Yesterday I caught myself feeling happy and then I felt so guilty.. I was driving down to the beach house and the weather was perfect. The traffic hadn’t been too heinous; I’d survived the massive trucks burling along and avoided a collision when the guy in the black ute in the next lane had starting veering towards me and now there were relatively open country roads, and some ripper anecdotes and tunes on the radio. I’d made it to the Airey’s Inlet general store in time to purchase a promising looking bottle of red and now I was throughly enjoying the sweeping views of the Great Ocean Road.
We seem to spend so much time and mental and emotional energy chasing happiness. But then in that moment I felt guilty – why?! In that moment I think it was because of the unfairness of it all. Some of our friends are now in suburban lockdown. We’d spent the past few days wondering if we might also suffer the same fate. Regardless, we’ve had to again adjust to the tightening of restrictions just when we’d hoped we might be ‘out of the woods’; at least for a time. Just when we were planning to actually see a group of friends face to face: do something we took for granted in the past; go for a little bush walk and have a picnic together. We’d planned for outdoors because indoors is still risky. Of course we couldn’t know if the weather would cooperate. Such is the uncertainty of the times we are living in. Not much can be assumed. I hadn’t been able to know that I could travel to the beach house until the actual day. Pretty much. We can make plans but there’s no knowing if they’ll come to fruition. A large number of things are out of our control. And I miss community. I’m so tired of it all.
Normally I take two days per term to retreat with just me and God. This year has been nuts and this is the first time I’ve got away for even 24 hours by myself. My job involves building community and connecting with people. That’s been trickier than usual for nearly 4 months. The continual re-thinking and re-adjustment has been exhausting. Not just for me I know. I thought we’d found some new pattern of life but Gra’s work has also become unpredictable regarding hours and place. The collective angst has levelled up again with the latest Covid outbreaks in Melbourne; in suburbs not far from us. Basically it all feels like a dog’s breakfast.
How do we navigate the complexities of the grief and anxiety of this life right now? [Apart from vodka or another mind altering substance]. There’s not one thing to process, one event or one item or person I have lost. The losses are myriad. There’s not a clear way forward. There’s still much to be thankful for but it’s hard to know exactly how to live our best lives as humans; when will we be able to enjoy community again? How fulfilling can a ‘safe’ life in isolation be? What really matters? Is it possible to feel joy without guilt? I have so may questions.
The biggest question is about the question of grief. As most of you know, grief is the body’s response to any kind of loss. Toddlers have tantrums before developing more self-awareness of their emotions. At present I have some days I don’t feel that far from a melt down because I’m so overwhelmed. From what others have told me I gather this is a common experience right now. We’re all presently navigating uncharted territory and the losses are myriad.
For example: I’m totally over Zooming right now because it’s exhausting trying to connect when there’s no eye contact, delays in response and non verbal cues. Not to mention other social complexities when the face to face time involves more than two people. But I also know that we’re blessed to have this way of connecting as an option as it’s better than not seeing the lovely faces of family and friends. I still have both of my part time jobs, food, clothing and shelter and a couple of other people and two dogs to hang out with in my bubble. So I feel I shouldn’t complain about the exhaustion of juggling my jobs and how to actually do them right now.
Others are struggling with greater threats than I am presently. Those who are falling though the cracks the most are those whose support networks or resources are non – existent right now. HOWEVER It’s important to acknowledge that each one of us globally is suffering grief on some level. Because we all have different losses. None of us can function in emotional meltdown so acknowledging our losses and emotions is crucial for our mental health and general well being. We can’t change what we can’t control. But recognising why we’re grieving helps us make some sense of what’s going on for us. At work I call this ‘name the feeling = tame the feeling’.
While sorrow and pain and disease and death are a part of human existence that we all experience eventually they all come under the same category of feeling very wrong to me. I guess that whole question of why is there suffering? So forgive me if it feels a bit weird where my thoughts take you next. It will hopefully all make sense as you read through to the end.
Last week I had an amazing conversation with a school teacher about how death [also sorrow, pain and disease] isn’t meant to happen. We agreed it wasn’t part of the original plan for the created world. Death is an interruption to life and relationships. It just doesn’t make sense to us. Anything that interrupts or damages relationship doesn’t make sense to us. It’s not humane.
The only thing that makes sense to me in all of this is the biblical explanation that God enacted a plan to reverse this situation. Jesus from Nazareth, a man who is God, is the only person who has demonstrated he can kill death. Kill it so death [sorrow, pain, disease]is dead [gone] and it can no longer affect life. He did this when he died a horrific death then was resurrected to live forever. It’s a crazy and preposterous idea to our thinking but it’s also the only thing that makes sense to me. That, and the other thing he promises he’s going to do; take the death and grief and suffering out of the created world entirely and restore everything to the way it was supposed to be in the first place – death and pain free.
It’s a nice thing to hope for, right? But how does this make any sense of the complex layers of my present grief? Or those of someone who’s been abused as a child, or those of a survivor of war, those whose lives are caught in limbo in refugee camps; without legal or national status or the means or way to find a purposeful future? How do we find joy in the midst of all of this?
I don’t have all the answers but I offer my own thoughts and experiences here in the hope that they might be helpful to you. For me there are two main things – relationship and perspective.
The only relationship that remains unbroken even in my suffering and pain and grief and stuff ups and isolation from others is the one I have with God. It’s a bit one-sided most of the time in that God is the one who keeps us together.
The second ever Hebrew King, David, learned to pray as a shepherd boy responsible for the sheep in the wild. His journey to becoming a king wasn’t easy. The first King spent a lot of time hunting him to take his life. David didn’t find it much easier being a king.
A line from one of his prayers:
My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is my strength and my portion forever.
I love this line – not because of the grief and suffering of a failing body or heart -that sucks – but because if you have God you have everything – both in the moment and for ever.
Jesus said that he will never leave those who trust him and nothing will separate them from God’s love.
Which brings me to the second thing: perspective. When I’m in the middle of a sucky situation it helps to know that God is with me in it and to learn to see things as he does. The main thing, to be honest, is just that He is there with me. It’s a huge joy just to realise this. God is truly amazing when you get to know him. I’m still on this journey but it’s been the saving of me so far.
Nonetheless a huge part of ‘perspective’ is knowing what I’m feeling and giving attention to my emotions. Right now we’re all being emotionally taxed A LOT and it’s OK to be kind to ourselves in it all. You may have heard the saying; ‘without hope the people perish’ and it’s true that we need hope to replace our despair and peace and faith in place of our anxiety. The first step to wholeness is to attend to our current reality. We’re tired and confused and sad and stretched and totally OVER IT despite the end not being yet in sight. We hope for that light at the end of the dark days we’re traveling through. But even as we walk through the darkness we can love ourselves. We have to care for ourselves if we want to care for each other. Just allowing ourselves more time to meditate and reflect and process our feelings is important. Because we have SO MANY right now. It’s also OK to find what joys we may in our daily lives. I don’t need to feel guilty in this. I can have empathy for others but still enjoy the blessings the day affords me. I don’t have to live under the shadow of sadness or imprisoned by fear. I choose to find joy even as I acknowledge my grief is also real right now.