The Messy Middle
Resurrection is messy. In my evangelical Christian upbringing, I learned that Easter is a time to celebrate, but I never heard anyone talk about the complexity of learning to hope again after death. This never occurred to me until I experienced death and resurrection within my own body.
What Resurrection Means to Me: The Messy Middle
Written by: Lindsay L. O’Connor
Resurrection is messy. In my evangelical Christian upbringing, I learned that Easter is a time to celebrate, but I never heard anyone talk about the complexity of learning to hope again after death. This never occurred to me until I experienced death and resurrection within my own body.
A liminal space exists in which the lines between life and death are blurry, scary, and confusing. When Jesus appeared to the disciples, their initial reaction to his resurrected body was terror. Was he dead or alive or caught in some strange in-between place? If he was alive, was that supposed to suddenly erase the trauma they had endured when they witnessed his torture and death just days earlier? How do you celebrate life while your body carries the fresh scars of the death that preceded resurrection?
Early in my first pregnancy, I remember the intense anxiety of waiting for a week between appointments to find out if I had miscarried. I stood in the hospital parking lot with my husband when we got the call notifying us that the pregnancy was ending. As I grieved the loss of a life that had barely begun, we discovered days later that our baby was in fact alive and well. Now she is my 10 year old reminder that sometimes, miracles happen.
The evidence of life after supposed death—my daughter’s tiny flutter of a heartbeat—remains one of the most beautiful sounds I’ve ever heard. We were shocked and relieved. Still, after receiving the good news, my husband put it succinctly when he said we were “cautiously ecstatic.” That experience was a fresh reminder of the vulnerability of our joy. We had seen how fragile life can be.
The scar my body bears from the birth of my daughter was reopened twice. My second pregnancy ended in a miscarriage with complications that required the doctor to reopen the scar. What had been a reminder of miraculous life became associated with loss. In the first pregnancy, we learned to hope after grief. After the miscarriage, I saw a therapist who walked me through learning how to grieve after hope. I’m still not sure which was more difficult.
The scar was opened a third time when my second daughter was born—life, again, and almost unbearable joy that was entangled with my grief. As we delighted in our second daughter, I remembered in my second pregnancy when I had allowed myself to dance and sing with abandon to Pharrell Williams’ “Happy” song, only to find out there would be no baby. I don’t regret my joy then, brief as it was, and I don’t regret the joy I allowed myself to receive when our rainbow baby was born after a blissfully uneventful pregnancy.
My body carries the literal scars of my deepest joy and pain, all at the same site. Everywhere I go, I bring along this embodied reminder of life, death, and resurrection. Resurrection is glorious, but first, in my experience, it is scary, disorienting, and entangled with grief.
When Jesus appeared to the disciples after He had arisen from death, His response to their terror was to draw them in closer to Himself. “Touch Me and see,” He said (Luke 24:39). In answer to the disciples “While in their joy they were disbelieving and still wondering,” Jesus ate in their presence, offering further physical evidence of His resurrection. Then, He opened their minds to understand the scriptures He had fulfilled. Jesus offered a wholistic response to the disciples amidst their fear and confusion, connecting with them and meeting their needs in body, mind, and heart.
Throughout our lives, we move in and out of liminal spaces. Some are filled with joyous anticipation, others are marked by great suffering, and most are entangled with grief of some sort. Pregnancy, engagement, job loss, a cancer diagnosis, shifting beliefs, and significant life changes propel us into the discomfort of leaving behind one place while not yet being firmly planted in another. Every day, we stand in the liminal space between who we were and who we will be.
Jesus moves toward us in the uncomfortable thresholds between life, death, and resurrection. He stands with us in the liminal space and invites us to touch Him and see. May God give us eyes to see, minds to understand, and hearts to receive the mysterious gift of God with us in the in-between as we experience the discomfort and the glory of resurrection.
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Faith, Grief & Healing
The simple telling of one’s pain, sharing it with others in an accepting environment, has a dramatic and powerful consequence. An equal impact comes from listening to other people’s stories.
Faith, Grief & Healing
Written By: Bob Nelson
Faith & Grief, a ministry supported by Arapaho UMC, gathers each month and follows a consistent schedule: There is an introduction followed by a prayer and a scripture reading. Next the speaker for the meeting shares his or her story. Then the attendees get into small groups of 6-8 participants. For approximately 20 minutes, the group members share their personal stories of grief, and react to each other. In the small groups, everyone is given an equal opportunity to share their personal grief story if they feel comfortable doing so; everyone is listened to and given support before we come back together and close the meeting. In this time of pandemic, everything is virtual rather than in person, but the agenda is still the same.
The agenda may seem simplistic and mechanical, perhaps too regimented to be of value. However, from my experience, a deep and profound sense of compassion develops in these meetings. Personally, I have found several truths to be revealed in these meetings. First, a very paradoxical truth becomes apparent. Grief is always unique --there is no single pattern, no mold for pain. Tears are always individual things yet, there is also a universality to pain. In reality, all tears are the same. The paradoxical truth, despite the individuality of grief, there seems to be a uniformity, the resonant sound of a silent scream.
The second truth, from all of the stories of loss I have heard in the past four years, I have learned that grief is a process that never ends, like breathing, every breath new and yet every breath the same.
The third truth is the most profound and has had the greatest impact on me. The simple telling of one’s pain, sharing it with others in an accepting environment, has a dramatic and powerful consequence. An equal impact comes from listening to other people’s stories.
I have found that something extremely positive happens in a Faith and Grief meeting, something that evades analysis. I am tempted to call this a magical, mystical experience, but I am not comfortable with such a label. The truth is that people heal people. When experienced alone, grief festers, but when grief is shared, it becomes bearable. Maybe that is the miracle. Faith and Grief is a living testimonial to the power of empathy, the healing, regenerative, validating power of empathy. It is nothing more but it is also nothing less. And that, I feel, is quite adequate.
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Faith and Grief Ministries provide several services for someone experiencing grief. Retreats, workshops, gatherings, blogs, podcasts and book reviews are available. Learn more at www.faithandgrief.org.
Faith and Grief also meets regularly for several local gatherings. A quick scan reveals two gatherings per month in Richardson: Tuesday evening and Thursday at noon during the third week of every month. Furthermore, Faith and Grief Ministries offer gatherings throughout the country in various cities to help people on their grief journey. Although Arapaho, in connection with Canyon Creek Presbyterian Church and Preston Hollow Presbyterian hosts at noon on the third Thursday of each month on Zoom.
About the author:
Bob Nelson has retired after 52 years of teaching, 30 of them at Pearce High School. He has been active at AUMC for over 20 years. He facilitates a monthly free floating conversation called Socrates Circle on the third Friday of each month. He has also been involved and on the leadership team for Faith & Grief at Arapaho. His faith journey is ongoing and he appreciates the environment at Arapaho that allows him to grow spiritually.