The Importance of Grief

Maybe it's because we're in that part of the year when the days are getting increasingly darker.  Or maybe it's because we're moving through the beautifully dark season of Advent in the church.  Whatever the reason, I've been thinking a bit lately about the importance of grief.  Some people might expect that thinking about grief would be really depressing.  But strangely, it hasn't been depressing at all; it's actually been peculiarly comforting. My own sense is that, in the months and years to come, grief is going to be a very important dimension of life, leadership, and ministry in our world.

But this presents a problem.

It presents a problem because our success-oriented, pleasure-oriented, North American culture does not do grief well.  Rather than acknowledging the losses that come to us, and willingly entering our grief over those losses, we tend to force ourselves to smile and say, "I'm doing just fine."  "Strength to strength!" we proclaim. We tend to think that life ought to be successful and pleasant, and because losses don't feel good, we deny them, pretend they aren't that bad, and try to move around or past them.

The trouble is that losses don't just go away.  When we refuse to acknowledge our losses, it's as though they build up inside of us, and they will gradually drag us down.  The degree to which we refuse to acknowledge our own losses (trying to shut them out of our minds) will be the degree to which we are unable to be with others in their losses.  Their losses may remind us of our own (which we are trying really hard not to think about), so we will tend to avoid and keep our distance from them.

Grief obviously applies to the Big Losses of life, as when someone close to us dies.  But there are a myriad of other losses that can come to us.  Loss of a job; a break-up in a relationship; damage to our reputation; financial trouble; someone bullying our child at school; failure at a project; theft of some piece of our property; a decline in the status and prosperity of our country; a drop in confidence in our political leaders; shrinking attendance in churches; and on and on.  At this point in history, we are in the midst of quite a bit of loss.  Grieving is not all we should do in response to these losses; but it is an important component of our response. 

A key task for leaders in the coming years will be to develop our own capacity to grieve our own losses, and to help those whom we lead to grieve theirs. "Blessed are those who mourn," said Jesus, "for they will be comforted."  Grieving our losses will be one key part of moving forward, rather than being something we should avoid at all costs.