Blessed are those who mourn,
for they will be comforted. (Matthew 5:4)
for they will be comforted. (Matthew 5:4)
Shock and denial. Anger. Depression
and detachment. Dialogue and bargaining. Acceptance. According to some, these
are stages faced by someone who is grieving. They don’t happen in any
predictable cycle or pattern. You don’t get through the shock and denial stage
never to face it again. You could accept what you’ve lost one day, be angry the
next, and try to bargain the day after that. Five years later a sight on the
street can bring on depression.
How, then, can mourning result in blessing? As Jesus noted, they will be comforted. Loss is something to which we can all relate and that means that there is a widespread human response to it. We give comfort, which means we give love to those who have lost something or someone. Sometimes, it’s a pretty lame comfort, because we have forgotten what comfort means. It’s not a “There, there, everything will be all right.” Comforting means being strong with…giving strength. It’s holding the person who is mourning up and together when they are falling down and apart.
As natural as it is, I wonder if that’s all Jesus was talking about. It’s important, but there’s other mourning that we encounter on a daily basis that I suspect we tend to ignore, at least as mourning. When Mr. Trump was elected, the so-called Snowflakes went into collective melt down. They’ve even gathered at least once to “scream helplessly at the sky,” because the utopian world they dreamed would come to be as the result of the election of a Liberal candidate was taken away. In some quarters, their grief knows no bounds.
Part of the reason that their utopian world was taken away was because there are other people who have been mourning the loss of their preferred world (it can’t be called a utopia) for between eight and forty years, and they got mad. They aren’t accepting it any more.
Neither side has been very effective in their grieving process, or at comforting the other side. Both sides recognize that the world is not the way it should be. I think it entirely appropriate that we should mourn over our world. That includes being angry, and even angry unreasonably. Some people have suggested that I, or that Christians, or that Conservatives should be accepting. I shouldn’t be so angry about activists or philosophies that have the goal of killing Christianity or Conservatism. They are permitted to lash out at those who cause them to mourn, but not I.
I think it’s appropriate to mourn these social losses, but mourning involves God, because He is the One with whom we are often angry. He is the One with whom we often bargain. He is the answer and the comfort that we need. I think this is part of the answer to my earlier post about taking back my peace when I’m all riled up. I need to take my anger and grief to Him, and receive comfort from Him. That makes me think of David, who prayed “shatter their teeth!”
How, then, can mourning result in blessing? As Jesus noted, they will be comforted. Loss is something to which we can all relate and that means that there is a widespread human response to it. We give comfort, which means we give love to those who have lost something or someone. Sometimes, it’s a pretty lame comfort, because we have forgotten what comfort means. It’s not a “There, there, everything will be all right.” Comforting means being strong with…giving strength. It’s holding the person who is mourning up and together when they are falling down and apart.
As natural as it is, I wonder if that’s all Jesus was talking about. It’s important, but there’s other mourning that we encounter on a daily basis that I suspect we tend to ignore, at least as mourning. When Mr. Trump was elected, the so-called Snowflakes went into collective melt down. They’ve even gathered at least once to “scream helplessly at the sky,” because the utopian world they dreamed would come to be as the result of the election of a Liberal candidate was taken away. In some quarters, their grief knows no bounds.
Part of the reason that their utopian world was taken away was because there are other people who have been mourning the loss of their preferred world (it can’t be called a utopia) for between eight and forty years, and they got mad. They aren’t accepting it any more.
Neither side has been very effective in their grieving process, or at comforting the other side. Both sides recognize that the world is not the way it should be. I think it entirely appropriate that we should mourn over our world. That includes being angry, and even angry unreasonably. Some people have suggested that I, or that Christians, or that Conservatives should be accepting. I shouldn’t be so angry about activists or philosophies that have the goal of killing Christianity or Conservatism. They are permitted to lash out at those who cause them to mourn, but not I.
I think it’s appropriate to mourn these social losses, but mourning involves God, because He is the One with whom we are often angry. He is the One with whom we often bargain. He is the answer and the comfort that we need. I think this is part of the answer to my earlier post about taking back my peace when I’m all riled up. I need to take my anger and grief to Him, and receive comfort from Him. That makes me think of David, who prayed “shatter their teeth!”
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