The Gift of Guilt

"I'll never get over my guilt," is a sentence I hear often from parents who have suffered the traumatic loss of a child (and all losses of children are traumatic - even if they are grown up when we lose them).

If we stay in this place of ruminating over our regrets and guilt, we are spared a bit from the acknowledgement of all our loss. Maybe it is easier to talk about our feelings of guilt than it is to live with the reality of all the things that will not happen now that they are gone.

It is all HARD. Guilt is crushing; mourning is like having heart surgery without anesthesia - every damn day.

But here's the thing - guilt is not really a gift unless it is true, legitimate wrongdoing - if that is true, then we know how to proceed: ask for forgiveness and make amends. However, it is usually not the whole story. Sometimes we give ourselves too much credit for what we perceive we can (or should) control. Secondly, it is expensive. Unremitting, unresolved feelings of guilt steals the present moment. It takes us away from the living.

Guilt, the lying little bugger, tells us that it serves as a living tribute to the loss. But guilt really just keeps stealing from the living. Guilt asks us to keep dying for our dead - and that sounds noble, even preferable to our grief over another's passing.

But what if there is another way? What if we acknowledge the specifics of what we cannot undo that was 'wrong' and refuse the offering of a generalized guilty feeling with no legitimate claim to reality? We acknowledge our legitimate wrongdoing and seek forgiveness, make amends. If we find that some of the beliefs that we have held about our guilt are simply not true, then we must move forward. We live. We live to honor the lost. We live well for those among us, our other children, our family that is still present for us to love well.

These are not easy things nor are they appropriate first responses for someone new to grief. But if we find that our grief is interfering with our love for others - maybe it is time to re-evaluate the ways we have thought about our loss. Maybe we need a grief counselor or a grief group to help us reframe our habitual way of thinking about our suffering.

Maybe we need some support for healing.

More on Suffering…

"Human suffering threatens all networks of meaning."

Bible Preaching on the Death of Jesus by William A. Beardslee et al.

Good old American know-how is a beautiful thing. But when we think our know-how should make us capable of out-running suffering, we are getting too big for our britches. As I alluded to in yesterday's blog, we need to be careful with how we define suffering.

We can turn pain into suffering if we are not careful. When I act as if a delayed shipment on a piece of eye candy furniture is a suffering, I'm perpetuating a myth. That is not suffering. But my whining and complaining causes me (and others who have to listen) suffering.

Simone Weil and others have written about their perspectives on suffering. Here is the gist of what I am learning from others, people who do not think waiting for a piece of furniture in a pandemic is a suffering because they actually know what suffering is all about.

Our faith does not and was not intended to alleviate suffering. There is not magic cure. There is no special way to believe that short circuits pain and suffering. According to Weil, our faith makes good use of our suffering.

She explains it something like this. Like Job, when we are able to continue to love God even when life is not good, that is a big deal. When we can love God in the midst of legitimate suffering - as a result of the limits of human living and its pain, grief, death and injustice for many - then we can turn our suffering into something that might benefit someone else.

I'm not suggesting we sign up for suffering. No, my friends, this is not necessary. Suffering will find us. But when it does, the question will be this, eventually, maybe years down the road: how does this suffering shape us? Are we more humane? Does our humanity reflect more the God who we have managed to love even when he does not meet our expectations and - gasp - demands?

Day 5: Comfort and Cheer

The fifth antiphon:

O Rising Sun, You are the splendour of eternal light and the sun of justice.

O Come and enlighten those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death.

O come, Thou Day-spring, come and cheer our spirits by Thine advent here;

disperse the gloomy clouds of night, and death’s dark shadows put to flight:

Rejoice! Rejoice! Immanuel shall come to thee, O Israel.

During stressful seasons it is natural to fall back into living by the law of scarcity. It will require a conscious effort on our part to remember that the cheer we might bring springs from the original source - God himself. We do not have to give away that which we do not have or will never possess. But we are given the opportunity to recognize the gifts of light God is providing for us day in and day out.

At night, it is hard to remember such things. Our anxiety creeps up on our quieting mind. Fears run rampant. It’s not just children who fear the monsters in their closet.

So in the daylight, we must run with some degree of haste to comfort and cheer those around us. No comfort and cheer in your heart? No worries! Practice it anyway. You were never the source!

Day 5: Comfort and Cheer

The fifth antiphon:

O Rising Sun, You are the splendour of eternal light and the sun of justice.

O Come and enlighten those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death.

O come, Thou Day-spring, come and cheer our spirits by Thine advent here;

disperse the gloomy clouds of night, and death’s dark shadows put to flight:

Rejoice! Rejoice! Immanuel shall come to thee, O Israel.

During stressful seasons it is natural to fall back into living by the law of scarcity. It will require a conscious effort on our part to remember that the cheer we might bring springs from the original source - God himself. We do not have to give away that which we do not have or will never possess. But we are given the opportunity to recognize the gifts of light God is providing for us day in and day out.

At night, it is hard to remember such things. Our anxiety creeps up on our quieting mind. Fears run rampant. It’s not just children who fear the monsters in their closet.

So in the daylight, we must run with some degree of haste to comfort and cheer those around us. No comfort and cheer in your heart? No worries! Practice it anyway. You were never the source!

Day 10: A Perspective of Gratitude

After King Herod died, an angel from the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt. “Get up,” the angel said, “and take the child and his mother and go to the land of Israel. Those who were trying to kill the child are dead.” Joseph got up, took the child and his mother, and went to the land of Israel. But when he heard that Archelaus ruled over Judea in place of his father Herod, Joseph was afraid to go there. Having been warned in a dream, he went to the area of Galilee. He settled in a city called Nazareth so that what was spoken through the prophets might be fulfilled: He will be called a Nazarene.

Matthew 2:19-23 CEB

One of the things I particularly appreciate about the story of the birth of Jesus is the length of the narrative. Prophets had spoken details about the coming king; the life of Jesus fulfilled them. Oh how slow God is to act – in a good way! He is patient with the unfolding story.

I know this has been one of those years that we cannot wait to see finished. It helps me to read the story of Jesus and realize how small our perspective is with regards to life. Any slice of this story must have been experienced as exceedingly stressful in real time.

What if you set aside a bit of time today, and asked yourself: what if this year will someday seem like a great gift to me? What if the things I’ve learned will serve me well, and serve those I love, in the future? What if my suffering - as senseless and painful as it has been - might one day allow me to find a greater reason for living my life? These are not the questions to ask if one is in deep grief. For those in that place - these are not your questions. But for others, who are not grieving a terrible loss, these might be decent questions to consider as we wait for the birth of Christ.