by Christine Sine
This last week I was asked to do an endorsement for a book on grief and gratitude. It is the most impacting book I have read for a long time and I can hardly wait for it to be published. Part of what it made me realize is that we cannot talk about gratitude without also talking about grief. We cannot develop effective rituals for expressing gratitude without creating equally powerful rituals for processing grief.
I can’t introduce you to the book yet, but I can introduce you to an article which the author gleaned from. It has not only resulted in me asking important questions of myself but also led to important discussions between my husband and I about the things in our past that we have not properly grieved and became an important part of our last Facebook Live discussion. It is not just about grieving for what we have lost in the pandemic either. Most of us hold huge wells of unexpressed grief inside us because we live in a culture where grief is unwelcome, something we need to get over quickly. We are ashamed to grieve. As a consequence we are prone to addiction, depression, violence, suicide, possibly cancer, heart disease and I would add PTSD.
The work of the mature person is to carry grief in one hand and gratitude in the other and to be stretched large by them. How much sorrow can I hold? That’s how much gratitude I can give. If I carry only grief, I’ll bend towards cynicism and despair. If I have only gratitude, I’ll become saccharine and won’t develop much compassion for other people’s suffering. Grief keeps the heart fluid and soft, which helps make compassion possible. (The Geography of Sorrow – Francis Weller on Navigating Our Losses – by Tim McKee)
So a few important gems I picked up from the article –
First – rituals of grieving should be communal. This doesn’t mean we don’t go off and weep in solitude, but after we do we should be welcomed back into a group where we can pour out and empty our sorrows together in an environment of comfort and mutual support. I love the rituals of using a cup that Lilly Lewin regularly introduces us to. She uses these in the Thinspace Nashville services she conducts each week as well as for her personal practices. These are the types of practices we all need to help us maintain the grif/gratitude balance.
In healthy cultures one person’s wound is an opportunity for another to bring medicine. But if you are silent about your suffering, then your friends stay spiritually unemployed.
In Navajo culture, for example, illness and loss are seen as communal concerns, not as the responsibility of the individual. Healing is a matter of restoring hozho – beauty/harmony in the community. The Geography of Sorrow – Francis Weller on Navigating Our Losses – by Tim McKee
Second – we should approach grief with reverence, engaging it, sitting with it, mulling it over and recognizing it is worthy of our time . I think this is particularly important at the moment. We are all coming out of the pandemic with a load of grief weighing us down. We are encouraged to feel we should get over it quickly, get back to normal and enjoy life again. Grief is seen as something to be ashamed of, not something to embrace. It is easy to dismiss the need for rituals of grief especially as the consumer culture hypes up for the Christmas season. After all isn’t Christmas meant to be “the happiest season of all?”
Here are a few of my suggestions on rituals that can help us process our grief and move towards gratitude in the coming months:
- Sit around the table with your family or a few close friends and talk about those things from the past that still need to be grieved about. Just talking about these together can bring a measure of healing. Discuss other ways that you could support each other as you process your grief.
- Plan a celebration for All Saints’ Day or Day of the Dead coming up at the beginning of November. Celebrating, grieving and giving thanks for those who have gone before are all interwoven in these important days on the church calendar. I love the ribbons of remembrance that our church creates every year. We all have an opportunity to write the names of our loved ones on ribbons that later are woven around the altar rail or hung around the church.
- Plan a Blue Christmas celebration. Here on Godspace we provide a growing set of resources to help with this celebration. Last year we participated in a powerful and extremely meaningful online Blue Christmas service where we interwove liturgy, creativity, scripture and music together.
- Plan regular retreat days over the next few months to help you slow down, grieve and find that much needed balance between grief and gratitude. Part of the wonder of the Advent and Christmas story which we will talk about in the upcoming retreat Walking In Wonder Through Advent is the recounting of both joy and tragedy. If you follow the liturgical calendar you know that December 28th is Holy Innocents Day when we commemorate the execution of the innocent, male children in Bethlehem as told in Matthew 2:16. It is an uncomfortable day that I always want to skip over, but this year I know it is worthy of remembering. So many innocents have died in the last year, not just from COVID but from hunger, disease, violence and natural disasters. This story gives us the foundations for grieving our own losses. It is just as easy for us to skip over the tragedy because of our desire to focus on the joy. This year we need to make space for both.
