October Is For Dying
I didn't have room for bad things happening to me or the people I loved in my earliest theology.
God was a vending machine doling out happy life moments in exchange for my good work.
And luckily for me, life went pretty smoothly in my perception during my growing up and early adult years. Grief was not a part of my vocabulary. Even when my parents divorced in high school, I never considered grief in the swirl of emotions and chaos that came along with the process of a household breaking apart.
And then, as I was preparing to get married, a bizarre thing started happening in my life - really happy occasions were bumping right into devastating tragedy. First, it was my own wedding shower paired with the unanticipated death of my infant cousin. Then my sister's wedding shower with the sudden death of an uncle. Then I was near the end of my second trimester with my first son when my maternal grandmother passed away. I couldn't reconcile these things. Why on earth were these beginnings and endings going hand-in-hand? What did I do wrong?
I have a really wonderful therapist. She heard me utter this question years later as I processed the accidental death of my cousin's husband which happened less than 48 hours after my husband and I moved into our first home as homeowners. And as a result, she has given me some heavy, theology-shifting, freeing reads.
If you listen to my podcast, you've heard me allude to Henri Nouwen at least a half-dozen times because his book “Can You Drink The Cup?" was the first suggestion she gave me. The concept of life holding the fullness of grief, pain, and sadness along with joy, delight, and wonder was revolutionary for me. It freed me from the pressures and guilt of the subtle prosperity gospel I had weaved together into vending-machine-god. This began to let me walk into the moments - wonderful ones and difficult ones - fully me, fully present. I am no longer worried about what I might do to anger God in a way that would cause the next tragic difficulty. I've stopped worrying as much about that next shoe that might drop.
The death of my cousin's husband I mentioned above happened in October 2018, and since then, death seems to revisit every few years this month. In 2021, October saw the loss of my paternal grandmother. This year, we are walking closely with friends who have lost their mother too soon.
It seems October has become the month for dying and remembering death - a practice I'm still quite uncomfortable with as I continue to dismantle vending-machine-god.
As the leaves turn brilliant colors and fall away, the memory of loved ones is at the front of my mind. As the air turns crisp, the emotional muscle memory returns to show me how deeply I loved the people I have lost, the pain reminding me I'm still here alive in this October that they will never experience. As the sun dips out sooner and sooner, I'm left wondering about the meaning of all of this life we are living in the midst of darkness, pain, and evil.
And yet, as the leaves fall and cover the ground I remember it is a cycle. These yesterday leaves keep the ground warm and fertilized in winter days. And in the spring new life will bud and grow.
I don't have a nice bow available to tie up this article. And I think that's because grappling with this process isn't going to be complete, ever. Life and death churn on and we all experience both realities. We wrestle with what it means to live fully alive as a human and we wrestle with why death comes before we truly figure it out. We wonder how joy and sorrow seem to grasp hands and enter seasons of our lives knit closely together. We wonder if we truly have the capacity to hold the complexities of a world spinning with births and deaths being constantly recorded in the same moments. We wonder if anything we do, any footprint we make, or any word we type will truly matter in the chaos of all these things. And yet, we forge on anyway. We keep walking, we keep feeling, we keep wondering, we keep crying, we keep talking, we keep writing, creating, dancing, screaming, destroying, enjoying, collapsing, embracing all of it.
And what's the point of God in all of this if God's not creating or preventing the chaos? Right now, I rest in the promise of presence. Emmanuel - God with us. Jesus showed us God desires our attention not because God is needy or demanding, but because God is there - already with us. God is expanding our capacity. Holding our pain. Collecting our tears. The magical force that lifts us like flying eagles. The comforting fortress for rest in the questions even as we question the very fortress itself.
May you be comforted by God's with-ness if, like me, your October isn't all cute boos and booze and cozy time but instead an existential reminder of our mortality. Press in and take comfort in the promise that God's presence isn't dependent on your right action, right mindset, or right theology. God's presence simply is. May you feel this Divine mystery in your day even today.
Do you appreciate Resources like this? Here’s How you can show your support.
Buy Me Coffee
Buy Me Coffee
Send ☕️