10/31/07:
We Remember: "This I Believe" - Fr. Jim Neilson
Those of you who listen to (and maybe even financially support) National Public Radio are most likely very familiar with the news programs, Morning Edition and All Things Considered…they remind me a lot of lauds and vespers, the morning and evening prayers at St. Norbert Abbey; they bookend the day for me, start it off and wrap it up for me, and compel me to think about things and people I might otherwise ignore or not know… and one of my favorite parts of both programs is a three minute segment, called This I Believe. As we’ve already heard, earlier this semester, This I Believe invites prominent and everyday Americans from all walks of life to share brief essays describing the core values that guide their daily lives…and these are wonderfully diverse, occasionally quirky, and always exceptionally inspiring thoughts…short reflections that almost always begin with the same three words, I – BELIEVE - IN…
Here are a few examples of what people believe today: 1. I believe in: fighting fear. 2. I believe in: semi-permanent hair dye. 3. I believe in: my dog. 4. I believe: that the human intellect is the closest thing we have to the divine.5. I believe in: wildness, both in the natural world and within each of us. And the single most moving essay I’ve heard began just like all the others; I - Believe - In… GRIEF…I believe in grief. The moment I heard the word “grief” I literally stopped what was doing and turned up the radio…this was something I knew I HAD to listen to; that I needed to hear.
Last winter, Corteny David, a nurse practitioner at a woman’s health clinic in Danbury, Connecticut., spoke of honoring life, by believing in grief. She said, “I no longer comfort others with false cheer. In the hospital, where my encounters with patients are ever more distanced by sterile gloves, computer protocols and the pressures of time, one way I can still be PRESENT is during their moments of grief. I don't encourage anyone to move on, to replace, to remarry or put the photos or the memories away. Grief must be given its time.I believe that both the caregivers and the cared-for should be free to scream and cry and fall to the floor — if not actually, then at least in the heart. I believe that grief, fully expressed, will change over time into something less overpowering, even granting us a new understanding, a kind of double-vision that comprehends both the beauty and fragility of life at the same time. When I grieve, when I stand by others as they grieve, even in the midst of seemingly unbearable sorrow, grief becomes a way to honor life — a way to cling to every fleeting, precious moment of joy.
Well, I believe we’ve come to this church today, to HONOR LIFE by GRIEVING together; it's an hour, our hour, to honor to 10 Lives, the lives of those we’ve loved and lost, by potentially being vulnerable to each other…by standing near one another in the midst of unbearable sorrow, and cling to the ever ancient and ever new belief that "those whom we have loved and lost are no longer where they were before. They are now wherever we are." I believe that the story (the Lucan essay) of two companions on the road to Emmaus is the story of the earliest believers GRIEVING the death of Jesus…a grief that is both HONORED and TRANSFORMED by Christ; Maybe the ROAD to Emmaus isn’t so much a paved surface somewhere near Jerusalem as it is a time or a season of GRIEF…maybe the road to Emmaus is the PASSAGE from grief to a new understanding of the cycle of life and death,a necessary and unavoidable road to travel. A journey of the heart and body toward discerning life’s rich pagent, the very life God has dreamt for us.
The Road to Emmaus might very well be a hallway in a woman’s health clinic in Connecticut, the sidewalks from Sensenbrenner Hall to Bergstrom Hall, or any where else, really,that finds us in the company of those who ALLOW US to REACT to death; who stand with us and near us as our bodies and minds RESPOND to such loss. There’s no FALSE CHEER in the Christ who walks the road to Emmaus (at least none that I can recognize); and far from being “depressing” or worse, overly sweet and cloying, it's an image that promotes a VISCERAL Christology… a way of knowing Christ, of believing in God, in the burning uncertainty of grief…natural, necessary, transforming grief.
At this sacred hour, as the Church begins her vigil of remembrance, she’s unembarrassed by her tears… she’s unashamed to sing lamentations and light candles, and in her weakness she is made strong and becomes the mother of consolation and new life, the very reflection of God’s merciful heart. So today, I believe its good and appropriate and healthy and holy to grieve the absence of those we have loved, those we have taught and served, those who have lived here and walked among us. It's good because we do it together, it's appropriate because our intention is toward healing and wholeness, it's healthy because we acknowledge the wisdom and response of our bodies, and it's holy because we do this in imitation of Christ. I believe that the Road to Emmaus is the ground on which we now stand…and Christ is as near to us now as the one who stands closest to you now in this church…and as we recall the sweetest memories of those we’ve loved and lost, who are no longer where they were before, but are now wherever we are, may we to honor their lives, and ours, by our shared and active vigilance at this hour of prayer and solidarity.
