Living In Grief

On September 23, 2020September 23, 2020 By Holly HansenIn Faith and Culture1 Comment

One of the books I’m reading on grief is It’s Ok That You’re Not Ok [sic]: Meeting Grief and Loss in a Culture That Doesn’t Understand, by Megan Devine. I will probably never recommend this book to anyone for several reasons*, the most significant being the underlying Buddhist-nihilistic worldview, but the author’s main point is worth consideration: that our culture has a skewed view of grief and the challenges faced by the grieving.

Our modern American understanding is colored by the work of psychiatrist Elisabeth Kubler-Ross (On Death and Dying, 1969) who postulated 5 stages of grief. More recently critics have disputed the validity of these stages (denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance,) and Kubler-Ross herself has lamented the misunderstanding of her work as some kind of formula for a linear progression through grief that ends with “recovery.”

For those of us on this grief journey, there’s nothing linear or even rational about it. We may feel fairly normal one day, irrationally angry the next, and just functional but deeply sad the day after that. Our emotions are often a jumbled tangle of unpredictability.

While I have the blessing of very supportive friends and a loving church family, there have been acquaintances who, although well-meaning, seem to be puzzled by the fact that I still have very bad days on which I cannot work or function well, and I may burst into tears either at church or the middle of the grocery store.

There does seem to be a societal perception that once you’ve survived (insert number of weeks, months, years) you should be fine and getting on with your life. Most employers give bereaved a few days or weeks off, but may not understand when a deeply grieving employee is unable to perform as well as before the loss of a loved one. (Here I am also blessed with a kind, compassionate, and understanding work team.)

While bereaved people should be able to get to a place eventually where they are functional and able to experience joy again, perhaps we should not think about the grief journey so much as a path to “recovery,” but as a means to learn how to live with the sorrow of loss until we too are called to leave this life.

In addition to scripture, I also take consolation from the poetry of T. S. Eliot, who in his post-conversion work wrote of the journey into those dark nights of the soul which may encompass deep grief:

I said to my soul, be still, and let the dark come upon you
Which shall be the darkness of God...
I said to my soul, be still, and wait without hope
For hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without
     love
For love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith
But the faith and love and the hope are all in the waiting.
Wait without thought, for you are not ready for thought:
So the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing.
East Coker, T. S. Eliot

Grieving requires spending time in a dark valley, but with faith that the God of the universe and all creation is there too. Within the time of mourning, there is a place for faith and hope and love, just not for the worldly things that distract us in happier times. I reject the nihilistic view that there is no purpose or meaning here, but take consolation in knowing that my redeemer lives.

Yes, it is “okay that I am not okay,” and I do request patience and understanding from those around me. There is no quick fix for the heartache; there is only an unspecified amount of time spent in the darkness of grief, but that is what is “okay.”

*I am old-fashioned I suppose, but I think obscenity in non-fiction detracts from the argument. Devine and many of her fellow self-help authors throw in four-letter words perhaps to be culturally relevant? But I find it distracting and unprofessional.

A New Journey

On September 17, 2020September 17, 2020 By Holly HansenIn Faith and CultureLeave a comment

It has been quite some time since I have posted here. There have been so very many life changes in the past two years that have left me with little time for personal writing. As many of my followers know, I began writing for digital media outlet The Texan in 2019: an endeavor that has given me a marvelous opportunity to learn and grow in knowledge and skill.

But in 2020 my life changed most profoundly when my beloved husband became ill and died. The journey from diagnosis to death was bewildering, chaotic, and somehow both too short and too long. The grief is sometimes more than I can bear.

In the midst of this valley however, I have been asked to share my experiences, meditations, and insights on the journey of grief. The request comes from friends, but I also feel the nudge of God’s Holy Spirit in my prayer time.

And so, I will begin sharing here. I am not a therapist or theologian, and I am certainly not God, so I cannot answer every question or heal every hurting heart, but I do hope that there are those who will read my words and maybe find comfort and encouragement, even if it only stems from the knowledge that you have a fellow traveler in this valley.

In juggling all of the aspects of this new life I have been forced to accept, I cannot guarantee a regular posting schedule, but will endeavor to post once a week.

I close with this thought from the book of Job:

The LORD gives and the LORD takes away. Blessed be the name of the LORD.

Amen.