- Listen to Leonard Cohen’s incredible song Hallelujah which I listen to regularly to help me process some of my grief burden.
Journal about your grief feelings.
Read Psalm 130 or similar psalm that begins with grief and ends in praise. Sit in the presence of your feelings of grief and allow God to bring healing. As I did that this week this simple poem grew in my mind:
When tears are closer than praise,
God’s love still surrounds me,
Jesus still comforts me,
The Spirit still dwells within.
When tears are closer than praise,
I sit and welcome them into my soul.
My trust is in you O Eternal One,
I put my hope in your transforming love,
And wait for you to wash away my tears.
Christine Sine October 2021.
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To help you find the balance between grif and gratidue this Advent season consider joining us for our upcoming virtual retreat.
Now live and ready for registration! Join Christine and Lilly for a virtual retreat unlocking the wonder of the Advent season on November 20th, 2021 from 9:30 am-12:30 pm PDT.
Anther beautiful contemplative service with music in the spirit of Taize. Carrie Grace Littauer, prayer leader, with music by Kester Limner and Andy Myers.
Permission to podcast/stream the music in this service obtained from One License with license #A-710-756 with additional notes below:
“Watching, Waiting, Hoping” Music and Lyrics by Kester Limner, shared under the Creative Commons License, Attribution (CC-BY)
“On Christ the Solid Rock” Public domain hymn, arrangement and additional verse by Kester Limner
Shared under the Creative Commons License, Attribution (CC-BY)
“Stay With Me” Performed and arranged by Kester Limner and Andy Myers
Words and music by J. Berthier, copyright 1982 by GIA/Les Presses de Taizé
“Kyrie” original composition, Words and music by Kester Limner, shared under the Creative Commons License, Attribution (CC-BY).
“Were You There” Traditional Black American Spiritual
Arrangement by Kester Limner, shared under the Creative Commons license, attribution (CC-BY)
Thank you for praying with us! www.saintandrewsseattle.org
by Christine Sine
Yesterday, outside my office window what I call my sentinel tree shone brilliantly in the early morning sun, giving me a stunning display of red and gold that reminded me of why I love this season. It’s time to get out and collect some leaves and decorate them to display on the dining room table I thought. So I pulled up this post from a couple of years ago to instruct me and got to work. I thought you might like to join me in this fun, creative practice so decided to repost it here – it is designed for autumn but could easily be adapted to spring :
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I love this changing of the seasons and once again I wanted to incorporate it in a special way into my spiritual observances and those of our community. I wanted to relax and have some fun and invite you to join e once again. Reading this article about the consequences of loss of play in our lives made me realize how important it is for all of us to incorporate fun, playful activities into our spiritual lives whenever possible. Writing The Gift of Wonder and engaging in some of the exercises I discuss throughout the book has similarly encouraged me.
A couple of years ago our community members all painted leaves as an autumn spiritual practice. We plan to do it again this year. It is a great way to give thanks for the changing seasons and richness that they bring to our lives.
SUPPLIES
Autumn leaves
Paint pens
Mod Podge Water Based Sealer – I like this high gloss one. It makes the leaves look shiny and they last for a good couple of months.
I had fun collecting a bunch of different shapes and different colours, delighted as I did so at how awesome it was to notice something I had not noticed for a long time. The different shapes and sizes, the vibrant, and sometimes fading colours of autumn, the poignant reminder that all things have a season, was life giving. Some of the leaves I immediately sealed with Mod Podge water based sealer, but most of them I pressed for a couple of days and then laid them out with my paint pens for everyone to admire and then decorate.
I suggested people reflect on the question In the changing seasons what am I hoping for, what am I grateful for? It was good to both acknowledge the change that is rapidly approaching as we enter the festive season and talk about our hopes, expectations and gratitudes. Just expressing these out loud can help make them a reality.
Leaf painting is not as popular as rock painting, but there are a lot of people out there giving it a go so I printed out some examples from Pinterest, to inspire us. I was amazed at both the creativity that emerged and the inspiration for the future that was expressed.
The nice thing about this is that you don’t need to wait for autumn. Those of you in the southern hemisphere could devise a similar exercise with emerging spring leaves. Or you might like to do a leaf rubbing in your journal while you sit quietly and reflect on your leaf. There are a huge range of possibilities, all of them fun!
