Spiritual Grief

Spiritual Grief Reconciling our broken relationships with God following a catastrophic death.

12/23/2017

Back in 2010 the people at Patheos.com asked several bloggers to respond to the question, “Why Does the Incarnation Matter?” Here are some of my favorite responses. I hope they are meaningful to you. I

I wish you a joyous and meaningful Christmas Day.
(We’ll get back to the sermon series segments next week.)

In the Christ who is with us, David

Fred Schmidt
If Jesus is just a good guy, then the world has one more hero -- but nothing more -- and we are stuck with no way out. You can stack up martyrs like firewood (and many have), but the world will remain broken.

If God had not bothered to tell us that we are beloved by entering into our lives, then we are stuck with the architect of the cosmos, living at a comfortable, divine arm's length from our chaos. Nicely celebrated at the opening of Congress and football games, but no earthly good.

The incarnation says "no" to both alternatives. God is different enough to be capable of saving us -- and enough like us to understand our needs.

Frederick W. Schmidt, Jr. is an author, Episcopal Priest, and Associate Professor of Christian Spirituality at Perkins School of Theology.

Elaine Heath
The Incarnation is a constant subversion of power and privilege in religious leadership. The Incarnation confronts us with a God who comes to us naked and vulnerable, to live among us and express the divine love as a faithful neighbor. What does it mean to truly worship this kind of God? It means showing up and paying attention to our actual neighbors, and loving them in ways that matter to them. It means forgoing all privilege and power as we journey with others to heaven. It means a daily surrender of ego. Bethlehem. Egypt. Nazareth. Golgotha. Empty tomb. Love incarnate.

Elaine Heath is an ordained United Methodist minister and the Associate Professor of Evangelism at Southern Methodist University.

12/07/2017

Some more excerpts from a recent sermon series.
Scripture: Psalm 139:7-12

So, we must turn toward the dark emotions. We must acknowledge them and allow ourselves to feel them. Now befriending pain is difficult. It is far easier to deny, avoid, repress, the dark emotion than to embrace it. And yet, it is in the befriending our pain that we learn from it, it is by leaning into our pain that we unlock our capacity to be transformed by it.

Not all scripture makes such a sharp divide between darkness and light. Our text, Psalm 139, speaks comforting words about God’s love/presence with us. Psalm 139 reminds us that God is always with us; that there is no where we can go that God is not also there.

The twelfth

Then I said to myself, “Oh, he even sees me in the dark!
At night I’m immersed in the light!”
It’s a fact: darkness isn’t dark to you;
night and day, darkness and light, they’re all the same to you.
Psalm 139:12 Msg.

Barbara Brown Taylor gives us this inspiring thought: “Even when light fades and darkness falls--as it does every single day, in every single life—God does not turn the world over to some other deity... Here is the testimony of faith; darkness is not dark to God; the night is as bright as the day.”

Do you hear what this is saying to us? Even when light fades and darkness falls, as it does to each of us in a regular pattern…God does not hand over the world to some other diety. The dark may seem scary to us and we might feel alone. We so often think that our survival is up to us and us alone, but God is there. the darkness is not dark to God.

11/24/2017

I have recently completed a sermon series about grief, mourning and how to find your path to wholeness. I have condensed the sermon series into several shorter portions which I will share online for the next few weeks. I hope this series helps you and provokes some reflection about how we experience our losses under the grace of Christ. If you feel comfortable doing so, please post online any questions or comments you might have to share. I just ask that you keep them respectful and polite. Blessings to you. Dh

Darkness Is the Chair Upon Which Light Sits
Scripture: Psalm 139:7-12

Have you noticed that we tend to equate the dark with all kinds of physical and spiritual things that are evil and bad? We tend to equate the dark with things that are scary, caves, bats, ghosts, devils, and vampires. A host of things that go bump in the night.

While we associate light with qualities such as goodness, purity, and righteousness.

I want you to know that we get this understanding naturally. We get this from years of reading and studying scriptures that equate darkness with thoughts, actions that should be avoided.