Peter the Great, Russia, and The Church

On May 19, 2019May 20, 2019 By Holly HansenIn Faith and Culture, UncategorizedLeave a comment

Although I’ve had Robert K. Massie’s Pulitzer Prize-winning biography “Peter the Great: His Life and World” on my bookshelf for a couple of decades, I’d never gotten around to actually reading it until this year. At 890 pages, the length may seem daunting to some readers, but Massie’s compelling narrative style and superb research make the book well worth the effort.

As a history major at the University of Central Florida years ago, I took every available class on Russian and Soviet History (all taught by the inimitable Dr. John Evans, RIP). I found the history of the region and people fascinating; their story is complicated, sometimes beautiful, often brutal, and always intriguing. Certainly anyone attempting to understand and analyze modern Russia and the surrounding region will be utterly lost without the essential background knowledge of this people and their unique culture.

Massie published “Peter the Great” in 1980 (and won the Pulitzer Prize in biography the following year,) so there are a vast number of fine book reviews available to potential readers. In short, Massie wove together knowledge of Russia’s people, religion, art, architecture, literature, military strategy, and politics to create a compelling narrative of Peter Alexeyevich and his undeniable impact on Russia and the world.

Even with its pre-glasnost viewpoint “Peter the Great” provides ample fodder for discussion, and one insight on politics and religion is particularly relevant to modern Christians. In describing Peter’s reforms of the Russian church, which included positive aspects such as clerical education, Massie suggests that subjugating the church to the state contributed to the downfall of the government and the hostile atheism embraced by the Bolsheviks and subsequent Soviet government.

Massie writes:

“In time, however, the assumption of state control over the church had an injurious effect on Russia. Individual parishioners could seek salvation and find solace from life’s burdens in the glory of the Orthodox service and its choral liturgy, and in the warm communality of human suffering found in a church community. But a tame church which occupied itself with private spiritual matters and failed to stand up against successive governments on behalf of Christian values in questions of social justice soon lost the allegiance of the most dynamic elements of Russian society…The church, which might have led, simply followed, and ultimately the entire religious bureaucracy established by Peter followed the imperial government over the cliff; the Holy Synod was abolished in 1918 along with all the other governing institutions of the imperial regime. Lenin reestablished the Patriarchate, but it was a puppet Patriarchate, more controlled by the state than the Holy Synod ever was…It was the continuing passivity and servitude of the Russian church which Alexander Solzhenitsyn was regretting when he declared that the history of Russia would have been “incomparably more humane and harmonious in the last few centuries if the church had not surrendered its independence and had continued to make its voice heard among the people…”

Throughout the world, Christians continue to wrestle with their role in society and government. In China the Vatican has agreed to let the government appoint bishops, and in the European Union churches are recognized and affirmed in some ways, but also subject to restrictions, such as those on employment and parental choices in education. Christians in the United States are also increasingly finding conflict with government and hearing calls from within the faith to “stand down” on controversial issues. The dilemma for some is a well-intentioned desire to focus on salvation of souls rather than engagement with prickly political issues. And of course, there are plenty of examples of Christians who do not engage well or winsomely. But in light of the Russian example, just how efficacious and attractive is a church that has in all matters subjected itself to the state?

The same day I read the above passage from Massie, World Magazine’s daily news podcast included a segment marking the 35^th anniversary of the death of Francis Schaeffer. They played audio from a speech Schaeffer delivered in 1982, in which he warned against a complacent and silent church, and argued that even in the early church, believers practiced a dangerous civil disobedience that led to death in an arena with wild beasts. Schaeffer argues that Christians have always “acted in the realization that if there is no place for disobeying the government, that government has been put in the place of the living God. In such a case, the government has been made a false god.” “Christ must be the final Lord and not society and not Caesar.”

Lessons from history, whether from the Early Church or Russia or anywhere else, can enlighten our choices for engagement. And we should be careful of the ways we define “success.” A form of worldly success and world “peace,” may be attainable in the short-term, but what we do today may very well matter in 200 years, and will certainly matter in eternity.

Massie, Robert K. Peter the Great : His Life and World. 9th ed., New York, Ballantine Books, 1980, p. 815.

‌Photo: By Unidentified painter – [1], Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=5705235
No Copyright: This work has been identified as being free of known restrictions under copyright law, including all related and neighboring rights.

