Last month I was asked to say a few words at a luncheon for 200 women. The event took place just six days after a neighborhood couple, known and loved by many of us in the room, was murdered. Most of those who didn't know the two personally knew their extended family, so we all felt connected in heartbreaking ways with the family's tragedy.
I had a couple of days to prepare for the short talk but everything I thought of saying sounded trite and cliche and naive. Over the years I've had four close friends die of cancer. With each one there was time to reminisce, laugh, cry, and ultimately say goodbye. But murder has no process. It's shockingly sudden, senseless, lawless, and cruel.
As I struggled to find words, I wondered if what the group needed most was a safe place to sit together as a community and be sad. We needed a time and place to stop asking questions, speculating, analyzing - and grieve instead.
When I walked up to the podium the room fell silent. I can only describe the atmosphere as something like a . . . holy hush. It felt like God was infusing the room with comfort and peace. I think we were all hoping for someone to say something, anything, that would make us okay. Looking back, I'm not sure my simple words mattered as much as our collective tears and love.
I asked the family's permission to share my talk here, and I replaced their names with "friends" and "family". I hope this message will help someone who needs to know that in the worst of the worst of circumstances, life finds a way.
* * * * * * * * * *
I had a couple of days to prepare for the short talk but everything I thought of saying sounded trite and cliche and naive. Over the years I've had four close friends die of cancer. With each one there was time to reminisce, laugh, cry, and ultimately say goodbye. But murder has no process. It's shockingly sudden, senseless, lawless, and cruel.
As I struggled to find words, I wondered if what the group needed most was a safe place to sit together as a community and be sad. We needed a time and place to stop asking questions, speculating, analyzing - and grieve instead.
When I walked up to the podium the room fell silent. I can only describe the atmosphere as something like a . . . holy hush. It felt like God was infusing the room with comfort and peace. I think we were all hoping for someone to say something, anything, that would make us okay. Looking back, I'm not sure my simple words mattered as much as our collective tears and love.
I asked the family's permission to share my talk here, and I replaced their names with "friends" and "family". I hope this message will help someone who needs to know that in the worst of the worst of circumstances, life finds a way.
* * * * * * * * * *
We have a big Jacaranda tree in our patio with outstretched
branches that create a purple canopy in the spring and summer. And
sometimes, when I beg Morgan not to sweep, a beautiful purple carpet appears
around its base.
I love our Jacaranda, but over the years its roots have made the patio uneven and dangerous to walk on. So a couple of weeks ago we called a stone mason to replace some of the bricks.
The first day the mason was at our house he called me outside to show me a section of Jacaranda root he had uncovered. It looked like the root had been growing along, as roots do, when it ran into a brick roadblock.
Maybe it stopped growing, or slowed for a while, but then it detoured around and through the tiny spaces between the bricks, and made its way back onto the main road again.
The root grew thick and strong after the roadblock, so strong that it made bricks pop up out of its way. I admired that, but at the same time I knew the sharply bent places that now dented the root would never be straight again. They would always be there - a reminder of the tight, squeezing detour the root had gone through.
I believe that by God’s amazing grace, our friend's family members are going to live through the excruciating nightmare of their loved ones' deaths, and all that will follow. But some remnant of the bent places in their hearts and souls will always remain.
As friends of the family, I hope three things:
That we will find ways to patiently respect the bent places in their lives (and in their extended families' lives), on their terms.
That we will hold onto the hope of rejoicing with them when places in their lives start to bloom again.
And that the heartbreak we feel today will lead us to love each of them in new and life-giving ways in days, weeks, months, and years ahead.
Henri Nouwen, the Dutch author and Catholic priest, wrote this:
“When we honestly ask ourselves which people in our lives mean the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a warm and tender hand.
The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing, not curing, not healing, and face with us the reality of our powerlessness, that is a friend who cares.”
Our friends were members of our neighborhood Catholic church, and so I thought they might like me to read this to you, from St. Paul’s letter to the church in Rome:
"I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord."
Let's pray together –
Heavenly Father,
We feel overwhelmed with sadness and confusion at our friends' deaths. Please now overwhelm us with Your grace and mercy and love.
Please bring beauty and wholeness out of the pain and death that the family is experiencing.
I love our Jacaranda, but over the years its roots have made the patio uneven and dangerous to walk on. So a couple of weeks ago we called a stone mason to replace some of the bricks.
The first day the mason was at our house he called me outside to show me a section of Jacaranda root he had uncovered. It looked like the root had been growing along, as roots do, when it ran into a brick roadblock.
Maybe it stopped growing, or slowed for a while, but then it detoured around and through the tiny spaces between the bricks, and made its way back onto the main road again.
The root grew thick and strong after the roadblock, so strong that it made bricks pop up out of its way. I admired that, but at the same time I knew the sharply bent places that now dented the root would never be straight again. They would always be there - a reminder of the tight, squeezing detour the root had gone through.
I believe that by God’s amazing grace, our friend's family members are going to live through the excruciating nightmare of their loved ones' deaths, and all that will follow. But some remnant of the bent places in their hearts and souls will always remain.
As friends of the family, I hope three things:
That we will find ways to patiently respect the bent places in their lives (and in their extended families' lives), on their terms.
That we will hold onto the hope of rejoicing with them when places in their lives start to bloom again.
And that the heartbreak we feel today will lead us to love each of them in new and life-giving ways in days, weeks, months, and years ahead.
Henri Nouwen, the Dutch author and Catholic priest, wrote this:
“When we honestly ask ourselves which people in our lives mean the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a warm and tender hand.
The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing, not curing, not healing, and face with us the reality of our powerlessness, that is a friend who cares.”
Our friends were members of our neighborhood Catholic church, and so I thought they might like me to read this to you, from St. Paul’s letter to the church in Rome:
"I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord."
Let's pray together –
Heavenly Father,
We feel overwhelmed with sadness and confusion at our friends' deaths. Please now overwhelm us with Your grace and mercy and love.
Please bring beauty and wholeness out of the pain and death that the family is experiencing.
And please teach us to love the bent places in each other’s lives.
In Jesus’ name,
Amen
In Jesus’ name,
Amen