This is true particulary in New Testament scriptures such as…

Do not be mismatched with unbelievers. For what partnership is there between righteousness and lawlessness? Or what fellowship is there between light and darkness?
2 Corinthians 6:14 NRSV

Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them. Ephesians 5:11 NRSV

5 This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light and in him there is no darkness at all. 6 If we say that we have fellowship with him while we are walking in darkness, we lie and do not do what is true; 7 but if we walk in the light as he himself is in the light, we have fellowship
with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin. 1 John 1:5-7 NRSV

8 Yet I am writing you a new commandment that is true in him and in you, because the darkness is passing away and the true light is already shining. 1 John 2:8-11 NRSV

Darkness in this view is ignorance, the idea of nothingness (void) or a presence that keeps us separated from Christ

Have you ever used the term “dark emotions”? When we talk about dark emotions we usually mean things such as sadness, emptiness, loss, depression, despair, shame, and fear. These
are feelings that often we don’t know what to do with and others don’t know how to be of any help to us.

There is no doubt that these emotions are painful and challenging to experience, but are they actually bad?

Feelings are not intrinsically good or bad…they simply are what they are. They arise in us in response to what we are seeing, hearing, touching, tasting, or smelling at any given moment
Feeling are the bodily response to the intensely person (existential) experience of living and existing (being).

One of the premises of this page is that healing takes place when we stay connected to our Creator. Even when our lives ...
08/12/2017

One of the premises of this page is that healing takes place when we stay connected to our Creator. Even when our lives don't seem to justify such faith, it is imperative that we be faithful to our God.

When you love someone, you grieve their absence. I think this says well what many of us are experiencing.
05/27/2017

When you love someone, you grieve their absence. I think this says well what many of us are experiencing.

05/11/2017

When the ones we love die, we so often hear well-meaning people say to us that it is God's will. Maybe you found that helpful but I didn't. I think that this excerpt from John Ortberg's book says it well.

God’s Will for Your Life

God’s primary will for your life is not the achievements you accrue; it’s the person you become. God’s primary will for your life is not what job you ought to take; it’s not primarily situational or circumstantial. It’s not mainly the city where you live or whether you get married or what house you ought to be in. God’s primary will for your life is that you become a magnificent person in his image, somebody with the character of Jesus. That is God’s main will for your life. No circumstance can prevent that.

From:
All the Places to Go…How Will You know? God Has Placed Before You an Open Door. What Will You Do? By John Ortberg. © 2015 by John Ortberg. Pages 15-16.

04/24/2017

“When our lives are stripped of all we have known
and we face the broken pieces that remain,
we come to know that the God of Good Friday
is also the God of Resurrection Sunday.”

“The Name that Matters” by Maria Kane. Alive Now March/April 2017 p. 33

04/14/2017

On April 13, 2001, I woke up as exhausted as I was when I went to bed. I had gotten some sleep but not rest. I lay in bed and thought to myself, “Today is Good Friday.” Immediately I heard that familiar voice in my spirit say, “Don’t call the day my son died good.”
I have carried this experience with me over the years wondering what it meant and what was I to do with this message. I now understand that I am not to do anything with it, because it was a special, personal conversation between God and me.
In Mark 14:36, Romans 8:15, and Galatians 4:6 we have the phrase “Abba, Father” which is often incorrectly understood as being the same as “daddy.” It is not that informal but it does have the quality of being personal and intimate. This was my “Abba, Father” moment. God speaking to me with a message for me. I am not to do anything with it, just find comfort in the holy moment.
I believe that what God was saying to me; I am a bereaved father just like you. I am with you.
Staying connected to God, no matter what your circumstances may be, is so important. Eventually you will have your “Abba, Father” moment.

03/15/2017

“At Least…”

On Monday March 6, 2017 my home town of Oak Grove, MO was devastated by an E-3 tornado. It destroyed over 400 homes and businesses. Since then the community has rallied to support one another and many groups and organizations have also come to be of help.

Watching the local and national news I watched many people being interviewed about their experience and they almost all of them would describe the horror of the tornado going over their head, and then they would pause and say “At least no one was killed.” It is true that no one was killed and this is certainly a cause for thanksgiving.

But with that being said, it shouldn’t cover the fact that an entire community has been traumatized. Individuals and families are facing a uncertain future. Homes have been destroyed, family heirlooms are lost, irreplaceable loss has occurred, social connections are severed and many will never be the same again.

It is certainly right to be thankful that no one was killed, but let us not forget that there is still grief and sorrow that must be affirmed. The effects will need to be acknowledged and given care. A supportive community needs to step up and be there for those whose hearts are aching long after their homes have been rebuilt.

DH

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