Clearly, they were grieving. Out there on the road, trying to make their way home to Emmaus. Their beloved friend and leader dead. Taken from them in a hideous act of violence. All their hopes and dreams gone. Everything out of their control. Wandering in their grief, towards a home that is forever changed. The world they once knew taken from them. The confusion of the empty tomb. Rumours and conjecture leaving them bereft with so many questions. Clearly, they were grieving. The contours of their journey seem all too familiar to us now. Here we sit, me in my home and you in yours, longing for our shared home. Journeying through this crisis rumours and conjecture leave us bereft with so many questions. We too are grieving.
This has been a difficult week; a difficult week in the midst of difficult weeks. Last weekend’s violence in Nova Scotia, the rising death tolls, and our inability to gather together to comfort one another, is almost more than we can bear left alone to our own resources. Even naming our grief takes some sorting out. Sometimes, when my tears begin to flow, I have to stop and take a breath and ask myself, “Why am I weeping?”
The violence in Nova Scotia tears at our delicate pandemic coping mechanisms leaving many of us desperately trying to distract ourselves from too many griefs. The pointless loss of lives at the hands of a pathetic calculating villain. The endless corona death tolls. The death of a beloved child. The loss of the world as we once knew it. Griefs too numerous to count. Despite our best efforts, the grief won’t go away. Our grief is compounded by our inability to rush to one another’s side; to embrace, to weep and to begin the long hard journey toward healing and wholeness.
Yesterday, I heard someone in desperation, say, “We are all just virtually trying to hold one another.” During this enforced physical isolation, the meaning of virtual has been made clear to me. Virtual does not mean, online, or mediated over technology, like zoom, or the telephone. Virtual actually means, almost. You cannot almost hold someone, or almost be present, or almost LOVE. We can hold, be present and LOVE one another even if our holding, presence, and LOVE must be mediated over technology. Mediated holding, presence, and LOVE may not be our preferred method, but it is the method we are blessed with on this particular journey we are all on together and mediated or not our we are still holding, being present, and embodying LOVE for one another.
I know that it is tempting to hunker down, withdraw, or busy ourselves with distractions; anything to avoid what we are feeling right now. We all have enough on our plates right now. You take care of your isolation and I will take care of mine. It is no coincidence that in times of grief humans turn to food to seek not only physical nourishment but spiritual nourishment as well. In the midst of their grief Cleopas and his wife recognized the Risen CHRIST in the breaking of the bread. In our physical isolation, we may not be able to gather around a meal to nourish one another, but we can provide nourishment to one another. In the midst of grief, people have always gathered around a meal to share stories and song. Today, in the midst of our many griefs, we can actually hold one another in the same way people have been holding one another since the beginning of time. We can hold one another in story. You tell me your story and I can tell you mine. The sharing of stories continues to provide the nourishment we need for the journey we are now on.
Our current predicament reminds me of the Parable of the Spoons.Many of you will have heard the Parable of the Spoons before. But let me mediate the story for you over this particular visual media. Watch this portrayal of the Parable.
Our stories whether they are told, sung, played, painted, sculpted, dramatized, or simply spoken, our stories are the spoons with which we nourish one another. This is not about pitting one story against another story. This is about sharing stories so that we can not only share the pain of our grief, but also share our need to make meaning out of our loss. Grieving through story is the process of experiencing the joy and pain of living.
It is so very difficult to find ourselves physically isolated in our many griefs. So, we reach out using whatever spoons we can find to feed one another. We don’t have to do this “virtually”. We can actually do this. Pick up the phone, Zoom in, FaceTime, snail-mail, driveway visits; use whatever spoons you are blessed to find to feed people, nourish them in the sharing of your stories and the hearing of their stories. As for those moments when you no longer have the strength to feed another soul, let yourself be fed. Open yourself and your grief to the joy and pain of living. Receive the stories as the nourishment we all need on this peculiar road to Emmaus that we are all on.
Stories will not take away our grief. The stories, like the spoons provide us with the nourishment, the strength, we need to move toward healing and wholeness. Our individual and collective griefs will take many stories, many songs, much music, art and even dance to nourish, ground and sustain us in these challenging times. I am so very grateful to all those who “stay with us” for evening and the darkness is almost upon us – staying with, is what Risen LOVE looks like and feels like.
LOVE is Risen. The darkness cannot separate us from the ONE who IS LOVE. LOVE is Risen. LOVE is Risen in Us. Alleluia. Let us feed, nourish ground and sustain one another in story. What does this look like? In the midst of the horrendous suffering of this week, millions of us were actually held in story. Using words and music a grieving souls held us.
Natalie MacMaster used her voice and her fiddle, while her daughter, Mary Frances played the piano, to accompany a video of 17-year-old Emily Tuck, who along with her parents Jolene Oliver and Aaron Tuck were brutally killed this past week. Emily Tuck created her video to help bring people together on Facebook. Sadly, Emily had no idea how many of us would be brought together by her music as she fiddled the old story entitled, “In Memory of Herbie MacLeod”. Watch, listen, and be held in the tender embrace of these gifted storytellers.
There is nothing virtual, nothing almost about that embrace. Natalie, Mary Frances, and Emily held us in LOVE. I know that this story, this embrace will not take our grief away. Stories can only hold us in LOVE as we journey toward healing and wholeness. Remembering that as we journey toward healing and wholeness, we are transformed. Things will never be the same again. There are so many more stories to be told and stories for us to receive. We cannot go back. Becoming whole we will still carry with us our grief and those for whom we grieve, but we do so in the midst of LOVE; LOVE which empower us to embrace all the joy and pain of living. Reaching out, giving and receiving the stories of our lives, we can ACTUALLY recognize Risen LOVE in the virtual breaking of the bread. LOVE is Risen. LOVE is Risen in us. Alleluia!
( I am indebted to Sherry Coman for her insights about media for alerting me to the actual meaning of the word virtual, and to the work of David Kessler in his new book “Finding Meaning”)
You can view the entire worship video below – download the order of service here
