Together We Remember

This past week we have witnessed the power and the importance of sharing grief. The number of stories that have been written, remembered and shared in regard to the fiftieth anniversary of President John F. Kennedy's assassination is evidence of the need of all groups to work though and remember losses that they have experienced together. People fifty years ago needed each other to get through that tragic time and we, even now, benefit from remembering together this tragic event that played an important part in our nation's life together. "Where were you when you heard that JFK had been shot?" or "Tell me a story of how this affected you and your family or friends?" are still asked today, just as they were asked in November, 1963. All groups, no matter the size, benefit from remembering and honoring the hard times they have endured together. Friends, families, teams, organizations, congregations, communities, and nations work through experiences of collective grief by remembering them and talking about them with one another. This kind of remembering and sharing is not meant to be maudlin or depressing as this kind of remembering plays a significant role in healing and regaining strength. Our healing is enhanced by the shared vulnerability that then softens and opens our hearts.

Collective grief is unique and different from individual grief in that when we grieve a common loss we draw solace and comfort from the fact that we are experiencing the loss together. For example, if the tragedy that strikes is a tornado that touches down in your home town, you will most likely be remembering and talking about that tragic experience with people from your town the rest of your life. If you try to share the experience of the tornado with a friend who lives a thousand miles away, that friend may well be empathic and supportive, but that friend will not truly be able to share any sense of collective grief with you. In fact, if you would visit that friend months or years from now you may find yourself shocked that they only vaguely remember the loss that you experienced and still remember so vividly. The grief would not be etched into your friend's memory the way it was etched into yours.

The holidays will soon be here and they tend to bring out a wide array of emotions. In addition to great joy and celebration, holidays often contain some element of sadness or grief for they are markers of the significant changes and losses in our lives. When friends and families gather for the holidays, there is quite often a sense of collective grief present in the room, related to the changes and losses that this unique group of people have experienced together.

Perhaps one thing we can learn from the collective remembering and grieving that our nation is engaged in this week around the assassination of President Kennedy is how important it can be for us to do the same. If we are experiencing grief in our gatherings with friends and families, perhaps we can take the risk to remember and share a story about someone we all love who is no longer with us, even if that story makes us sad. Perhaps that story will spark another story and then perhaps others will share stories that make everyone laugh and cry. In doing so, not only will the one who has passed on be honored and remembered, but the loving bonds of those sitting around the table will be deepened and strengthened. Such is the power and importance of collective grief.

     This column will return in two weeks as I will be off next Thursday and Friday for Thanksgiving. Happy Thanksgiving to all of you. May your gatherings be filled with great love and great stories of remembering.

Words of Comfort, Candles of Hope

I am often asked for advice as to what to say to someone who has experienced a tragic loss and I find I always give the same counsel.  Simply say, “I'm so sorry for your loss,” or “I want you to know how much I am thinking about you right now,” or “I love you.”  These words may seem quite weak in the face of the enormity of the loss the person is experiencing, but such words really are the most comforting, authentic support that we can offer to someone who is hurting so deeply.  Most likely you cannot significantly change their situation, but you can give support. I find myself praying for the people of the Philippines who are suffering from the the devastation of typhoon Haiyan.  This week, I also made a donation to a relief effort that is on the ground serving the victims there.   I have been doing these things, and yet I feel the same way I feel when I say “I'm thinking of you,” or “I love you” to someone who has experienced a personal, life-changing tragedy.  “Is that all I can do?”  It seems so weak in the face of the enormity of the loss that is being experienced.

A moving story came out this week about how a chapel on the second floor of the only working hospital in Tacloban, the city hit the hardest by typhoon Haiyan, has been turned into a maternity ward.  Women are giving birth to babies in the chapel and the nurses and doctors are doing the best they can to save all the babies that are being born.  Unfortunately, because they typhoon sent some women in to premature labor, some babies have not survived.  Life and death, crying mothers and crying babies, exist side by side in this chapel that has no electricity because the hospital generators were destroyed in the typhoon.

Throughout the day and night, candles are burning in this chapel.  During the day, votive candles are lit by doctors, nurses, and mothers as they offer prayers for all who are suffering.  At night, candles are lit to provide a flicker of light amidst the overwhelming darkness of a hospital and an entire city that has no electricity.

