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March 05, 2009 >> 05:01:36 PM
Glimpses of lament, piece #1
During this season of soul-examination, Marilyn Elliott, the Student and Family Chaplain here at Asbury, brings us a set of writings on lament. May these introduce another voice into the conversation on the way to the cross.
Winter in my home city of Calgary is bitterly cold and unrelentingly desperate. One late November night a young married man from our church family stumbled through his front door following our Christmas cantata (choir) rehearsal, said to his wife that he is will take a shower and in the cold basement room hanged himself from the rafters. We were woken by the hysterical call of a wife in an unspeakable moment of her life.
Despair caused by that suicide death on the eve of Christmas celebrations in a Christian church cannot be adequately described. Advent dripped bitterness. Suicide imposed itself everywhere. The pews spilled over with personal memories of suicide, histories of suicidal thoughts and attempts, and deep gripping depression. Suicide lay swaddled in the manger, flew through the heavens with angels, wrapped itself in colored foil and coiled around candy canes.
A stoic silence clutched the throats of those with sufficient personal distance from the tragedy. Perhaps grief was too noble a gift to give this human tragedy, a validation of so terrible a defeat that it must be soldiered past. To rescue ourselves puddings were made, candles lit and carols sung with lifeless lust. This is also faith, of a sort.
The bereaved family chose to speak of Paul (name changed) as one who has been 'taken home'. Some said it was God's timing for him. He is in a better place, they say. We can be comforted, of course. Scriptures are read. Songs sung. The children are put in front of the TV. We do not sob together. We are very civilized. I search but cannot find one element of redemption in this black thing that has happened.
December arrives with blizzard wind and we gather for the funeral in a flower laden sanctuary. I sit at the back. The service is long. One hour flows into two. It is as if we are trying to find the one word to say to lead us out of our darkness, but since no such word exists we heap piles of words together. At the family's request, in order that the funeral "be a witness", a well meaning soloist sings "People Need the Lord.' I think, angrily, "Paul needed the Lord." And I get up, push past the double doors into the icy cold and drive away leaving behind tables of squares and cookies and sandwiches cut into triangles.
Two months later the sister of the dead man calls my phone. She is deeply concerned. Her eight year old daughter's pet bird died during the night and the girl discovered it's spent body on the floor of the cage this morning. Hours later now, the girl is still inconsolable in her weeping. "How can a dead bird cause so much grief?" the mother asks me. "It's not as if it was her uncle."
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