Creating light
You know the spirit crushers. They're all around us. And, we know those who create light. Those who model abundance and sustained caring at the same time not only survive, but also thrive. In medicine, failure to thrive a diagnosis precedes death. That's anticipated grief. Hospice care does create light at a time of great family sadness and darkness as illness saps the last breathe of light from a loved one. Martha Jacobs writes eloquently about this in her posts on this website.
How can one find any understanding about unanticipated grief? Planes crash. Boats sink. Trains collide. Cars burn. The emotional and spiritual trauma of these everyday disasters is highly significant to families and loved ones of the casualties. At a conference sponsored by the National Transportation Safety Board last spring, family members gathered to share their insights about what helped and didn't help by those seeking to assist them after a catastrophic transportation disaster.
Grief is a real, unique, and ever present diagnosis for these families. What creates light for them? For most, accurate information and investigation of the "Why" of the event. Was it mechanical failure or human error? Who do I believe? The media rumors or the authorities tasked with finding the cause - -be it swift or over a painfully long period of time. Rituals also create light, be they religious or unique spontaneous events. Families and loved ones seek to visit the place where their loved ones took their last breath. This light, this pilgrimage, may be vital -- to place a bouquet or light a candle, to say a prayer or collapse to the earth as a way of getting closer and being as close together in death and one was in life. Most wish that there were no suffering at the end, no awareness. Yet six years ago in Lexington, KY, air passengers had 29 seconds between the start of the take-off, and fatal impact. Air France passengers traveling from Rio to Paris may have had over three minutes of decent in the middle of the night to impact in the Southern Atlantic Ocean. When the black boxes were found several years later, some light for the families and loved ones, and for all who travel, were created due to the information that was contained and salvageable. Chaplains may be the compassionate presence as information is revealed and a resource for rituals that may assist those who have experienced both the anticipated grief of hospice, and unanticipated grief of unanticipated fatal catastrophe.
Creating Music
You can tell a lot about a society by the way they dance. The minuet reflected the Baroque era in architecture, thought, fashion and sound. The tango is basically sex on the dance floor. Dancing on Fire Island is wildly tribal. World Wars produced the Jitterbug and Swing. Emotional and spiritual care is just about celebration as much is it is about mourning loss and change.
But, this blog is more about considering emotional and spiritual music, of the harmony in our lives and how chaplains may advocate for the safe space around those facing chronic illness, and post-disasters as a time of reflection and discernment, finding meaning and clarity in the event, coping with the intense feelings of loss of health or welfare, or numbness that may accompanying diagnosis and the way forward. There is no music when there is no justice. There is little dancing on the graves of those lost before their time. The music of mercy and compassion may be still and silent, imagined and somehow perfect.
Creating Wisdom
There's a reason why crock-pots aren't microwave ovens. When does experience and instruction simmer and become wisdom? When common sense becomes extraordinary? Storing and warehousing our living national treasures as reasonable, blaming the sick for their lllness, and disasters on the poor for their inability to afford high ground, for children crossing busy highways by themselves as important childhood education?
What did I pray for during childhood? Wisdom. I felt that if I could discern the value of each decision, than that was the beginning of all wealth, power and relationships. Wealth calculated not only in money. Power not only calculated in high office or industry. Relationships calculated in integrity, caring for self and others, and having a purpose-filled life. Watching my parents burn-out so that my sister and I would have the opportunity of light and music. A weekly ritual of taking us to church and also the nursing home.
The wisdom of rituals in the great religious traditions and secular gatherings, for the emotional and spiritual care of the family and for the community. Collective times when communities celebrate and mourn. Walking to a trailhead above Tucson to mourn a murdered colleague, walking the last ten miles to the airport in Buffalo from where the plane crashed, or walking from the site of the tornado destroyed hospital in Joplin to the groundbreaking of where the new hospital will be built, and, in Ventura, dropping a basket of family flowers in the Pacific in memory of those lost far from home.
Ambiguous loss when there may be no body to bury, only distant lights, music, and wisdom to carry us home.