Angry and Bitter, or Compassionate and Caring?

November 23, 2013

On separate occasions this week two friends asked me questions about how we were doing as a family with our grief and how specifically our kids were handling it.

One friend was simply curious and concerned and wanted to know how we were doing; the other also wanted to share some struggles his son is having since he just lost a close teenage friend very suddenly.

As I shared some reflections and answers to their questions it once again struck me that we have some choices in “how we are doing”. 

Anger and bitterness are still very natural feelings that regularly come up for me, and I am often keenly aware that I can “go there” easily and chose to remain there, acting out from a place of extreme anger and bitterness over my loss.  In fact, I can easily extrapolate these feelings and apply them to everything – because Daniel died, all kinds of bad things have happened and are going to happen, and I am going to be “mad as Hell” and on the warpath for a long, long time. 

Or, at least, that seems to be the strange slippery slope that sits before me and beckons me forward much of the time.

On the other hand, I also find that I can have deep feelings of compassion and caring for other people as a result of the intense pain I have felt and that I continue to feel.  Yesterday when my friend shared the story of his 18 year old son learning recently that his close friend had died suddenly, I felt genuine empathy for what this kid and his friends are going through and shared some observations about how my two teenage children have dealt with and are dealing with the loss of their brother. 

Thankfully, right now it seems like our family is primarily on the caring and compassionate side of this scale, though I am sure we all each struggle with the anger and bitterness options more than we let on to each other.

These choices seem very real to me and I pray that we choose to find ways to express the care and compassion that can take hold of our hearts if we lean in that direction. 

God:  help us to choose well!

Faithfulness, aliens, saints and perseverance

November 20, 2013

I was up for awhile the other night in the middle of the night and was drawn back to reading Hebrews 11 and 12.

All the folks described in Hebrews 11 remained faithful – they each heard a promise from God and they pursued it even though all of them never saw the complete fulfillment of any of those promises during their lifetimes.  They knew they were “aliens and sojourners on this earth” (or foreigners and refugees as one translation says) and so they remained faithful as they continued to “look for a country of their own”, a final destination afar off.

What I find equally fascinating are the verses that immediately follow this chapter as chapter 12 opens with, “since we are surrounded by such a great a cloud of witnesses.”  It is implied that these witnesses include all those faithful saints named in Hebrews 11, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, and the lot, as well as all the saints who have followed – the famous ones like Paul, John, and Peter.  Further, I chose to believe that this great cloud even includes people like Daniel and others whom I have loved and lost in my lifetime.

All these saints in this great cloud are somehow surrounding us, witnessing our lives and perhaps engaged at some level and cheering us on as we, like them, seek to “run with perseverance the race set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith” as the following verses point out to us.

Thus, I am running the race set before me, hopefully with perseverance before this great cloud of witnesses, recognizing that I too am a sojourner or refugee on this earth just as they were before me.

For this father who can’t stop longing for this son, somehow this gives me great hope and courage to get up and face the new day full of its challenges with my aging parents, my job and its politics, living with my grief, and much, much more.

I hold dearly to this notion that Daniel is somehow mysteriously among those witnesses who are watching me pursue this race – this vision of my own son cheering me on in this life gives me great comfort.

God:  give me that perseverance to run my race as a refugee in this world, knowing that Daniel and many others are watching and cheering me on.  

Thanks be to God!

Redeemer or attorney?

All this week I have been reflecting on a wonderful sermon that my priest, Father Stace Tafoya gave last Sunday.  The text was from Job 19, “I know that my Redeemer lives.”

Stace played with the notion that redeemer has multiple meanings in this context.  The common interpretation led composers to include the text in Handel’s Messiah oratorio as a clear reference to a Redeemer or Messiah who would atone for mankind’s sin.

Stace chose to take the interpretation in another, perhaps more literal and immediate direction from Job’s point of view.

Job was looking for someone to defend him against the accusations that his friends and even his wife were making – Job must have screwed up big time to be receiving such harsh punishment from God, since God seemed so hell-bent on taking everything away from him – his wealth, his children, and even his health.  Stace argued that a more literal translation for the word redeemer here is defender or vindicator, or even to put it into very modern terms, “I know that my defense attorney lives!”

Job wanted a defender to stand up for him before God, his wife, and his friends pleading his case that he was innocent and didn’t deserve to suffer all of these losses. 

Another interpretation could be that Job was demanding that God himself come down and explain it all as well – he wanted to hear some rationale for this bizarre chain of events from God’s own mouth and perspective!

As a father who lost a son, I too yearn for God to explain himself - to come down from heaven and defend me to the Cosmos and explain why Daniel died so young and ultimately, how he did not deserve to die and how we did not deserve to be suffering from this loss.  At other times, I completely relate to the notion that I want a really good attorney who can represent me in some cosmic courtroom and argue my case before God that Daniel never deserved to die and we surely did not deserve to suffer this loss.

Of course these are provocative words from me just like they were from Job. Who am I to demand that God give me an explanation for anything, much less my struggle with why He perhaps allowed my son to suffer from an “unjustifiable” and “premature” death?

Yet like Job I yearn to understand and to somehow be reassured that Daniel's death was merely an accident, or has some other purpose or meaning, but was not punishment for some sin or wrong doing.

And like Job, I don't want to give up and "curse God and die."

I continue this slow and painful wrestling match because I want some answers and I want a relationship with this same God - I want to know that my Redeemer and vindicator lives and that, like my dear son, I will see Him one day.

Then, perhaps I will understand what my suffering - and all suffering - was really all about.

But until then, I wrestle and seek a defender.