Sadness

Sadness Surrendered

A life fully lived.

Frederick Buechner, author, pastor, writes of the sadness his mother carried: “But I think the price one pays by not dealing with your pain, by forgetting it, by stuffing it aside, by not looking at it, is that some part of you doesn't grow. I think part of her that didn't grow was what might have been the compassionate part of her, the part of her that by sort of looking at her own pain, would have opened her up to the sense that other people were in pain and then she might have been able to reach out into other people's lives. She never did. She had friends but I can't imagine her having a friend for whom she would've sacrificed herself...The most human part of her that might have been never really came to be because of all the things she sort of stuffed aside, the things that might have opened her up” Frederick Buechner; “A Crazy, Holy Grace-The Healing Power of Pain and Memory”

After reading one of his books while I was in Australia recently, I was deeply moved. The surprise and delight of a summer Christmas was dawning on me. The early mornings were not holly and pines. The sounds were not “Jingle bells” as much as the ravens that ravaged the early mornings with their guttural, offensive squawking. The game of cricket was a surrogate substitute for NFL football and beach and alleyway games were commonplace as three generations competed for bragging rights. The wispy clouds indicated a warm window with which to dash down to the beach to celebrate the beauty of this truly captivating city.

So I read Buechner’s book “The Remarkable Ordinary”. The first chapters arrested me. With gentle care Buechner undid me. Whilst the whole book was not as riveting as those first chapters, Meryl had not yet arrived, so I had a little more time to read and reflect. It became a surprise to find myself facing the fact that deep, deep in my soul, beneath the courageous acts of survival, lay a sadness that I was not yet ready to face. I had never wanted to be unzipped. In sober humor I would say I was scared to see what may be found in there. Yet a loving Father would not let me elastoplast my pain.

When Meryl arrived, I asked for a walk as is our custom when we want to catch up. This time however I heard my mouth say “I need to tell you about my sadness”. Being jet lagged from the brutal flight from Los Angeles to Perth, I am not sure that is what she expected.

I launched out. “I think there is good and bad sadness”-one could immediately sense my deep, academic insight into the subject! I continued as she looked at me quizzically: “I am sad that my daughter, son in law and family live in Perth. I am sad because I miss them every day. Everyday I want the phone to ring with a ‘what are you guys doing tonight? We are having pizza, come and join us.’ That was not going to happen”. I continued. “They love Perth. They have crafted a life, having a sense of calling to this city. They have friends, co-workers, a home and a story. They are not coming back to LA anytime soon. And that hurts like crazy. But it is a beautiful sadness. It is loaded with gratitude that they love Jesus more than they love me. It is weighted with wonder that they want to lay down their lives for their adopted nation. It is beautiful in color when I see their friends and the ache that this is their surrogate family.( I am sure Meryl thought I was the jet lagged one... how can sadness be this beautiful?)


But there is another sadness. This is a aching version. Languishing in a bruised soul lies a sadness for lost years that I can never reclaim. A little deeper in that cavity of my heart lies a much more painful sadness. For the first time I really dared to go there.

This sadness is brutal. It is the sadness of a romantic who set out on an adventure so many years ago, with euphoric dreams and triumphalistic expectations. Who saw the future as crafted around timeless relationships that would stretch beyond the edges of time. We would do life together, for ever. Meryl knew that Chris. Cuddled together from our teens, we had embarked on that journey, side by side.

This sadness is wrapped in broken promises, betrayal of departing friends, being abandoned by ones I loved deeply, being sued by folks I came to give my life for, being silenced by a brotherhood I believed in for a quarter of a century. In God's tender kindness layer upon layer that saddened my once buoyant eyes, misted them up, as I saw my sadness for the first time. This was not a gaze of anger, resentment or bitterness. Rather it was the sacred everlasting hands that held my heart with utmost care and love.

Lest you dear reader, feel sorry for me, let me liberate you. I was also a contributor to this sadness. At times my youthful zeal would bypass wisdom and damage others in my haste. Other moments, my prophetic inclination blurted out passionate convictions without consideration to the compassionate journey every change requires. On occasion my mouth was not the kind soft baton in the hand of a gentle God but a blunt instrument that bludgeoned a pathway forward, but not as a tender friend or a careful shepherd. I gifted others with sadness also...and that was difficult to face.

There is a most moving moment in the sacred scriptures when Jesus fulfills Isaiah 53 which reads he would be “a man of sorrow, acquainted with grief”. In a garden, up on a desolate hill, after betrayal, denial, injustice, rejection and abandonment, it was written of Jesus “And taking with him, Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, he began to be sorrowful and troubled...my soul is sorrowful, even to death” Matthew 26:37-38

Now I am not clever enough to know if sadness and sorrow are the same-they certainly are similar bedfellows. It is naive to think that, following our rabbi Jesus would mean that we, his apprentices, would not walk in his wake. As Paul, the entrepreneur, author, teacher wrote “Even Demas has forsaken me”.

There is the good sadness, where obedience to Jesus requires separation and distances. This kind leaves us limping with gratitude. But there is bad sadness. Buechner’s mother never went there, those deep soul cavities where we struggle to acknowledge our sadness for things that should not have been. I found mine in Kings Park, Perth, Australia. On a lonely track I was comforted to find it simply is OK to open that door. In a beautiful public park I found grace to comfort my sorrowful, sad soul and be open to a new journey of growth, to begin again.