One person drew a pattern of concentric circles on her leaves, expressing her desire to become more centred over the coming months. Another copied some of the colourful patterns in the photos I provided, finding relaxation and rest in the calm of the exercise. Another drew a picture of their hopes for their family on one side of a leaf and of their desires for their ministry on the other. I painted along the leaf skeletons, some with lines others with dots, feeling as I did so that my hopes and expectations for the coming season are not fully formed.
At the end we coated our leaves in Mod Podge water based sealer. It brought back the vibrancy of the colours and kept the leaves a little more flexible than the acrylic sealer did. I laid my leaves out on the dining room tableland they lasted well through Thanksgiving, providing me with a reminder of my need to continue thinking about my hopes and expectations for this season.
What is your Response?
What are your hopes and expectations for the coming festive season? Is there a fun, creative and reflective exercise that you could plan over the next few days that would help you to think about these? Is there something you could do to help you focus on your hopes and expectations for the future?
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Now live and ready for registration! Join Christine and Lilly for a virtual retreat unlocking the wonder of the Advent season on November 20th, 2021 from 9:30 am-12:30 pm PDT.
GRAB a COFFEE CUP and USE it as a prayer tool.
This week, the Gospel Reading is from MARK 10: 35-45. Jesus and his disciples are on their way up to Jerusalem. Jesus has just told them again that he will be betrayed and arrested and then killed. Here’s what happens next…
MARK 10: 35-45 NIV
35 Then James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came to him. “Teacher,” they said, “we want you to do for us whatever we ask.”
36 “What do you want me to do for you?” he asked.
37 They replied, “Let one of us sit at your right and the other at your left in your glory.”
38 “You don’t know what you are asking,” Jesus said. “Can you drink the cup I drink or be baptized with the baptism I am baptized with?”
39 “We can,” they answered.
Jesus said to them, “You will drink the cup I drink and be baptized with the baptism I am baptized with, 40 but to sit at my right or left is not for me to grant. These places belong to those for whom they have been prepared.”
41 When the ten heard about this, they became indignant with James and John. 42 Jesus called them together and said, “You know that those who are regarded as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. 43 Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, 44 and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all. 45 For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”james and john in the “Chosen”
What do you know about the “Sons of Thunder” James and John? How do they change from this power hungry pair to people who go and change the world?
Why don’t we like the thought of being last rather than first?
What makes it hard for us to deal with suffering?
What does Jesus say about how we are to live differently than the world’s leaders?
Pick a world leader or two and pray for them to be encouraged.
Pick a leader who “lords it over others” and pray for them to have a servant’s heart.
Jesus took the CUP for us!
GRAB a COFFEE CUP and USE it as a prayer tool.
JESUS took the CUP of SUFFERING for each of us. He takes the CUP for YOU!
As you hold your cup, consider:
What are the things causing you pain right now? Physical, Spiritual, Emotional, etc
What things hurt your soul?
What are the things you are grieving or need to grieve?
Talk to Jesus about all of these things….IMAGINE these things held in your cup. IMAGINE giving this cup of pain and suffering over to Jesus to hold for you!
JESUS thank you for taking the CUP OF SUFFERING FOR ME and holding all of these things!
NOW HOLD YOUR CUP AND PRAY AGAIN! Actually pause, hold your cup and pray for these people and places.
PRAY for people you know who are suffering today.
PRAY for People who are in pain because illness or disease.
PRAY for People who are hurting, dealing with depression or other mental health issues.
PRAY for People hurting because of broken relationships or loneliness.
PRAY for places in our world that are suffering due to natural disasters.
PRAY for places in our world like Afghanistan and Lebanon that are dealing with the suffering of unrest and war.
PRAY for People who are suffering as refugees or due to immigration status, and pray for those fleeing oppression.
PRAY for groups who are suffering due to discrimination due to race, gender, sexual orientation, etc.
PRAY for the First Nations people who have suffered for so long due to colonialism, oppression, and discrimination.
Jesus, you took the CUP OF SUFFERING for all of these people and places.
You took the CUP for each of us and our pain and suffering too.
HOLD THIS SUFFERING. HOLD THIS PAIN for us and for all of these people and places.
