Monday November 3 \u00a0\u201cbowed low beneath the weight of loss.\u201d<\/b><\/p>\n
A friend of mine told me over the weekend that s\/he doesn\u2019t much like Halloween as a national holiday. \u00a0“How did fake scary stuff get to be so big a deal?” \u00a0 That conversation stirred a 60 year old memory of another kind of horror story about the dead. \u00a0When we were in grade school, we were taught that on All Souls\u2019 Day (Nov 2, aka \u201cDay of the Dead\u201d) every time you went into a church and said six Our Fathers, six Hail Marys, and six Glory Be\u2019s you were guaranteed to get one soul out of Purgatory . . . a wacky bit of theology that turned that day, which should have opened out into stillness, beauty, and grief, into a torture chamber. Those 3 sets of sixes were long and then after you left church you would hear a relentless voice say: \u00a0\u201cBut you can get another one out if you go back and do it all over again.\u201d \u00a0I don\u2019t think kids are introduced to that sort of pious torture any more in RC teaching.<\/p>\n
This year All Souls\u2019 Day fell on a Sunday, so with thoughts of scary costumes and the magic 3 six-time prayers (btw, I don\u2019t remember ever being taught who selected which soul in purgatory I was rescuing each time), I\u00a0began to pray about Sunday\u2019s homily. \u00a0\u201cWhat might be a helpful thing to say on this day that, sillinesses aside, calls attention to one of our lives most powerful experiences?\u201d \u00a0When we say goodbye to someone sacred to us, when we grieve and allow the stillness and weight of loss to come close, spooky can become a vast tenderness. \u00a0Still, the homily did not turn toward into bashing Halloween ghost costumes or the Christian teaching about Purgatory. \u00a0\u201cTrick \u2018r Treat\u201d is great parent and child play, the stuff of memories, and the ancient teaching about Purgatory evokes\u00a0a place where people who have died can live a yearning for healing the wounds of their lives; \u00a0a place, in the teaching, where we humans do not just walk away from the ambiguities with which we lived; \u00a0a teaching suggesting that the living can have a connection with those who have died, that we can send blessings out into a place that remains silent to us but need not remain absent of love and connection.<\/p>\n
All this moved me to open one of my niece Terri\u2019s series of poems about her grandmother. \u00a0 My mom died when she was 102, and had lived the diminishments of her aging with a lot of grace and receptivity. \u00a0 I love the poem and bet you will too.<\/p>\n
As has become custom in these posts, I recommend reading\u00a0\u201cThe Living\u201d out loud with pauses. \u00a0Myself? \u00a0When I read aloud the last lines make me cry.<\/p>\n
Have a good day,<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
john sj<\/p>\n
Today\u2019s Post \u201cThe Living\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n It’s strange the things people say well she was old. She had a long life.” \u201cHer death was easy; that put together with death, words I still And I think, Oh, this stumbling the exhaustion and experience It is easy to forget, tangled are dead; they do not feel It is those who are left My son will never know her. He will never stubborn like her, belligerent and Terri Breeden<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Monday November 3 \u00a0\u201cbowed low beneath the weight of loss.\u201d A friend of mine told me over the weekend that s\/he doesn\u2019t much like Halloween as a national holiday. \u00a0“How did fake scary stuff get to be so big a … Continue reading
\nafter a death, crooked attempts
\nto comfort. Things like, “Oh,<\/p>\n
\nor “She was ready to go.\u201d One woman
\neven said, her hand resting on my shoulder<\/p>\n
\nshould make you happy.”
\nHappy. Easy. Words I never<\/p>\n
\ncan\u2019t quite get my arms around
\nno matter my wingspan.<\/p>\n
\nover language as if it were new,
\ndespite a familiarity with time,<\/p>\n
\nof years, despite consideration of death,
\nhaving greeted that recognizable face before.<\/p>\n
\nin words of comfort,
\nthat the dead<\/p>\n
\nthe pain of departing,
\ndo not need to be consoled.<\/p>\n
\nwho know the burden of sad and hard,
\nbowed low beneath the weight of loss.<\/p>\n
\nunderstand why when he glares, shoulders
\nangled back and jaw thrust out<\/p>\n
\nready for a fight, I, a fighter too,
\ncan only cry and hold him close.<\/p>\n