These candles, like the prayers we offer or the words of comfort we speak to someone who is experiencing great loss, seem little, or weak, in the face of the encompassing darkness.   I imagine, though, that the people in that second floor chapel experience the candles not as little or weak, but as essential and as beacons of comfort and hope for their anxiety and fears.

A lit candle in a well lit room or on a sunny day is hardly noticeable.  That same lit candle in the midst of a dark room in the middle of a dark night makes all the difference in the world.  The same is true with our words of comfort and love.  Such words are perhaps not fully heard or received when a person's life is full of love and laughter, and yet these same words make all the difference when a person is experiencing enormous loss.

So light a candle, say a prayer, and make a donation for the people of the Philippines and then closer to home, find a way to light a candle of love and hope for someone you know, either in your community, or amongst your friends or family, who has been hit by some kind of devastating storm.  In the midst of their dark time, your little light may well make all the difference in the world.

In The Same Boat

My wife and I love to spend time in the wilderness. A few years ago we were canoeing in Quetico Provincial Park in Canada, a very remote park that is only accessible by canoe.  One summer day we were canoeing across a very large lake, probably a mile across, looking for our next place to set up camp and it was getting late.  We were in the middle of the lake, with a fully loaded canoe and were already somewhat anxious about finding the portage that would allow us to get to the next lake, our destination for the day.  Suddenly, I noticed that a storm had come up behind us; the sky got increasingly dark and the temperature dropped.  Soon there was lightening in the distance, and we both knew the last place we wanted to be at that moment was in the middle of a large body of water.So what did we do?  We did what any two people would do in such a situation.  We started to argue with each other!  I think I raised my voice first.  “I told you there was a chance of a storm and that we shouldn't have come out here today!”  Soon the shouting went back and forth, “Why aren't you paddling harder?!”  “Don't paddle on the left, paddle on the right!”  “Don't you know how to read the map?” “Don't head for that part of the shore--go in this direction!”

After several minutes of this, there was silence, which was soon broken by joint laughter.   Fortunately, at that moment, we realized that we were not really mad at each other at all, but that the approaching storm had scared us both so much that we began to turn against each other.  The storm was the “problem” and yet in the midst of our anxiety we had temporarily made each other the “problem.” Whenever a group of people find themselves in the midst of a “storm” they are vulnerable to turning against one another rather than working together.  Perhaps this is one factor in understanding why this most recent election season was so negative and polarizing.  Our country is in the midst of a prolonged economic “storm” that is taking a toll on many individuals and families.  In the midst of that storm it is easy to turn against one another and to cast blame on the other person, the other party, for the storm. “You (your party) got us into this mess!”

“We need more paddling on the left!”

“No we don't--we need more paddling on the right!”

“You are heading in the wrong direction--what are you thinking?!” All groups of people are vulnerable to turning against one another in the midst of adversity.  This includes couples, families, organizations, work teams, sports teams, and communities as a whole.  At such times we need to remember to take a step back and get a larger perspective.  Even when people are feeling strongly divided, there is usually more that unites them than that which is currently dividing them.  Mitt Romney spoke to this powerful truth in his gracious concession speech on Tuesday night.  He reminded us all of the greater principles that transcend partisan politics and unite us all.  He called on leaders of all kinds--economic, spiritual, community and family--to focus on the higher principles on which this nation is based:honest, charity, integrity, and family. My wife and I realized something important that day we were canoeing in the midst of a fierce storm.  We were in that boat together and our ability to survive the storm and make it safely to shore depended on us working together.  There needed to be strong paddling on the both the left and right side of the boat because if all the paddling is done on one side of the boat it will go around in circles. Now that the fierce storm of this election has passed, leaders from both parties are calling for a renewed effort to work together, focussing on that which unites us in order to address the storms that we all face together.   May we join with them in our commitment to do the same, not just in our politics, but in our families and friendships as well.  Really, we are all in this boat of life together!

Pay Attention to the Olivet Eagles

One of the core teachings of our Living Compass Wellness Initiative is “whatever we pay attention to is what will grow.”  If we focus our attention on what irritates us about a friend or family member, for example, our irritable feelings toward that person will grow.  If, instead, we focus our attention on what is delightful and lovable about that person, then the positive feelings we have about our friend or family member will grow.  This principle also applies to any group we are a part of--a team, our neighborhood, our workplace, or our congregation.  What we “water” in life with our attention, is what will grow. We had a great opportunity to make such a decision regarding what we pay attention to when it came to football this past week.  There has been a great deal of attention already paid to a very negative and troubling situation involving hazing and bullying connected to the Miami Dolphins.  While this story has been getting all sorts of attention, there has been another football story that has received much less publicity, that I would like to call our attention to.

