Guest commentary by Nelson Reveley John 11:35 reads: “Jesus wept.” Specifically, this is Jesus’s reaction to the death of Lazarus. More broadly, it expresses the sorrow that saturates losing a loved one. And unlike many faithful affirmations about God, which can feel abstract even when faithfully affirmed, John 11:35 offers something more visceral. Jesus’ weeping shares in the grief and care with which we enfold one another in the face of death. It suggests that, even with the eye of eternity, God suffers alongside us losses that cut against the goodness of creation. 2019 was a year of enormous loss for me personally and professionally, as 2020 is shaping up to be for so many amid COVID-19. Last year ended harshly with the loss of my spouse, Jess. She died suddenly the Sunday before Thanksgiving, just as we were preparing to go to worship and our little boys were wrestling playfully, obliviously downstairs in their Sunday best. Although Jess lived unflappably with epilepsy for … [Read more...]
Staying open to grief
A pastor friend of mine, who recently lost a loved one, reflected to me how hard it’s been to grieve. She doesn’t know why. The grief just seems stuck. It got me wondering if this is a common problem for pastors. Could it be that we spend so much time around grief that we grow numb to it? When I first began in ministry, there was a slew of cancer diagnoses in my congregation, and quite a few of those people died. The reality of cancer’s pervasiveness freaked me out, and it felt like I was constantly turning around to see if cancer was following me. Not anymore. I’m no longer surprised or offended by cancer. Frankly, I’m no longer surprised or offended by suffering. It just is. Granted, I haven’t yet experienced a deep personal loss, like the death of a close family member or friend or my own cancer battle. But, it is striking to me how suffering in general no longer distresses me the way it used to. If it hasn’t yet, suffering will touch each of us. It’s only a matter of time. (As … [Read more...]
We Grieve in Isolation (a hymn)
LLANGLOFFAN 7.6.7.6 D ("Rejoice, Rejoice, Believers") We grieve in isolation, we weep from far away. We wonder at the suffering we hear about this day. An enemy comes near us like none we’ve ever known. O God, we trust you love us, yet we feel so alone. O Christ, this world is changing and we are changing, too. We cry out with a longing that you will make us new. We see the ways the nations have tried to live before and offer our confession: it won’t work anymore. Can life rise from these ashes? Can hope rise from our fear? O Spirit, work among us, that we may change things here. May we be dead to sinning— to all that would destroy. Bring in your new creation; give life and health and joy. May we seek love and kindness that build community. May we seek truth and justice that heal society. We grieve in isolation; we cry, O Lord, to you. O God of our salvation, we pray you’ll make us new. Tune: Traditional Welsh melody, from Daniel Evans' Hymnau a Thonau (Hymns … [Read more...]
We’ve all been there: Naming trauma
As pastors and church leaders, we travel in and out of airports, train stations, even the local bus depots going to meetings, presbytery committees and retreats. If there is an empty seat beside us, perhaps our anxiety rises. Sometimes our stomachs drop when we hear these words after some small talk: “Oh! You’re a pastor?” It can be for many reasons. Maybe we were accosted by someone who was hurt by the church who wanted to hold us personally responsible for their pain as we headed to the funeral of a colleague. Or it could have been someone who just had to tell us why women should never be ordained at a point when we have owned a season of struggle in our ministry. It could even be a well-meaning tirade on what the church really needs while we are headed out to a conference exhausted by our called vocation. There are many stories and possibilities that zip through our heads as the empty seat is filled. When leaving the Atlanta airport on a trip this past year, I was looking at the … [Read more...]
Grief support ministries in an age of trauma
For two thousand years, the church has done a relatively good job of comforting bereaved people. Through ritual leadership, pastoral care, laments and psalms, sacred music, support groups, congregational support, memorials and assurances of life eternal, the local church has been a helpful resource for people dealing with significant losses and death. Indeed, whether formalized or not, most congregations provide grief support services. In recent decades, however, we have become more aware of the incidence and effects of trauma in people’s lives. We now see that many of life’s most significant losses come upon us embedded in trauma. A loss or death is traumatic when it is unusually violent, gruesome, unexpected or overwhelming. It is the murdered child, mass shooting, fiery automobile crash, suicide, battlefield explosion or natural disaster. Trauma comes in many forms and intensities, and not all trauma events involve death or even a loss. But in this article, I want to focus on … [Read more...]
Plunged into the valley of the shadow: Ministering after trauma
A few years ago, in the midst of the war in Syria, some 50 pastors from across the Middle East made their way to the Near East School of Theology in Beirut to spend a week together reflecting on the realities of being pastors in wartime. I was a part of that conference, invited to provide support to these colleagues in the form of training for compassion fatigue and resiliency. During a panel discussion on how pastoral work had changed since the war, a pastor from the shattered city of Homs, in western Syria, said: “Before, preaching was an art, a part of ritual, a tool to change a small corner of the church. You preach in order to help people come back to right thinking. But suddenly in the crisis we are demanded to answer universal questions, difficult questions. We are like Jesus in the garden: praying that God would take this away from me.” He described how church life was — before. He talked about the impossible circumstances endured by so many of the members of his … [Read more...]