course, using break time to sit in nature and welcome the mourning for Bob I had been pushing aside I finally experienced the depth of that sorrow but also experienced something new – a direct link between this loss and a period of emotional deprivation in my childhood sixty years before. The “you” in the poem below is my husband, Bob.
Sixty Years
While she rests behind the bedroom gate.
She recovered but my internal prison remained.
Spent the next thirty years together.
And my heart melted.
I learned that I cannot feel the depth of my grief for Bob without also experiencing the previously uncomforted pain from my childhood. But since that moment I have also been able to greet my black belt inner critic with some compassion. Before my heart believed she was right even when my mind thought she was not. Now I can greet her with something like, “Oh you poor dear – trying so hard to be perfect. Come here. We will get through this together.”
The lessons that lead to my growing self-compassion were many. Of course the workshop took five days. I can only give you a taste in five minutes. I learned that
“Self-compassion has three main components: (1) self-kindness, (2)a sense of common humanity, and (3) mindfulness. Self-kindness entailsbeing warm and caring toward ourselves when things go wrong in our lives.Common humanity recognizes the shared nature of suffering when difficultsituations arise, rather than feeling desperately alone. And mindfulnessrefers here to the ability to open to painful experience (“this hurts!”) withnonreactive, balanced awareness. Taken together, self-compassion is preciselythe opposite of our typical reactions to internal threat—self-criticism,self-isolation, and self-absorption.” Transforming Trauma, Chapter 3, Germer and Neff
Mindfulness practice focuses on current experience, teaching us to welcome and acknowledge all that arises in our minds. It asks, “What am I experiencing now.” Self-compassion focuses on the experiencer, teaching us to comfort the suffering that arises with experience, to love ourselves as we would love others. It asks, “What do I need now?”
Self-compassion teaches us to treat ourselves as we would a dear friend; touching our own hearts compassionately – physically with hands on heart or spiritually with wishes for comfort and ease; accepting and forgiving our own mistakes and flaws as we do those of our friends; even breathing compassionately, with the intention of bringing in comfort. Compassionate practice also includes closing down emotion when suffering becomes too intense. Mindful enjoyment of a shower, time in nature, healthy food and adequate rest all count as self-compassionate practice. Meditation itself may take on a new flavor, less a sober discipline and more a warm bath.
A surprising lesson from the Mindful Self-compassion course was the importance of living deeply, of finding and living in accordance with a purpose you discover for your own life. Meditating on this question during the workshop I was surprised again. A wise inner voice told me a purpose – To bear witness to the beauty of the world and put it onto words. I began to weave a new pattern in the fabric of my life – writing poetry and making time to experience nature. The poem “Sixty Years” and the one I will read next were the first threads of the new pattern.
Through
– John Muir
Are they not sacred also?
Have you not prevailed also?
When you grieve, or suffer intensely in some other way, look for opportunities to open to your pain and to yourself but do so with the greatest possible kindness and support. Meditate, pray, paint, carve, write, dance, trek, make music, whatever, but do so in loving company – your own company, if you can do so with self-compassion, or with wisely chosen others who will help you on the journey.
Following my own advice, I found a second transformative experience. I enrolled in a program offered by the Bertolon Center for Grief and Healing at Care Dimensions Hospice in Danvers. The program is called “Writing Through the Heart of Grief.” It was created and led by Ellen Frankel, an author and grief counselor at The Center. For two periods of six weeks each a small group of us met each Monday and wrote our experiences, responding each week to readings and prompts chosen by the leader. We used process writing which dictates keeping the pen moving, writing until the buzzer sounds, never crossing out, and going where the writing leads you even when you are reluctant.
Turning toward pain led us deeper.
The Well of Grief by David Whyte
the still surface on the well of grief
to the place we cannot breathe
the secret water, cold and clear,
the small round coins
thrown by those who wished for something else.
After writing we took turns reading what we had written and deeply listening to one another. Doing so helped us express our love for the person we mourned and the pain of our loss but also to discover our own strengths and gifts. In the company of others we found that our own journeys were sacred not shameful, and that grief is not only loss, it is love.
Two wise thinkers from the past told of the transformative power of language:
“Give sorrow words; the grief that does not speak whispers the o’er-fraught heart and bids it break.” – William Shakespeare
“Anything that’s human is mentionable, and anything that is mentionable can be more manageable. When we can talk about our feelings, they become less overwhelming, less upsetting, and less scary. The people we trust with that important talk can help us know that we are not alone.” – Fred Rogers
I will conclude with a final poem. This one by Jennifer Welwood
Unconditional
Willing to experience aloneness,
I discover connection everywhere;
Turning to face my fear,
I meet the warrior who lives within;
Opening to my loss,
I gain the embrace of the universe;
Surrendering into emptiness,
I find fullness without end.
Each condition I flee from pursues me,
Each condition I welcome transforms me
And becomes itself transformed
Into its radiant jewel-like essence.
I bow to the one who has made it so,
Who has crafted this Master Game.
To play it is purest delight;
To honor its form–true devotion.
Readings During the Service
“To be joyful in the universe is a brave and reckless act. The courage for joy springs not from the certainty of human experience, but the surprise. Our astonishment at being loved, our bold willingness to love in return – these wonders promise the possibility of joyfulness, no matter how often and how harshly love seems to be lost. Therefore, despite the world’s sorrows, we give thanks for our loves, for our joys and for the continued courage to be happily surprised.”
(Molly Fumia, b. 20th century)
Twilight: After Haying
by Jane Kenyon
Yes, long shadows go out
from the bales; and yes, the soul
must part from the body:
what else could it do?
The men sprawl near the baler,
reluctant to leave the field.
They talk and smoke,
and the tips of their cigarettes
blaze like small roses
in the night air. (It arrived
and settled among them
before they were aware.)
The moon comes
to count the bales,
and the dispossessed —
Whip-poor-will, Whip-poor-will
— sings from the dusty stubble.
These things happen…the soul’s bliss
and suffering are bound together
like the grasses….
The last, sweet exhalations
of timothy and vetch
go out with the song of the bird;
the ravaged field
grows wet with dew.
Beannacht (“Blessing”)
by John O’Donohue
*currach = type of Irish boat
