“St. Joseph helped God be a man.” ~Ernie (L’Arche, Clinton, Iowa)
The role of this father
“Still she wept”
I received many kind words yesterday on the anniversary of my brother Tim’s death. I thought I would share those from two dear friends in the hope that they many console any of you who have lost a loved one.
I remember my mother talking about the death of her brother, Tom, in World War II on the battlefields of France. It had been 40 years, and still she wept. The great losses in life, those people God makes in his own image and likeness and gives to us in love, I think are right to always mourn.
If time has done anything, it deepens our grief. The longer we live, the more fully we become aware of who they were to us and the more intimately we experience what their love meant for us. (Henri Nouwen)
Of course, we do not mourn as those who do not know Christ and place our hope in Him . . . but we also know that Jesus wept. And we take great comfort in that.
The waters of rest
My brother, Tim, loved to take photos. In fact, we used to joke about it. He would show up at a family event and always announce that he had some pictures to show us. The reason we joked about it was because they were predominantly of dead dear and caught fish. (You’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all.)
But at the same time, he also had an eye for beauty. He loved the outdoors. Here are a couple of pictures he sent me taken at the place on the lake where he lived.
He definitely has the best view from where he is now. (Can’t wait to see it myself.) “He leads me beside the waters of rest; he restores my soul.” (Ps 23.2)
I love you, Tim. Always will.
It’s worth quoting again
It’s worth quoting again. One of the quotes from the talk I gave last night at Witnesses to Hope, that is. It’s from Michael Card’s book, The Hidden Face of God:
“Those who are lost in this wilderness of grief, most especially at the loss of a child, have come to know that there is no comfort for what they are experiencing, no morning at the end of this long dark night. Theirs is an honest hopelessness that sees with a disturbing clarity through their tears that there is no hope. It simply does not exist . . . anywhere. Neither is there the seed of the hope that it ever will exist.
“At this darkest stage—in order for comfort to exist—it must be created out of the nothingness that smothers the sufferer. Comfort ex nihilio, which is to say, a comfort that can only come from the God who alone can create something out of nothing.”
So if you feel hopeless and that you have nothing, that’s actually a very good place for God . . . who loves to create something out of nothing.
Thank you to all of those of you who were at my talk last night. Thank you for being such a warm and safe environment, for “sitting with me.”
“Our wounds are part of who we are”
Two songs are coming to mind today. One was written by a friend of mine, Kitty Donohoe, on 9-11 which she was later invited to sing at the dedication of the Pentagon Memorial. The name of the song is “There are No Words.” Michael Card in his book, A Sacred Sorrow, talks about the importance of lament in our lives, the need to struggle through our griefs to God, as Job did. In listening to Kitty’s song (which you can do here), you may wonder where God is in it. My take on it is that it’s the beginning stage of a lament, trying to begin to grieve. In the beginning, Job himself cursed the day he was born . . . but he stayed in the struggle with God, and we know the ending. And we know there is “a balm that can heal these wounds that will last a lifetime long.”
The second song is by Michael Card: “Lift Up Your Sorrows”, an encouragement to true lament, to stay in the pain and grief, wrestling through it to find the Lord.
And one more here, another by Michael:”Underneath the Door.” It is in a sense a testimony to his own struggling through pain in his life to meet God in it. “But our wounds are part of who we are and there’s nothing left to chance/And pain’s the pen that writes the songs and they call us forth to dance.”
Darkness is not dark to thee . . .
On Tim’s first anniversary, I was still on crutches (from a broken ankle), but all the sisters in my house drove me up to Tim’s grave. They even brought a folding lawn chair for me to be able to just sit at his grave. I read aloud from Psalm 139:
Where can I go from your Spirit?
Or where shall I flee from your presence?
If I ascend to heaven, you are there!
If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there!
If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,
even there you hand shall lead me,
and your right hand shall hold me.
If I say, “Let only darkness cover me,
and the light around me be night,”
even the darkness is not dark to thee,
the night is bright as the day,
for darkness is as light with thee.
