Monday Manna
Joyful Sorrow and Blue Christmas...
Good morning, friends, and much warmth (internally and externally!) to each of you as we begin this third week of Advent ~
I’ve written here before about how my mom developed Alzheimer’s-type dementia in her sixties, and the rapid progression the disease has taken. She’s been in memory care for over a couple years now, and during this journey, I’ve learned a great deal about how meaningful connection can take many forms.
Whenever I travel, I often slip in my pouch with a tiny travel-sized watercolor paint set. Many times, there aren’t moments to pull them out, but I want to be ready if and when the opportunity arises. On this last visit to my mom back in South Dakota, there was an afternoon I was so glad I had them.
We were in the “main room,” which is used for, well, everything — meals, hymn sings, ice cream breaks, and strength classes. I saw on the table under the TV some watercolor painting books. On each page, was a black outline of an animal, with the inside and surrounding area completely blank. A staff member said to me, “Oh, your mom loves those! She just dips her paint brush in the water cup and the water makes the picture appear. She could just keep going and going because areas dry while she’s painting other ones, so then she returns to where she painted before.”
I cannot recall ever painting with my mom before, including childhood. But that afternoon, we did. She sat and worked on her bunny, while I painted flower after flower, sitting next to her. It was such a profound experience for me of how grief and joy hold hands — the “joyful sorrow” I’ve heard it named. There is pain to be honored while there is also a profound gift to be appreciated. My heart aches for and over my mom, and yet I found myself overcome with the sweetness and joy of what we were sharing…much of it seeming impermanent, and yet a layer of lasting built beneath it.
As I watched my mom’s painting disappear, I thought about its parallel to my mom’s mind, and even her memory of this painting time we were sharing together. We try and hold on to both our joy and our pain, for different reasons, and to attempt to somehow control them, but like the watercolor bunny, we can’t….we just appreciate and feel it all as it’s happening, letting it fully pass through us, and trusting that — in some way — what’s most beautiful and true from this experience lives on. The love shared will echo. And the joy and the sorrow are both beautiful in their own way.
It’s like this line I recently read from Martin Prechtel’s book, The Smell of Rain on Dust: Grief and Praise, in which he writes about “grief’s poetry of survival through beauty.”
We are now in the third week of Advent, known as the “joy” week. It might seem strange, then, that I focus on grief and sorrow. But I believe for many of us, we cannot access any joy if we do not also honor our grief this time of year. This isn’t about making joy override grief — it’s allowing them to live and breathe, side by side. We cannot exclusively numb — to feel our joy, we must also feel our pain.
This coming Sunday will be the longest night of the year, and many churches — including our own — host a “Blue Christmas” service. These services are meant to create space for our pain—for the losses and hardships people are carrying during “the most wonderful time of the year.” We know the calendar doesn’t really care when it comes to diagnoses and divorce proceedings and death and disasters. And as I’ve been thinking about the sorrow I carry this Advent, I’ve been reminded of this quote I’ve long-loved by James Finley…
“God protects us from nothing and sustains us through everything.”
This is what Advent is all about, and it’s also what makes the joyful sorrow possible — Emmanuel, God is with you. And honestly, that is what keeps me a Christian. The horrible still happens, but God is here with us.
And so I continue to look at this photo of my mom and me from our painting time, and let the joyful sorrow fill me, knowing my greatest joy and deepest grief are close friends. And God is here.
*If you’d like to read the longer piece I wrote this past Mother’s Day about the journey of Alzheimer’s with my mom, here is the link.
A Prayer
I recently wrote this prayer on grief for an upcoming issue of The Presbyterian Outlook. If you are feeling some waves of grief in this holiday season, I hope this prayer might be a place for your heart to land and hold that joyful sorrow…
Holy Spirit, Breath of Life —
You are built into every wall and window,
Every doorway and floorboard of this
home I call my life—
the life I’ve loved,
the life I’ve lost...
I thought I was doing pretty well.
Or did I just tell myself I was?
I made the home of my heart tidy and put together,
placing the pillows, straightening the papers....
And then, a roaring wind rips open the door left ajar,
scattering every single thing I had put in place,
everything I had touched,
every single part of me.
These gusts of grief catch me by surprise,
But why?
How did I think it could be controlled?
That someday, it would be “easier?”
Wind is life, and the cries of grief
are the sound of being alive.
What if this holy wind is sacred Spirit breath,
reminding me not to stop grieving
because grief that has space to move
leaves in its wake healing, peace, and new life?
I brace for it,
I face it,
and find myself held by unshakeable grace.
Brace, face, grace...
You make your home right in the deepest parts
of my grief and my love, showing me
they are actually the same thing,
And you are in them.
Because while the person, the dream, the life I knew itself
now feels lost to me, it is forever held in your hands.
And so am I.
So with your help, I will let go of my hanging on
that I might feel myself held.
You will bless the grieving of what I loved and lost,
making more life with the beauty of my grief expressed.
And what I actually most want, God,
is for you to keep blowing open the doors and windows of my heart,
lest I think I can control this grieving journey.
While it is the path of my loss
it is also the road reminding me I am alive,
and have loved much.
The sound of my crying
sings me back to greater life every time.
I will keep the door wide open now,
coming to its threshold and closing my eyes...
As the wind touches every part of me.
I will breathe all the way in.
I have loved and lost and am alive.
Brace, face, grace...
Amen.
Something that nourished me recently…
*On the subject of Blue Christmas, I am profoundly grateful to my dear friend (thank you, Chelsea!) who sent me this Advent devotional a couple weeks ago — Unhappy Holidays: Blessings for a Blue Christmas. I have been so deeply blessed by this devotional that delves into ways for noticing how God shows up in daily life amid our heartache, grief, and loss. I highly recommend. And the book also includes resources for small groups and use in worship settings as well as home.
*Because we need some levity in this post, how about this ornament my husband bought for our tree this year? It needs no explanation.
*We do a children’s Christmas pageant every year, and every year, it brings me so much joy. I’ve lost count now on how many times I’ve been a shepherd because I have always had at least one child as a sheep.
Ash and Starlight, plus other good things…
* MY ETSY SHOP ~ Clothes, art prints, cards, personalized prints, and originals! I send a portion of each sale to World Central Kitchen which provides hunger relief. You can view the shop here.
*SECOND EDITION OF ASH AND STARLIGHT ~ I can send personalized book stickers if you’d like to give this as a gift to someone this Christmas! Find the updated edition of my book here at Chalice or at the Bookshop link.
*MONDAY MANNA ARCHIVES ~ Monday Manna each week is free! Paid supporters of Monday Manna can view previous Monday Manna reflections here, or for the really old stuff, go to my website.
*WHAT DOES MANNA MEAN? ~ Check out an earlier post to learn how this little bit of “daily bread” got its name…
Remember to brace, face, and lean into grace, friends. And hold onto Emmanuel…God is with you.
Love and Light,
Arianne
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So beautiful Arianne. You honor your Mom and yourself so wonderfully. I just love picturing the two of you painting together. Thanks so much for your prayerful, thoughtful, reflections.