GUEST POST BY VALERIE BOYER
We have had a long week, and traditionally speaking, this is not a day that is often “celebrated” per say, because grief is a weight that none of us openly are running to sit in.
But, we are responsible for telling whole stories, and grief gets a role in this story. We have to tell a whole story, because there is healing in the wholeness of a story.
Since the beginning of the age of Da Rona, and really 2020, if we are telling a whole truth here, has been one of such great losses. Seniors in high schools, and colleges, are mourning the loss of senior year activities. Someone close to me is mourning not being able to move on to a new job. There are people mourning the loss of a job, a steady income, and their benefits. Some people are mourning not being able to gather in community with people they love. Some people gain life from that physical space and energy of being around people they care about. And then, some people are mourning people. So many deaths, and transitions, have happened since the beginning of this, and because of the age of Da Rona, we can’t have funerals, and memorials, and say goodbye in the ways we know how. Mourning is not new in the age of Da Rona, but certainly feels exasperated. This is perhaps because we actually have time to do it.
Saturday matters. Theologians argue about whether or not Jesus went to hell and had a revival, which they’ll get an answer for after Sunday. That’s a cool place to think, but I’m considering the Marys, and his boys, and his community on mytoday. Those people who he healed, gave sight to, shared vision with, redeemed from sicknesses and cultural indictments, are having to grieve Saturday.. I’m talking about the people who loved him, now having to sit in the reality of a world with a dead Jesus. Do you think those people he fed with the fish and loaves to, heard about his passing? How do you think Jarius and his daughter took it? The woman at the well, turned evangelist, might’ve gotten the word. Do we think she’s okay? Can’t you hear them crying? See them hurting? You might confuse their sounds for your own, for we are a people who know grief intimately. Everyone wants to rush to Sunday, and I get it. But grief is the price of love, and for these people, they’re still grieving.
Today, we light a virtual candle, for those who have gone on. We grieve with you. My prayer is that no rushes you to your Sunday. Sit in it, your “Saturday’s.” Jesus’s family had to. And fret not. Saturday doesn’t last always, but you can’t avoid Sadder-days either. And may the same God that kept them on their Saturdays be with you as well. Don’t run from the grief. Don’t subside it. Don’t ignore it. Don’t suppress it. Feel it, and let God get in the grief with you. May we be a people, who do not run from grief. May we be a people who grieve, and let God in in the grief with it. And when you make room for the divine to get in it with you, it won’t always be Sadder-days..,
Born and raised in Galveston, TX, curated at Howard University, journeying to Detroit, and now Columbus, OH, Valerie has spent her life through the lens of preaching, praying, poetry and activism. Today is no different. Her love for her God, family, community, both locally and global fuels her passion for all that she does. Her favorite quote is “when life gives you lemonade, sprinkle black girl magic, make apple juice, and leave people wondering how it happened.”
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