A favorite science fiction character of mine always warns the reader: love is a debt, and you pay in grief. This person is a traveler to a distant planet in the Mary Doria Russell books “The Sparrow” and “Children of God,” about whom I ought not to say more, for fear of being a spoiler of these excellent novels. This person usually gives this warning while in the throes of grief, as yet another coinhabitant of their sci-fi world dies another, usually gruesome, death. And this person says it again while walling their heart off and vowing never to love again. Love is a debt, and you pay in grief.
These words are powerful, and I have, as we used to say in the 90s, “been there. Done that.” But though there is something true in this warning, these days I try to see it differently. The deeper truth I believe now is this: Grief is just another face of love.
You know the way turns rosy and shiny when we fall in love? The way a piece of clothing becomes holy because our beloved’s scent lingers on it, or the street where we met them becomes a sacred pilgrimage? The way our hearts overflow nearly to bursting with warmth and goodwill towards nearly everyone we meet? That is not a different process, at its core, from the way the world turns grey and fragile when we lose a loved one, from the way we cling to memorabilia as tokens in our grief, from the way our hearts break so far open that we cannot witness another’s tears without crying too. Falling deeply in love opens our hearts in the same way that losing a love breaks our hearts open.
I think it’s important to look at it this way, because too often we see grief as a horrible process we have to survive, fix, medicate and/or get through as quickly as possible. But what if we saw it as one more gift of love? Challenging us to keep falling in love with this precious, beautiful world we live in? For God so loved the world… that God chose to experience great grief with us.
Our city is in deep mourning for those who were killed in the Oakland fire. Sometimes the numbness and pain of grief can turn us away from the vulnerability of loving. But now, more than ever, we need to commit to love and to the activities of love. We need to dance, to sing, to create and celebrate together. So don’t be afraid of the grief – remember it’s just the flip side of love. Those who grieve deeply are freed to love deeply.
Every Blessing,
Talitha
PS If you would like to share grief together –whether your grief is large or small, close at hand or distant – remember that we have a MPC grief group that meets monthly. Our next meeting is Monday 12/12 at 3 PM in the Thornhill Room.