We praise and thank you Jesus for taking this CUP. AMEN
©lillylewin and freerangeworship.com
Now live and ready for registration! Join Christine and Lilly for a virtual retreat unlocking the wonder of the Advent season on November 20th, 2021 from 9:30 am-12:30 pm PDT.
guest post by Delme Linscott,
King Lear once remarked, “How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is to have a thankless child.” And I believe he was absolutely correct. The stinging pain from a child who constantly receives, without remembering to say Thank you can release a slow poison of disillusionment and frustration in the heart of any exhausted parent.
But, why is it that most children seem to be born without the grateful gene in their DNA? Trying to teach children the importance of using words like Please and Thank you can be an absolute nightmare? In fact, sometimes it feels as if flying to Mars is more likely to happen than children using a Please and Thank You.
We could take the dim view of this frustrating phase in the lives of our youngsters and simply give up or we could choose to push on and teach our kids the lost art of being grateful. As a young naive father, there were many days where I shook my head in despair at my kids’ lack of gratitude, but I am glad we persevered in expecting more. I strongly believe that if we can teach our kids the art of gratitude it will change the way they see their world and hopefully embed in their hearts an attitude of thankfulness.
If allowed to continue without the appropriate correction, the spirit of ungratefulness can impact upon the child’s friendships with peers, relationships with significant adults and ultimately lead them down a path of isolation. If you think that this statement is an over-exaggeration then I ask you to think about the last time you were in the company of someone who was arrogant, demanding, ungrateful, and entitled. How did that go for you? How did you feel? My guess is that you hated every minute of the experience and you will definitely be moving that person way down your future guest list.
In Luke 17:11-19, Jesus had an interesting encounter with ten lepers, nine of whom seemed to be totally ungrateful for what he did for them. There was only one of them who bothered to come back and say to Jesus, “thanks for giving me my life back!”
One of them, when he saw he was healed, came back, praising God in a loud voice. He threw himself at Jesus’ feet and thanked him—and he was a Samaritan. Jesus asked, “Were not all ten cleansed? Where are the other nine? Has no one returned to give praise to God except this foreigner?” Then he said to him, “Rise and go; your faith has made you well.”(New Living Translation)
We are not sure how far the lepers had to walk to report back to the Priests, but this is beside the point. The main issue is that only 1 out of the 10 bothered to thank Jesus. Even if they had to walk a few kilometers, they still could have turned around and said thank you. The point is that many times we ask God for favours and yet we seldom remember to say “Thank you, Lord.”
In my experience, gratitude requires a certain amount of effort. Sending that email, making the phone call, or even popping around to say Thank You all take time, but in the end, the gesture goes a long way. Receiving a Thank You can even inspire more generosity in the heart of the initial giver. I am not sure why it works like that, but it just does.
So, here is a question for us today: How often do we say thank you to God?
Is it only when we get something from God or perhaps every time we come to worship? Or are we able to develop a daily attitude of thankfulness and gratitude?
Carefully read the words of this passage from the Psalms:
“Enter his gates with thanksgiving;
go into his courts with praise.
Give thanks to him and praise his name.” – Psalm 100:4
If you read this passage in Eugene Peterson’s paraphrase The Message you will note how he interprets this verse to read:
“Enter with the password: “Thank you!”
Make yourselves at home, talking praise.
Thank him. Worship him.”
I love this thought. I think I am going to tell my friends and family that we have a new password at home and church. If you want to enter into either of these spaces you have to say the password out loud – THANK YOU! Forget about the secret knock on the door; just use a Thank You and you are welcome in our home.
It may seem like a long, long process, but I want my kids to learn this lost art and to be grateful for their blessings. It would be wonderful if we could instill within all our hearts these challenging words from Paul – “Give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus” (1 Thessalonians 5:18). In this way, we could be grateful despite what happens in the world around us.
Lastly, can I leave us with this challenge? Think about someone who has done something for you recently and send a clear message to them that you are deeply grateful. You will be surprised how far your ‘Thank You’ may go!
Living in Grace
Delme
Bio for Delme Linscott
Delme Linscott is an Ordained Minister serving in the Methodist Church of Southern Africa. He is married to Kim and they have three teenage sons. Delme loves the outdoors, running, swimming, surfing and also enjoys good coffee. For many years, Delme has been exploring his faith journey through his writing and personal reflections on his daily blog. Delme has also authored seven books, including Living Oceans Apart, Whatever it Takes, Jesus in the Psalms, 70 Days of Wisdom and Christ in our Chaos. For more information please visit: www.LivingInGrace.co.za.