Sitting with me
I’ve been thinking about what I found most supportive after my brother, Tim, died. I think of a few things. People who just sat with me, were with me, not saying much, just being there. Like Job’s friends who sat with him in silence–probably the only thing that they did right. People who said something when they didn’t know what to say–but at least they said something, not pretending that nothing had happened. People who didn’t try to “fix” me by giving me all kinds of perspective, Christian or otherwise. Again, sometimes the best thing was just being there with me, not necessarily saying a lot. Not leaving me entirely alone. (I was afraid to be alone those first days after he died.) People who surprised me with gifts: two dozen white roses, a dinner, a card. People who would ask me, “Can I do anything for you?” and be okay with me saying, “No, but thank you so much for asking.”
Friends who still recognize that I’m grieving, even four years later, and still “sit with me” in it. To you especially, I say thank you.
By pictures
I’m finding it hard to blog these days. As I’ve already mentioned, my brother Tim’s anniversary is approaching and I’m working on a talk for Monday night’s Witnesses to Hope in which I’ll be talking about his death, so a lot is going on deep down–but not yet at the point where I can write about it. (Saving it for the talk on Monday night.) It’s time like these when I feel that poetry or photography or music say it better. I’ve been listening a lot to the soundtrack from Thérèse, probably because it gives expression to both delight and sorrow. Consequently today I’m just going to post some pictures of my brother, Tim. (He was child #3, born two and a half years after me, and as you would probably guess, there were not many baby pictures of him! Or pictures just by himself, although I found a few.) So here goes:
Thank you for letting me share these with you . . .
We are all beggars
If you read my blog, you know that I enjoy reading Fr. Pat McNulty from Madonna House. In a very recent article, he talks about experiencing poverty during Lent, discovering how poor we really are. An excerpt:
Since that first Lent, much has changed in my life: there has been growth, healing, and conversion. But in some deep, deep place in my heart, I know that the real change hasn’t taken final hold yet. And it’s down there in those depths that I need to discover how poor I really am and how to beg for God’s mercy and for the ability to embrace this poverty with new hope and joy.
For I am insufficient unto myself. I, along with all of mankind, am on a restless pilgrimage, a pilgrimage in search of a final fulfillment which those who are truly poor know is theirs only in the kingdom of heaven.
We are all beggars! It’s nothing to be ashamed of. The Son of God was the poorest beggar of all, and it didn’t bother him a bit. It was, he said, his food to do the will of his Father!
But so many of us do not recognize our own poverty and thus cannot figure out why we are always so spiritually hungry.
Poverty?
I don’t love my spouse anymore. That’s poverty.
My child just died without warning in an accident. Why? Why? That’s poverty.
He’s a lousy preacher, but we’re stuck with him. That’s poverty.
My kids don’t have anything to do with God anymore. That’s poverty.
I don’t like this senior citizen dwelling I’m in. That’s poverty.
Why do you not heal me of this sickness, Lord? That’s poverty.
I spent a fortune on my education, and I can’t find a job commensurate with it anywhere. That’s poverty.
I’ve lost my job and I can’t find another one of any kind. That’s poverty.
I don’t want to grow old. That’s poverty.
I can’t stand my neighbour. That’s poverty.
I have no friends. That’s poverty.
Nobody understands me. That’s poverty.
Our poverty is all around us. We are all beggars. And The Beggar we follow has been there, done that, and wears the scars of those wounds. He knows exactly how to teach us to embrace our poverty as he embraced his. Even our need to be taught is our poverty!
Our desire to learn is our begging. And his response is the food that gives us new life.
Lent is a perfect desert-time for us to own our poverty, great or small, to put real words on it, to cry it out, to yell it out, to beg it out, and finally to embrace it as it is, whatever it is, and wrap it up in his mercy.
Then by Easter, after we’ve looked again with Jesus deep into our own personal poverty, the Risen Lord can show us how to reach out even more to one another—whether we are rich or poor.
If you want to read the whole article, just click here.
Acquainted with grief
The anniversary of my brother, Tim’s tragic death is approaching, and one of the things I start thinking about is how many other folks that I see in my daily life travels–perhaps stopping at Meijer–are carrying heavy things, either for themselves or for others. Sometimes I can feel alone in my grief–not that others are trying to support me. Indeed I am blessed with so many good friends. But the circumstances of my brother’s death can be isolative . . . However, I take great comfort in this verse from Isaiah 53, referring to Jesus: he was “acquainted with grief.” He knows the path I take. And yours as well.
Witnesses to Hope 