I  invite you to shift your attention away from the Dolphins for the time being and instead focus your attention on the Eagles.  Not the Philadelphia Eagles, but the Olivet Eagles.  What, you've never heard of the Olivet Eagles?  Well, that's about to change.  The Olivet Eagles is a middle school football team from Olivet, Michigan, located thirty miles southwest of Lansing.  This team made the national news this past week for a creative play the team executed for a special student in their school and fellow teammate..

The play was known as the “Keith Special” and it was a play that the kids on the team thought up on their own.  In a game last week, the quarterback of the team, Sheridan Hedrik, could have easily scored on a running play, but instead took a knee on the one yard line as was secretly planned.  During the next play, the ball was handed to Keith Orr, a child with special needs, and then surrounded by his teammates, Keith was escorted into the end zone untouched!

As you can see, as you watch the video of this story (you will find a link to the video below) this play not only had a profound effect on Keith, but on the other players and Keith's parents, too.

Even if you are not a person who pays attention to football of any sort , I invite you to give three minutes of your attention to this video.   In the end, it's not really a video about football, but is a video of how the boys on the Olivet Eagles football team were profoundly changed because of what they chose to pay attention to. This story is a helpful reminder that we are all impacted by what we pay attention to each day and we have the power to decide what will hold our attention at any given moment.

You can find the CBS video of this story at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6VFC-d0m6c0 

Let Your Light So Shine

In honor of All Saint's Day, which is today, I share the following story that captures beautifully what I think it means to be a saint. A pastor of a medium-sized, historic church had a regular practice of inviting all the children to come forward each Sunday to sit on the floor with her as she shared a children's sermon with them.  Because of the playful and unscripted interactions between the pastor and the children, these weekly messages were enjoyed as much by the adults as by the children, because as we know, kids really do say the darndest things.

One year, while  celebrating All Saint's Day, the pastor began her message by talking a little bit about the meaning of All Saint's Day and how this day is connected with the celebration of Halloween, or All Hallow's Eve.  She then paused and asked the children if any of them knew what a saint was.  Several answers were given, but there is one reply that everyone still remembers. It was given when one little boy pointed up at the large stain glass windows, each depicting a famous historical saint in almost life size detail, found throughout the church.   On that Sunday morning several of the saint's windows seemed to almost come to life as the sun shone through the stained glass.  The little boy pointed up at the windows that were illuminated and said, “Saints are those people who the light shines through.”  Indeed, I can think of no better definition of a saint than “a person who the light shines through!”

Hopefully, we are all blessed to have at least a few people in our lives through whom the light of love, peace, and joy shines.  We are energized by their vital spirit and are drawn to the light which they radiate.   On  All Saint's Day, though, it is traditional to think about the saints we have known in our lives who are no longer with us.   All Saint's Day is a perfect time to pause and offer our gratitude for their presence in our lives.  The light from these saints, though they may have died recently or long ago, continues to shine in and through our lives.    For all these saints, who from their labors rest, we give special thanks on this day.

One of the best ways to remember and honor the saints in our lives, both present and past, is to pass on the light that they have given to us.  There is a well-known children's hymn, sung this time of year, that talks about the many kinds of saints around us, and then goes on to declare the intention “that I aim to be one, too.”    Aiming to be a saint may seem daunting and make you uncomfortable, but that's a good thing, because humility is one of the qualities of being saint-like.  In honor of loved ones you have lost you may  strive to be a person “whom the light shines through,” for others,  remembering that what's most significant in that description of a saint is not the person through whom it is shining, but the very light that is shining and the joy that the light brings to the world.

This All Saint's Day I invite us all to remember and give thanks for the saints who have illuminated our lives and whose light continues to shine on and through us.  I also invite us to reflect and recommit to the people and places in our corner of the world that need illumination and to be both humble and dedicated enough to consider how we can be the light of love, joy, and hope to those around us who are most in need of such light.