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Gearing Up for a Season of Gratitude Online Retreat
Inspired by the celebrations of Canadian Thanksgiving at the beginning of October and American Thanksgiving at the end of November, we designate October and November as gratitude months on Godspace Light. Lilly Lewin and Christine Sine will encourage you to get ready by providing a collaborative retreat process that will help us enter this season of gratitude with joy and delight in our hearts. This course provides a fun process of interaction, creativity, and reflection.
How do we approach the world with gratitude and delight even in the midst of the most challenging situations? What if gratitude is more than an emotion? What can we do to bring more gratitude into our daily lives? These are some of the questions we grapple with as we look ahead to the changing seasons. What are your questions about gratitude? Join us and explore them in this interactive mini-retreat “Gearing up for a Season of Gratitude“.
by Carol Dixon photo by me of my back garden
‘Barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day’
Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
To bend with apples the moss’d cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For summer has o’er-brimm’d their clammy cells.Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
Or on a half-reap’d furrow sound asleep,
Drowsed with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers:
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook;
Or by a cider-press, with patient look,
Thou watchest the last oozings, hours by hours.Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,–
While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,
And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
Among the river sallows, borne aloft
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
The redbreast whistles from a garden-croft,
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies. John Keats
I first came across Keats’ poem Ode to Autumn when we studied it as part of our English Literature course at the girls’ grammar school I attended in the 1960s. For me it still is one of the best descriptions of the feel of the season–not only because of its wonderful rich description of the world around at this time of year but also because it refers back to the other seasons as well and even gives a hint to forthcoming winter (robin chirruping & swallows leaving for warmer climes).
Ode to Autumn was the last poem Keats wrote before his death of tuberculosis as a young man, and due to the incurable nature of the disease, he would be well aware that he was in the autumn of his life, despite his youth. As a septuagenarian, I too am in the autumn of my life; over the years, even when I was young, there were ‘autumn’ periods through illness or change of circumstances. Yet rather than causing sadness, sometimes they were times of abundance and great joy as ‘old’ things passed in order to give birth to a fallow wintertime of rest which hinted at the spring to come.
Autumn Storm by Tengyart on Unsplash
John Donne’s poem To Autumn takes a more somber note, but still there are glimmers of light in the darker times.
Come, pensive Autumn, with thy clouds and storms
And falling leaves and pastures lost to flowers;
A luscious charm hangs on thy faded forms,
More sweet than Summer in her loveliest hours,
Who in her blooming uniform of green
Delights with samely and continued joy:
But give me, Autumn, where thy hand hath been,
For there is wildness that can never cloy –
The russet hue of fields left bare, and all
The tints of leaves and blossoms ere they fall.
In thy dull days of clouds a pleasure comes,
Wild music softens in thy hollow winds;
And in thy fading woods a beauty blooms
That’s more than dear to melancholy minds.
Donne suffered greatly from depression, but in his lighter moments when the fog lifted he was able to see so perceptively and his beautiful words have spoken to many over the centuries and provided hope in the dull days of life.
Both of these poets remind us of the need to be thankful for the gifts of God around us even when it is difficult to see them for the mist and autumn rain–as I have discovered myself, recently, while recovering from surgery, (with a couple of setbacks I hadn’t reckoned on) and learning to find God in pain hasn’t been an easy lesson. I am so grateful for the Godspacelight current theme of Gratitude & Thankfulness and for the wonderful reflections submitted by my fellow Godspacelight writers which have helped immensely, along with your prayers.
One of my favourite gratitude songs which I used to sing with my family (now in their 40s!) is classed as a children’s hymn but it is wonderful to sing whatever our age or season of life. It’s called ‘Autumn days’ by Estelle White and I hope you enjoy singing along and ask yourself what ‘GREAT BIG THANK YOU’ you need to say to God today.
“Autumn Days” by Estelle White on YouTube
Join Christine and Lilly TODAY for the next session of Facebook Live on October 13th, 2021 at 9am PT. If you are not able to join live, you can check out the recording on YouTube later.
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