Though I make my living in part through writing, I find elusive the words to convey the insanity we are living through now. Just a week ago, we witnessed a violent attempt, incited by a sitting president, to topple U.S. democracy. Meanwhile, we are in month 11 of pandemic which continues to kill multiple thousands of Americans each day, my beloved brother among them.
Grief, great grief, is everywhere. Each of us carries some of it around as a result of these and other losses, large and small. A friend recently loaned me a book, The Wild Edge of Sorrow: Rituals of Renewal and the Sacred Work of Grief, by Francis Weller. It has been helpful to put a framework around some of these mystifying, challenging, ever-shifting feelings. Weller writes that
Sorrow is a sustained note in the song of being alive. To be human is to know loss in its many forms. This should not be seen as a depressing truth. Acknowledging this reality enables us to find our way into the grace that lies hidden in sorrow. We are most alive at the threshold between loss and revelation; every loss ultimately opens the way for a new encounter.
In my case, one of those new encounters was an invitation to join UUCA’s Good Grief monthly support group. Through vulnerable sharing and deep listening, the group witnesses and holds a container for each other’s sorrow. It was an experience of connecting and healing in community that I didn’t know how much I needed until I received it.
“We are remade in times of grief, broken apart and reassembled,” Weller writes, a statement that resonated deeply with me. What will my life be like as I get used to my brother’s absence? What will our country look like in another six months, a year, a decade? How will we come back together when the pandemic is over? Lots of questions, few answers. But we can be assured that reassembling is already taking place. The task seems to be to reassemble ourselves in a way that honors what really matters –we can look to our UU principles for inspiration here if we like – thereby contributing to the healing of ourselves, others, and the world.
Louise Anderson, Board of Trustees