JOY AND GRIEF ARE COUSINS

   How can this be? Don't they appear to be opposites? This sounds like something Richard Rohr would say, looking at us with gentle compassion. But let's explore these words which came into my head a few days back.

 When you feel joy, what is it like physically for you? I feel that "carbonated holiness" which Anne Lamott talks about. 

It's a sensation of bubbles rising inside, bursting to get out, until I have to: sit down and write, run around on the deck, blow bubbles for our dog, seize my honey and give him a smacking kiss, and sit in the sun and praise God. Thankyouthankyouthankyou, as Anne says is one of her favorite prayers. 

 Joy makes me want to reach out to the world, to donate money to The Survival Center in Northampton, to call a friend in need of some cheer, to go beyond myself in some light-filled way.

 

 But grief is different. Instead of the carbonated holiness inside, there is dark flowing down within my body, a heaviness beyond words. All of my insides and organs seem enveloped in darkness. Grief makes me want to cook, eat, sip coffee, call a friend, cry, eat chocolate, and reach out to others experiencing grief. But here's the gift: It can join us together instead of isolating us, if we let it. Grief leads us to understand the hardness of others' lives, how people can simply fall to their knees under their burdens. This expands us inside, just as joy widens our souls. Then we can pray Anne Lamott's second favorite prayer along with so many suffering folks: helphelphelphelp.

This past year has been a right bugger, as the Brits would say. In the Spring we lost Patty MacLachlan, a brilliant writer and member of our Writers' Group, raucous, funny, loving, and inspiring.  She lived in our hearts.

 In the Fall my sister-in-law, Judy, died of a multitude of conditions, primarily heart-related. She was the center of the family and is dearly missed by us but especially her grandchildren. Then--over a few weeks back, we lost another beloved member of our Writers' Group, Ellen, who was talented, brave, a playwright, poet, novelist and also a beloved friend. Every time I drive past her house my heart mourns, Ellen, Ellen, how could this happen?

 

 How do I encompass these losses and make sense of them? I think you don't. Shit happens. People get weird, fatal diseases for which there is no cure. Hearts give out after beating faithfully for decades. Cancer attacks those we love, and they succumb.

All I can offer is what William Sloane Coffin said after the death of his son in an auto accident: "God is the first to cry." This is the connection between grief and joy--God. When we are bubbling with joy, God is there, laughing with us. When we are sobbing on the floor, God holds our hand, always present. So the "cousin" and "related" piece of this is--the Holy Spirit, "the love which God has poured out..into our hearts..." (Romans 5:5)

 

  We can count on this, no matter what is happening. This strong, woven rope of love connects us to our hearts, to others, and to our small attempts to make sense of it all, because the only sense lies in the mystery of love.