Unlearning

(Disclaimer – the word God is used multiple times. Feel free to substitute as needed.)

I don’t know how to explain what God is. I don’t even believe it’s possible to explain who God is (or whatever name you may use for this magnificent power). 

But I do know what God is not. God is not an old man in the sky sitting on a throne. God is not angry or vengeful. Or unforgiving. God is not male, or even female for that matter; God might be both or God might be neither. God is not someone or something that either grants our wishes/prayers or denies them. The above describes such a small God. So limited. So manufactured. But that is the God that is so often advertised. No wonder so many people are atheists. 

I used to believe in this God because that’s what I was taught - a long, long time ago. As time went on, I began to let go of some of these ideas due to my participation in healthier religious readings and discussions. But seven years ago, when I experienced profound suffering after my youngest child passed away, I had to rethink all of this, because it felt like bullshit.

I searched. And searched. I read books. I listened to people speak on death, and life, and love, and suffering, and afterlife, and God. I sifted through all of it. I tossed what did not resonate in my heart as truth, and gently held and cradled that which did resonate. I sat in silence with myself. I pondered and contemplated.

Little by little, something deep within myself began to emerge. A truth. A light. Something immense. Expansive. Uncontainable. And I began to realize that, in this deepest part of me, was God.

I discovered that God is in all things, in all people. That is why God is always with us in every situation good or bad. Joyful or painful. I know that God is the Creator of this incredible, indescribably beautiful Earth and universe. And I have learned that He/She is the Source of all Love. And what is greater than unconditional love? 

Those small acts of kindness you may witness each day – holding a door for someone, letting a car in front of you on the road, offering a bottle of water to a stranger who appears to be in distress, even offering a genuine smile – that’s where God is. Right there. So easy to miss. 

I have come to understand that God protects us from nothing but sustains us in all things. For we are here for all of it. Suffering, I’ve learned, is part of life. And it is also a teacher. Through great suffering can come great transformation. We can become compassionate to the suffering of others. We are here to grow our capacity to love. Everyone. Even our enemies.

Love our enemies? Whoa. There it is. Tallest order I know of. But I do get it now. 

Forgiveness, I have found, is great love. It’s the acknowledgement that deep down inside each of us, where we never really look, we are actually all the same, and not one of us is perfect. We all make mistakes. We all fail, and sometimes we fail big time. We do something that feels unforgivable, and we may hate ourselves for it. Then someone hurts us in a way that also feels unforgivable. And here we are all sitting around, wallowing in our shittiness.

Did you ever ask for forgiveness? Have you ever been forgiven for a grave injustice? Do you remember how it felt? To be forgiven? A huge weight lifted off your soul. Immense gratitude to the forgiver. Didn’t that feel kind of like…love? 

And imagine offering that to someone else. For fucking up. Big time. Or even small time. Either way…how very…

Loving.

That’s God in action. Through you. Through me. Through each of us. No matter how imperfect we are.

This God is so much bigger than that small God I learned about, that God that was stuffed into a little box the size of a pea representing the small-mindedness of human understanding. I needed to unlearn that God. Because the God I now know of and see all around me is beyond any possible understanding. 

God is the magnificence of the ocean, the breathtaking view of the sunset, the peace and serenity of the face of a sleeping infant, the beauty in the delicate petals of a rose, the endless expanse of a star-filled night. Yet words fall short. God is more amazing than we can comprehend, describe or explain. God is awesome. Truly awe-some.

(Read more about my journey from grief to hope in my books Look Around and A Bird Called Wisdom.) 

The Transformative Power of Grief

We all have an idea of what life should look like. We all have a plan for how things should go. And why wouldn’t we? We are creative beings and we put in a lot of hard work building our lives. From a very young age we begin to construct an outline of what will unfold before us on our paths. In my case, my plan included college, career, marriage, a home, children, and grandchildren.

So, what do we do with the excruciating loss of a loved one? Nowhere to be found in that beautiful picture I painted of my life was the sudden passing away of my son as the result of a car accident seven years ago, my youngest of four wonderful children. That carefully crafted image of what I was building my life to be was shattered. What I had envisioned for the future was no longer possible. 