“We Call this Friday Good”

On April 19, 2019April 19, 2019 By Holly HansenIn Faith and Culture, UncategorizedLeave a comment

shutterstock_757883431 Christ

I once met an associate pastor who surprised me by saying he found wearing a cross repulsive. To be fair, he was not a seminarian, but worked in an administrative position. He asserted that a cross was an ugly thing, a symbol of death and suffering, and he did not understand why anyone would wear something reminiscent of so much pain.

In some variations of the Christian faith, I think there’s a tendency to skip over the events of Good Friday, and the reality of the crucifixion of Jesus. After all, to understand the meaning behind the suffering of that day, we must fully embrace the depths of our sin: not a popular pastime in a culture for which the highest values are good self-esteem and tolerance of anything and everything.

To understand the Cross, we must acknowledge that we are not “good,” and therefore not acceptable to a perfectly perfect and Holy God. While these are not pleasant meditations, without this awareness and understanding, the Resurrection of Jesus and the Easter celebrations are meaningless and empty.

While the above-mentioned pastor was certainly correct about the original meaning of a cross, I think he had not yet fully embraced the truth that through Christ’s suffering and death, that which is ugly is made beautiful. Not only is the symbol transformed, but also those who embrace The Cross, and the sacrifice, mystery, and overwhelming love of the one true God.

After his conversion, 20th century poet T. S. Eliot wrote many lines expressing the deeper truths of Christ’s sacrifice and what it means to embrace Christianity. Among his powerful “Four Quartets,” is a profound passage from “East Coker” which describes the Passion of the Christ in a modern context: a wounded surgeon who will heal us, but who must first destroy our sin. On first encountering these lines, I found them ugly and repulsive, but deeper study and meditation of their meaning has changed my mind. They are about a truth that is both good and beautiful; they are about The Cross.

For your Good Friday meditation:

The wounded surgeon plies the steel
That questions the distempered part;
Beneath the bleeding hands we feel
The sharp compassion of the healer’s art
Resolving the enigma of the fever chart.

Our only health is the disease
If we obey the dying nurse
Whose constant care is not to please
But to remind of our, and Adam’s curse,
And that, to be restored, our sickness must grow worse.

The whole earth is our hospital
Endowed by the ruined millionaire,
Wherein, if we do well, we shall
Die of the absolute paternal care
That will not leave us, but prevents us everywhere.

The chill ascends from feet to knees,
The fever sings in mental wires.
If to be warmed, then I must freeze
And quake in frigid purgatorial fires
Of which the flame is roses, and the smoke is briars.

The dripping blood our only drink,
The bloody flesh our only food:
In spite of which we like to think
That we are sound, substantial flesh and blood—
Again, in spite of that, we call this Friday good.

T. S. Eliot, “Four Quartets, East Coker”

Following Christ: Lessons from Japan

On March 5, 2019March 6, 2019 By Holly HansenIn Faith and CultureLeave a comment

Silence and Beauty

In his book Silence and Beauty: Hidden Faith Born of Suffering, artist Makoto Fujimura explains that the Japanese ideogram for “beauty” is a combination of two other symbols: one representing a sacrificial “sheep” and the other meaning “great.” This concept of beauty as “great sacrifice” not only brings insight into Japanese culture, but can also deepen our understanding of what it means to follow Christ.

Fujimura’s book is a wide-ranging reflection on Japanese culture, history, and art, and is based on another book, Silence by Shūsaku Endō. Originally published in 1966 in Japanese, Silence is becoming recognized throughout the world as a “great book,” a work of literature that conveys timeless truth. Fujimura’s exploration can further assist readers in understanding the meaning of Silence, Japanese culture, and how the story of the Japanese Christians might provide an antidote to more worldly versions of Christianity.

Silence is historical fiction based on real missionaries who followed the Biblical command to spread the Gospel to “the ends of the earth,” as Japan seemed to the Europeans. These efforts to teach Japanese about God sending his son to atone for human sin were initially successful in a culture that had already connected beauty with sacrifice. But 17^thcentury Japanese authorities instituted a harsh and effective persecution that forced even the most dedicated believers to publicly renounce faith. This public renunciation required Christian leaders to trample on “fumi-e,” images of Christ or the Virgin.

