Blog 1
So here we are… “real” post #1. A little later than I anticipated but the last couple of weeks have been pretty surreal for me. Some of you may know this and have it marked on your unfortunate calendars but June 1st was the 5 year anniversary of my sister Jennifer’s death. This had been preceded by my grandmother passing away on Mother’s Day. It is Jen’s death, however, that really has me thinking and trying to process things 100 miles an hour. Those of you who knew her will remember that she was a police officer at the time of her death and that she died of suicide. I mention these two points because her anniversary came just days after George Floyd was killed by a Minneapolis police officer’s willful negligence on May 25th. These two events juxtaposed next to each other have sent me searching for answers. How do I grieve the loss of my sister, who was a police officer above reproach to all who knew her, while at the same time watching the vitriol that has been launched at police officers as a whole due to the horrible actions of people that should never have been officers in the first place? I find myself grieving the loss of my sister; grieving the effects of racial hatred and persecution in every area of society; grieving the persecution of the righteous because of the actions of the wicked in every area of society.
The thing God taught me about death at the time of my sister’s death was that humanity was not created to understand it. Death was not a part of the original creation and humanity had no need to understand it. Through the Fall, however, death has become an obvious and all too frequent reality to us… yet we still don’t understand it. Genesis 3 concludes with the first recorded death of animals to clothe Adam and Eve before they get sent out of Eden.
We can articulate what death is scientifically. We can talk about what it is and its significance theologically or philosophically. I think we are probably mostly OK with “natural causes” death at the end of a long life. But, man, do the inexplicable/unjustified/unexpected deaths throw us for a loop. We cannot comprehend a child dying of cancer, or a family that dies from a collision with a drunk driver who walks away from the accident, or a black man dying under the knee of an officer who ignored his basic plea for breath and life, or a sister who was preparing to go into the mission field taking her own life. We cannot understand them because we are not equipped to understand them. Yet in His foresight, God gave humanity a coping mechanism called grief. There was no need for grief in the original creation as things were perfect…but still He created us with the capacity to do so knowing the Fall was coming.
As I said, grief does not give us understanding so what does it do? In my experience grief serves two purposes:
In my experience a majority of guidance/counseling is very focused on purpose #1. This is articulated in things like the stages or cycles of grief. Emphasis is placed on the normalcy of these stages and that while everyone experiences them, everyone experiences them differently. Conceptually this makes sense because if we cannot cross the bridge to being OK with not understanding something that is impossible to understand then we will be stuck in an ongoing defeated state of hopelessness.
However, we are not meant to simply be OK about being OK…the orientation towards bringing meaning forces us out of simply thinking about the death/loss itself and instead causes us to think about “where do we go from here?” Unfortunately, not everybody moves from purpose #1 to purpose #2. This is probably the biggest theological difficulty I have seen as I have discussed grief with other Christians (and it is also a big reason others do not believe in God at all); how can death/loss ever have meaning or purpose? Well you’ll have to come back to my next post because that will be our focus. Thank you for your patience and time as I get things going and figure this blog stuff out. I hope and pray if you find yourself in the midst of grief, whether personal or societal, that there is usefulness here. I look forward to your comments and wisdom below and invite you all back for the conclusion of this topic in my next post. God bless you all.