Richard Rohr, ecumenical teacher and author, says that two of the most powerfully transformative experiences in our lives are great love and great suffering.  When I first read these words of his a few years back, they immediately resonated with me. From what I had experienced, this rang as truth.

Yet just today, listening to a podcast, I heard writer and speaker Paula D’Arcy tell about losing both her young child and her husband in an instant during a car accident when she was 27. She was also 3 months pregnant at the time. Incomprehensible. The world as she knew it had vanished. She explained that during the brutal pain of this loss, she felt the great love and great suffering that Rohr describes occur at the same time. She said that this is how it is with the grief we experience when a loved one dies. Our love and our suffering become one.

A new understanding reverberated in my heart when I heard this. Yes. Yes indeed. Through my experiences sitting with and hearing from hundreds of parents who have a child in spirit, as I watched their love for their child spill out through the tears running down their faces, I could see that the immense love they have for their children, as the unbearable suffering they felt were one and the same. The love and suffering were integrated. And, when I consider my own loss, the physical loss of Eric, I have come to understand that this suffering is absolutely transformational, for we will never be the same. 

But what do we do with this transformation? It is natural to ask why - why did this happen?  There will never be a satisfactory answer to that question. But maybe instead of asking “why,” we can ask “what.” If I will never be the same, what now? What do I do with these broken pieces of my dream? What do I do with this transformational shift? 

This grief is precious. I recently had the honor of attending a play that centered around the theme of grief. In The Rhythm of Mourning, performed by Bethesda Repertory Theatre based in Los Angeles, we see the main character, The Woman, wrestle with all the parts of her psyche that run amok as she is consumed by grief after the death of her brother – Innocence, Anger, Bargaining, Denial, Hope, Depression, Anxiety, Shame, and The Void. The Woman faces each facet of her pain, converses with each, argues with each, and ultimately participates in a beautiful dance with each. And from that acknowledgement of each part of herself, comes healing. She says, “I cherish this sadness I have. This exquisite grief, it’s mine, and the most precious thing I posses.” She sees the treasure in her grief. She is transformed.

The journey is a mysterious one. There is no way to know what’s ahead. This movement through all the emotions of grief — it’s all part of the journey. There is no way to anticipate how this new road will manifest. In my experience, I surrendered. I allowed all of it to express and move through me. I couldn’t pretend the grief was not there. It was. It still is. And it does what it’s there to do, which is not obvious at first. It’s there to heal. 

But only if you allow it, as impossible as that may seem. D’Arcy says, “The stumbling stone is the seed for growth. Rather than stay the same, allow yourself to grow.” It won’t happen by itself. You need to give yourself permission to do so, permission to grow and heal. When you are catapulted towards transformation, you have the opportunity to become more.  Let it teach you. 

Grief taught me to look around at others who have gone through this same loss. And when I did, I saw myself in others, and I saw them in me. We were connected by our pain, by this experience that is part of life. I saw that I was not alone. I saw the immense beauty in how someone else with a hole in her heart the size of her child could see me and reach a hand out to me to help lift me up. And then, when my legs felt a bit steadier, I was able to do the same for someone else. It’s the pebble tossed into the water that creates that amazing ripple effect. It is exquisite. And I allowed myself to be part of it. 

I express this sentiment in my book A Bird Called Wisdom…

If this is what has happened

Then let me take it and run with it

Let me take all of it

And have it turn me into

The very best self

I can be

If somehow

I am to live this life

As a mother with one child

On the Other Side

Then rather than let it break me

Let it build me and expand me

Let it take the broken parts of me

And allow the light inside of me

My truest self

To shine through

Bright and bold

Let it teach me

All that I came here to learn

To honor my son

I will do this

To honor my mother and grandmother before me

Whose children also passed before them

I will do this

I will do this with my son on my left

My angels on my right

My ancestors behind me

Mother Earth below me

And God above me

Show me

Teach me

Guide me

I prevail.

Whatever your loss, may your pain transform you into the very best of you. May you find a way, deep inside of you, to step over bitterness and despair, and find the steady ground of hope, of love, and of connection with those on this same path. It is there for you, if you will allow it.

(Read more about my journey from grief to hope in my books Look Around and A Bird Called Wisdom.)