"All Our Losses / All Our Griefs" Chapter One

Chapter One: The Pervasiveness of Loss and Grief

Experiences that evoke grief are both more frequent and more varied than most people imagine. The death of a person one loves is such an obvious occasion of grief that many people have come to think of it as the only such occasion. The result of that misunderstanding is that many people have experienced lengthened suffering from unrecognized grief.

Our first task in this book is to explore the genesis of grief: to understand what can cause grief and how that cause has its roots in childhood experience. We begin the exploration with several vignettes, each a tale of grief triggered by a significant loss, but none having to do directly with the death of a loved person. 

"All Our Losses / All Our Griefs" by Mitchell & Anderson

The authors then lay out for us three short vignette's. One covers a man returning to his old hometown to find everything changed and that his old friends don't recognize him any longer.

The second covers a man who is promoted out of a job he loves and into one he dislikes. He is also transferred from a smaller city to a much larger city.

The third involves a Church in need of a new building but a church which has a strong historical and personal attachment to their current building.

This first chapter is very short and really serves to make the reader sit back and reexamine their definition of grief. Or perhaps more accurately to force the reader to expand the incidents that they recognize as bringing about a sense of loss or grief.

Grief is something that we just cannot escape in life. We all experience it at some point and in varying degrees. Right now our little family is going through a period of loss, though not a death it's impact is none the less significant in the life of our family.

With Madeline now off to college Gail and I are left as 'empty nesters'. Our loss is the loss of what has been constant all the way through our marriage. No longer is the day to day focus of our lives together revolving around one or more of our children.

When Gail and I got married we learned very shortly that we were expecting our first child (our son Creath) so the marriage immediately became focused on the soon to be arrival of our child. Ever since then we have always had the children around, when Creath moved out there was a noticeable disturbance in the 'force' that is our family, however we still had Maddie there with us. This year with Creath moving into his own apartment and Maddie going off to college it's impossible for us to ignore that our family has grown up and no longer is either Gail or my primary focus raising our children.

Given that we had such a short amount of time in our relationship together that there were no children it's interesting and a bit frightening seeing how our relationship is adapting to this change. I hope that we are making the transition in a healthy way though there have honestly been times when both of us have been frustrated. I do think that Gail is honestly having a harder time adjusting to life without her children around than I am.  Which is a bit surprising, as I've been the one vocally dreading an empty nest for the last several years. (I have even been lobbying to adopt a child which hasn't gone over to rave reviews) Perhaps that is why she is struggling more than I, I've already dealt partially with the grief caused by the loss whereas Gail has brushed it off and tried to avoid it.

At this point in my life I had planned to already be a grandparent. Which in some ways is a loss of a dream but actually hopefully, merely a postponement of a dream.  I have however repeatedly informed my children that they must marry blue-eyed blondes, which when questioned on that I have informed them that I have always dreamed of having blue-eyed blonde grandchildren.  They both have repeatedly rolled their eyes at me, none the less I do continue to assert my desires on that front.  If one has a dream you do have to act on it, after all I really do want to see all those cute little blonde grand babies someday.

After this short review of the first chapter of the book, just stop for a second and think about some losses you've had in your life that didn't involve a death but that involved a major change in your life.

The loss of a job, status, or just a dream. Honestly I think that the loss of a dream just might be the most damaging loss that we can endure. Of course all too often when we have a death in our family it not only involves the grief of the death but it is also wrapped up in the loss of a dream. A spouse dies just before the other spouse retires and all those dreams of post retirement travel are now gone, a child dies and all those dreams of watching them grow up, getting married and having children of their own are now gone with them.

In one post last year I mentioned that I had always wanted my Grandmother Karlen to see and hold my children. Grandmother always made a big fuss about her great and great-great grandchildren, and I wanted to see her face when she held my own child. When the day came that she passed away and I had not yet had a child, that dream died with her. I felt a great range of emotions over that loss and ultimately that loss shaped the remainder of my life more than any other event in my life.

I have picked up two more copies of this book in order to be able to loan them out as needed.  In fact just yesterday I dropped off a copy of this book for a friend who has suffered the loss of a loved one.  When I stopped in to drop it off, he was already gone for the day so I left the book with his receptionist.  As I talked to her, I learned that she was struggling with loss and grief in her life and she asked if she could take the book home and read it that night before giving it to my friend.  I told her to please do so, and that it was not a problem at all.  Honestly this little book is a fast read as well as being short so I have no doubt she'll pour through it in one evening, especially since she says she is a very fast reader.  After talking with her about her situation for a bit I gave her a blessing and left, wishing I'd have had the foresight to have brought an additional copy with me.

Perhaps one of the greatest gifts this book brings is the reinforcement of the realization that we all are suffering with some loss and some grief, nearly all of the time.  And that we are certainly going to be coming into contact with somebody daily, who is also suffering.  If we can somehow keep this thought in mind perhaps we'll all be more understanding of each other and forgiving as well.

I'll try to get a summary of Chapter Two up yet this week.

May you all be blessed and well.

In His Grace,

Roy 

All Our Losses / All Our Griefs

This is the start of my blogging about the wonderful little book by Kenneth R. Mitchell and Herbert Anderson entitled "All Our Losses / All Our Griefs"

I'll start this series off by quoting for you the entire 'Forward' from the book and then next I'll go through the book chapter by chapter.  I will however just give a few quotes from each chapter and then give you all an overview along with my own personal thoughts about each chapter.

