War devastates not only the landscapes of our country but the landscapes of our human lives as well, leaving ruin and suffering behind – the broken windows and roofs of our souls, their very walls.
Grieving is not a disease that needs to be cured; it belongs to our existential experience on the Silent Planet. When death and destruction become the norm, grieving weaves itself into our daily struggles.
Grieving is not a weakness or a flaw in our character, as many try to “spiritualize” and “diagnose” it – to avoid accepting the depth of grief of those they work and partner with, and live with.
Grieving is not a disorder. To call it one is to stigmatize and to leave without support those whom grief has taken so deep that they lose the sense of life and of pain.
Grieving is not a mental illness that we should feel ashamed or embarrassed to recognize and admit in ourselves in front of the spiritual Iron Men. It is not a shame to seek a safe place to express your grief, to make your mind and soul so empty that only the Holy Spirit could fill them again – not with “something,” but only by… only with Himself.
Grieving is not limited to the death of loved ones, though that is grief’s deepest source. It is also the loss of our homes, our communities, our way of life, and the sense of safety and security for our children, for our parents and siblings. These losses are devastating too.
Our grieving is an innate response to death – and to the fear of death of those we love – amid the chaos and loss. It speaks of the sacredness of life, of the bonds of love that hold us together in a time of war. It joins us to what is human in us: the capacity for deep emotional attachment, for shared empathy that neither the walls of society nor the violent divisions of war can sever.
Grieving is our way of working through our collective trauma – emotional, spiritual, moral… – and of tying ourselves to life again. So those who label wartime grieving as pathological misunderstand themselves, misunderstand the human condition and the very essence of the Other.
Grieving is about our need for meaning, for purpose, in our relationships with the Other.
Grieving is how we come to understand our place not in the ideal… but in the broken world, shattered in the war, where everything feels out of control and we desperately need to reassert our humanity.
Grieving reminds us of our shared humanity in His image and likeness – though war aims to dehumanize us: to silence us on the Silent Planet, to drive us from the swimming islands onto the firm land before the sunrise, the time when only the Green King and Princess are allowed to do so.
To call grief a disease is to say it must be “treated” or “cured” so that people can return to “normal functioning.” But after deep loss, there is no “normal” to return to. We are forever changed. Even the Son of God has wounds on His palms for the eternity that is and that is to come – eternal scars, without the hellish burning and tearing pain.
If Jesus was grieving in the Garden of Gethsemane, on the road to Golgotha, and then on the Cross… then… who am I to play the spiritually invulnerable Rambo who does not recognize his own vulnerability?
“Who am I, my Maleldil?”
“I am with you, Ransom, as Who I am… I am nearby, and grieving with you… Someday you will be UnIncarnated… to be incarnated again into the new body without grieving… with the scars… but no pain anymore…”
Peace be with you, the People of the Bridge… and I wish you a Silent Night… to you and to your children…
––
Taras Dyatlik, Ukraine
24 June 2023
Leave a Reply