Pilgr-image 06 - Mourning
Blessed are those who mourn for they will be comforted - Matthew 5:4
Just as a young plant, surrounded by darkness, stretches itself, as it were on tiptoe, to find its way out into the light, so when death suddenly throws the darkness of negation round the soul it tries and tries to rise into the light of affirmation. - Rabindranath Tagore
Like I shared in the first reflection of this series, I marvel at the power and tenacity of life. I marvel how life can grow in the most inhospitable of places and I marvel at the ways people go on living even in the midst of deep pain or loss. One commonality that happens in grief is that we reach toward something or someone. The reaching might be towards support, help, comfort, or assurance. The reaching might also be for solitude, quiet, or stillness. And it can also be towards something that is not healthy or helpful - things that we think will numb the pain or make it go away. But regardless, there is a reaching toward something. I believe that the reaching is the instinctual response that we have, but what to reach for isn't always instinctual. In her book, This Here Flesh, Cole Arthur Riley writes about her father sharing about his experience of grief: "'I don’t know what that did to me. It was like someone poured heat all over me and I was burning too.' My father didn’t know how to grieve for his friend until the whole world stopped and grieved. It is not always instinctual.”
What I am hearing in this beatitude and in Tagore's words is that we need to be available to others to be aware of their reaching and to be present with them as they reach out in their grief and hurt. For it is through presence that people can grow through the grief and the loss. To go from the place of emptiness and pain into hope and healing.