Tuesday, May 7, 2013

GRIEF

GRIEF takes many shapes and forms.
I choose to slip away to a quiet place to digest the catastrophes that seem so daily.
My sister, the botanical artist, drew this
years ago.  This tulip died naturally,
when it was done living.

It seems that every day another terrorist has made the choice to snuff out life.
It's like these children of God have had a mind-altering experience where the value of life has been washed from their brains.

The Boston Marathon was especially difficult after the Sandy Hook school shooting.
A finish line filled with overachievers and their cheering squads. . . as I prefer to call them.

Family members cheering others on as brave soles press through mental and physical obstacles to complete a twenty-six mile endurance challenge.
No matter how many hours it takes, just to finish the race is a miracle in my book.

And then there were those who were one mile or less from the finish line and were stopped.
Rightly so.
This was for their protection but what a blow.
An artist's palate reminds me of God's
perfect spectra of color set before us
to enjoy as we experience our
lives unfold naturally, in God's
perfect timing.

And then there were those who cheered others across the finish line and who were so eager to think of themselves running the race ... some day ... in the future ..... but then ...
Legs blown off.
Legs and arms separated from a healthy body.
The eight-year old who was killed, the foreign student whose parents were too far away to even touch her lifeless body.
The others maimed so deeply, their recovery will take ever-so-long.

What has happened that God's creation, a mere mortal, decides to kill another for no reason at all?
Why do we play God and snuff out life because . . .  just because?

Why did a soccer player separate from reality as he hit the ref  . . . who  . . . died . . . from the blow?
How can a 'wrong call' bring forth such seething anger to cause this to happen in the first place?
Hands to Work, Hearts to God.
Why can't we all live by this Amish saying?
The work of their hands is Worship to God.

Who is remembering to call upon the God who gave his Son so that we might learn to love unconditionally?
Who is remembering to call upon God when anger begins to simmer . . . way before it consumes us?
How can we have such emotion pent up inside of us that it explodes peoples' lives?
When did we decide that we know more than God does as far as what is right and what is wrong?

Do you see why I do not write when I am filled with grief?
I slip deep inside myself and ask these questions.

"I will HONOR the worship
of Christ in my heart and
try to keep it all the year."
Most fruitful belief systems are
 founded on honoring God daily.
  It might be me that gets too angry to control my temper.
  It might be me that becomes so self-righteous that I want to destroy
  others who do not believe as I do?

  I pray that I never even begin to think angry thoughts.
  And, if I do have angry thoughts, may I release them to God to snuff
  them out.

  Anger, if not released to One who is omnipresent, omnipotent, infinitely
  more than any human being, can turn into action.
  Action, even speaking wrong words, is lethal.
  I grieve every single day.
The Angle, Gabriel, came to Mary
with Good News.  Perhaps God needs
to remind us that, because of Mary's
faithfulness to God, we have the
Good News dwelling among us
who, through our prayer, will
overcome this present evil with Good.
  I grieve for those lost soles
  who choose to be their own
  little god.
  I grieve and pray.
  I pray for God to come in power to sweep clean our hearts, renew the Spirit of Holiness and make us thirst for God's righteousness, not our own.
Who knows when I'll write again.
I need to grieve and pray. . . and Pray. . .
 and Pray Some More.