So, as part of training for ordination, today we've been considering what it means for us as priests to walk with people through grief, loss, death and dying.
After a long week of exploring various aspects of ministry, this was the subject that touched me the most, and if I'm honest, scares me the most.
It is an awesome and precious privilege to navigate this complex time with people. It is also a sober responsibility.
The following is a piece that came almost straight after our last session as I reflect on the weight of entering into someone's grief with them.
As ever it probably makes more sense in delivery...
How do I hold this?
What do I know?
When so much is lost,
in anger, injustice, confusion, pain,
the doubt and the tears
Not knowing what to say.
How do I hold this?
When the answer is no,
the diagnosis, terminal
and, like a punch to the gut, you just know,
that this is the hardest road to walk.
This will draw you into the depths,
where despair and grief mingle in a sickly toxicity that will cover your soul.
How do I hold this?
With sweaty palms and trembling heart, I stretch out my hand to hold another,
and a divide is breached.
Soul burdened and mind a blur, a silent prayer is offered from the very seat of my being -
Please, hold us here.
Hold us, as you have ever held.
Intellect and reason seem empty and meaningless at these depths
where the air is different,
and things that once seemed so familiar now morph into the alien.
Nothing is quite the same anymore,
and though we don't quite know how to put words to our longing.
Please hold us,
In this thin space,
Which is yet so inexplicably thick, like wading through treacle.
I remember that we are held.
We are held in the midst... of this
In a story.
A story, at one and the same time veiled from view yet never more real.
A story that does not lift us out of these depths.
It does not need or wish to.
It is a story that meets us in this very moment,
and as we stay right here...
We encounter a love, a life, a hope, written into these pages
that cannot be unwritten.
The divide is breached
and the reality of this most ancient of stories
rests upon this most holy of moments. Like the giving of a gift.
Let us stay here a while - together.
As we are held.
After a long week of exploring various aspects of ministry, this was the subject that touched me the most, and if I'm honest, scares me the most.
It is an awesome and precious privilege to navigate this complex time with people. It is also a sober responsibility.
The following is a piece that came almost straight after our last session as I reflect on the weight of entering into someone's grief with them.
As ever it probably makes more sense in delivery...
How do I hold this?
What do I know?
When so much is lost,
in anger, injustice, confusion, pain,
the doubt and the tears
Not knowing what to say.
How do I hold this?
When the answer is no,
the diagnosis, terminal
and, like a punch to the gut, you just know,
that this is the hardest road to walk.
This will draw you into the depths,
where despair and grief mingle in a sickly toxicity that will cover your soul.
How do I hold this?
With sweaty palms and trembling heart, I stretch out my hand to hold another,
and a divide is breached.
Soul burdened and mind a blur, a silent prayer is offered from the very seat of my being -
Please, hold us here.
Hold us, as you have ever held.
Intellect and reason seem empty and meaningless at these depths
where the air is different,
and things that once seemed so familiar now morph into the alien.
Nothing is quite the same anymore,
and though we don't quite know how to put words to our longing.
Please hold us,
In this thin space,
Which is yet so inexplicably thick, like wading through treacle.
I remember that we are held.
We are held in the midst... of this
In a story.
A story, at one and the same time veiled from view yet never more real.
A story that does not lift us out of these depths.
It does not need or wish to.
It is a story that meets us in this very moment,
and as we stay right here...
We encounter a love, a life, a hope, written into these pages
that cannot be unwritten.
The divide is breached
and the reality of this most ancient of stories
rests upon this most holy of moments. Like the giving of a gift.
Let us stay here a while - together.
As we are held.
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