Good Mourning and Holy Saturday's

I give much thanks to the imagination of the artist who had a sense of humor and the talent to create a sparsely-haired child who exclaimed, "good grief!" at various times of difficulty in his life.  This lovable little boy seemed to have the wisdom of the ages (or maybe it was the burden of the world?) that no one in his life could ever understand.

I've been mulling over these words for some time now,  "good grief" and what exactly does good grief mean?  What does it look like?  Does it exist beyond this exclamation from a fictional character? 
In playing with these words, I also was struck by the irony of the phrase, "good mourning".  Can mourning ever be a good thing?    

Loss is all around us - loss of a job, a relationship, a pet, or a person.  You can lose your home, or there is the loss of a life we used to know.  Something I've been struggling with it seems for a long time has been this idea of grief, this theme of loss.  This is not to say I walk around thinking of everything that has gone missing in  my life, but I do emotionally give credit where credit is due, so to speak.   These past few months have given me what seems loss after loss - from a relationship, of a beloved pet, and of dear friends.  

In Pastoral Care a few weeks ago, we mentioned the importance of sitting through Holy Saturday. This is the idea of being in the "not-knowing" part of Easter Weekend.  You can kind of guess what the followers of Christ were feeling on Good Friday - the devastating loss of Jesus.  Then we can maybe imagine the astonishment and relief that came in the Resurrection on Sunday.  So what was Saturday like for them?  They were still sitting in the grief of losing Jesus. It wasn't as if they just jumped to the "alleluia's" of Easter morning. 

A very wise friend of mine here at CTS put it another way in a note to me regarding some stuff that was weighing heavy on my heart this past spring.  She said, "It's hard to let things die, but sometimes we have to.  No matter what happens, know that you are a witness to life.  When we let things die, the death often overshadows life and that's okay.  Sit with the death for a while.  Indeed, Saturday was a very gloomy day after Jesus' death; but sit through Saturday with hope for Sunday and the news of the resurrection.  With hope for new life, you'll be a better witness to the life."

Many months later, I am able to read her words and see the hope that comes in that wonderful Sunday morning.  Maybe "good grief" and "good mourning" are not words to express the grief we live with; but better used  to express are sitting with the loss and addressing how we feel.  While there is much I don't know and probably never will when it comes to loss and grief, I do know that sitting in the space of Holy Saturday allows me to still mourn my friend a year later. And I recognize that the feeling of loss is indeed a true thing to explore and mull over.  And I feel ever so blessed to have a community to sit with during those Saturday's. 



"We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body." 
2 Corinthians 4: 8-10