Convicted Christians, if not martyred, were required to trample on fumi-e not just once, but at the onset of each year. The missionary priests were not permitted to leave Japan, but kept under house arrest and frequently paraded to the people as examples of the failure of Christianity.

A number of American Christians who’ve read Silence have described it as dark and depressing, and have condemned the fictional character Father Rodrigues as a failed witness. But while the book is certainly haunting, Fujimura helps readers to see that Rodrigues is much more like the Apostle Peter, and perhaps even more like Christ than we first perceive. In the modernized, Western church, we prefer more comfortable versions of Christianity. Some adhere to a politically correct and respectable church that stays relevant by keeping up with cultural trends and progressive values. Others overtly or subtly embrace forms of prosperity gospel, in which the right prayers and behavior lead to material and social success. We boast of faith heroes like Billy Graham, who led many to Christ and was popular, well-loved, and respected.

In contrast, Father Rodrigues, loses everything. Despite his prayers, God remains silent and does not spare Rodrigues from suffering. Like the Apostle Peter, Rodrigues denies Christ at the crucial moment. He becomes a despised apostate of the church and a target of ridicule for the Japanese. Even the children taunt and throw rocks at him. And yet, in a completely broken and disgraced way, he retains his faith and nurtures the faith of others.

As Fujimura explains in Silence and Beauty:

“By stepping on the fumi-e, Father Rodrigues inverts into his genuine faith, faith not dependent on his religious status or on his own merit, but a faith in grace…” (p. 147)

Fujimura asserts that Rodrigues only then really sets aside his former identity. He is no longer a Portuguese priest, but one of the broken and oppressed Japanese. (The authorities even require him to assume the name of a dead Japanese man and become husband to the dead man’s wife.) Rodrigues truly becomes one of the people he came to serve, and shares in their lives, sufferings, and temptations. Rather than attaining worldly glory,

“He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. Like one from whom men hide their faces, he was despised and we esteemed him not.” (Isaiah 53:3. ESV)

While Rodrigues and the Japanese Christians appear to have failed by worldly standards, the final pages of Silence indicate that Christian faith inexplicably survived in Japan, both for Rodrigues and for a covert group of hidden Christians. In fact, groups of Kakure Kirishitan, or “Hiding Christians,” were rediscovered by priests visiting Japan in the mid-nineteenth century. (p. 44)

Perhaps many modern American Christians do not understand Silence due to cultural and historical differences. Sometimes American Christians are like those who greeted Jesus by waving palms and cheering at his “triumphal entry” into Jerusalem, but who misunderstood his mission. They expected an earthly kingdom resplendent with glory and prosperity. But when the events of Good Friday came, they scattered and turned away. It is fitting that in the traditional Ash Wednesday observances, which emphasize confession and repentance, the ashes consist of burned palm fronds from the previous year’s Palm Sunday celebration. How appropriate to repent of those misguided Palm Sunday ambitions before entering the season that will include remembrance of Jesus’ suffering and death on a cross. As Americans, we would rather ignore Good Friday in favor of Easter, but Endō’s story presents a stark reminder of the role and reality of earthly suffering.

As Fujimura explains:

“Show me my cross” may be a statement that every Christian needs to say to the world. In chapter 16 of the Gospel of Matthew, Christ warns his followers, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me” (Matthew 16:24 ESV). For each follower to “carry his own cross” means to expect persecution, betrayals and exile from the world. The values of the “world” conflict with the key message of Christianity. (p. 46)

In Silence and Beauty, Fujimura helps us to further “translate” the lessons of Silence. He helps us to understand Endō’s message that God does speak in what seem to be silent times, places, and cultures, but we must be ready to accept that what God values is often in sharp contrast with what the world values. Living out a Christian faith requires taking up our own crosses, but suffering and sacrifice are essential to God’s beautiful plan for our sanctification and eternal joy. In this we have hope.

Postscript: While I am not typically a fan of “abstract” art, I have fallen in love with Makoto Fujimura’s paintings. There’s a lovely, short video about his work at his website, as well as more information about him, his work, and his faith. He’s also launched Fujimura Institute, which “spearheads broad initiatives that integrate art, faith, and beauty.”

Fumi-e Image credit: This Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons image is from the user Chris 73 and is freely available at //commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Jesus_on_cross_to_step_on.jpg under the creative commons cc-by-sa 3.0 license.