So here we go, I hope you all enjoy this series of blogs and I assure you that you won't go wrong purchasing this little book.

In His absolute Grace & Love,
Roy

All Our Losses / All Our Griefs

Forward:

This is a book about loss: how serious personal losses take place, why we react to loss as we do, how many important forms of loss go unnoticed, how we can recover from the impact of loss, and how we can help others to recover from loss.  So far we know, no other approach to the subject of grief has made use of resources similar to ours; furthermore, we have emphasized elements of loss in situations that do not at first appear to be situations of loss and grief.  What we have tried to accomplish in the following pages consists of several elements.

First, our resources.  For years, both of us have been collecting statements about loss and grief from a wide variety of persons: our friends, our parishioners, our students.  By the time we agreed to collaborate on this book, we had amassed records of more than a thousand experiences of loss.  We sifted through those records, allowing those with whom we worked to become our teachers.  What we have written here comes largely from them.  Some of our material is theoretical, but this book essentially comes from the losses and griefs of those who have trusted us with their experiences.

Second, it is our conviction that grief is a normal response to significant loss: grieving is not, as some writers have suggested, evidence of sickness or disease.  It is something to live through rather than to cure.  It is no more pathological than the rush of adrenalin experienced when one has narrowly escaped danger.  Grief is a normal response.  It is a disservice to grieving persons to interpret their feelings and behavior as though there were a warp in their psychological makeup, or a deficiency in their spiritual formation.

Third, we are convinced that many people, including such potential helpers as Christian pastors, are unaware of the many kinds of loss that are an ordinary part of life.  Grief is usually thought of as a response to the death of a loved one.  That is, to be sure, the most profound and personal form that loss takes for most people.  Powerful as that death of a loved one is, it is not death that teaches us what loss and grief are.  We learn about loss much earlier in life; it comes, in fact, before we know much about death at all.  Death is only one form of loss.  Our purpose is to help caring persons become more sensitive to the man instances in life when a "grief ministry" is called for.  We have intended to be thorough in our attention to this aspect, considering not only such losses as death and divorce, but also less easily noticeable experiences that involve significant loss.

Fourth, we also intend this book to be squarely within the discipline of pastoral theology.  There are several books on funerals and on ministering to the bereaved which are good indicators of "what to do".  There are other good books designed to help grief sufferers work their way through the grieving process.  As pastoral theologians, we have drawn upon the resources both of theology and of the human sciences to guide both private and public ministries with those who grieve.  We have included in one volume three questions that have often been dealt with separately: (1) Why do people grieve, or what is the genesis of grief in human life? (2) What are the dynamics of grief and the characteristics of grieving? (3) How can we help those who grieve?  That scope is part of the uniqueness of this book.

Although our original intention was to produce a source for the teaching of pastoral care in seminaries, we have also written this book as a resource  for all persons who care about others suffering from loss and grief.  We believe that pastoral work and mourners is the work of the congregation, not just of certain professionals.  Thus, this book is intended for any person who wants to understand loss and grief, whether to minister to others or to come to terms with one's own experience.

Our Last ELM class is complete. Just a paper to complete and graduation awaits...

I have no idea where this little Church is located
but I love the composition of this photo and the emotion
it invokes.  WmRoy Karlen

Well last Thursday, Friday and Saturday marked our last class for the 'Educating Lay Ministry' program.  My last class was over Presbyterian History & Polity, and all that is left to complete this class and the entire 'ELM' experience is to write a 7 page paper.  This class was held at the St. Benedict Center near Schuyler, NE.  The retreat there is just so serene, it's a wonderful place to stay and become refueled and renewed.

It was sad to end our last class, next is the graduation in October and then the reality that at least a few of us will likely never see each other again.  It has been a very interesting experience these last three years.  One in which I've seen myself grow and change a great deal.  My personal theological beliefs have changed considerably in this time.  This change is definitely for the better and it has been due to a combination of the ELM classes, life experiences both current and in looking back in meditative reflection on things long ago as well as reflections on the mentor ship of my late friend Jesse.  But to be honest the hand that shoved me off the cliff so to speak was a voice (in an e-mail actually) from the past bearing grace where grace was certainly not deserved.  For numerous reasons I cannot and will not go into more detail; but suffice to say that it was the greatest display of human grace I have personally experienced or witnessed.

Lately I have had so very many tragedies strike for folks around me.  Numerous diagnoses for cancer, deaths, abuse, family disruptions, divorce and hospitalizations.  My prayer list has expanded profoundly, so much that a couple of times at night I have fallen asleep as I was still praying my way through the list.  Part of this is a function of my age I'm sorry to say.  At this stage in life not only are my friends parents subject to disease and death, but my friends and contemporaries all too often are contracting disease and far too many have succumbed to their illnesses.  It's also a time where not only are my friends subject to divorce but they also have children who may have marital issues and become divorced.  Until one is older one fails to fully grasp the impact of marital unrest and divorce outside the immediate couple and their children.

For that reason I have taken my own advice and started once more reading through the book "All Our Losses / All Our Griefs".  I have mentioned this book several times in this blog and I will again say it is one of the most revelatory books I have ever read.  It is such a profound little book (it's only 173 pages) that I've decided that starting this week I will blog about it.  Starting with my next post I will go chapter by chapter through the book with direct quotes and then my personal reflections upon it.

I hope you'll like what I share enough that you'll run out and get a copy (or more they are well worth sharing) for yourself.

In His Love & Unending Grace!
Roy