"..People live on best after [chaos], not by utterly repressing their grief and shock, but by facing it and measuring its dimensions"-F.W. Dobbs-Allsopp, "Tragedy, Tradition, and Theology in the book of Lamentations" in Journal for the Study of the Old Testament
Not by repressing...
not by repressing our grief
not by repressing our grief and shock
but
but by facing
but by facing it
but by facing it and measuring
but by facing it and measuring its dimensions.
To face grief. Look it in the face, look it in the eye. And feel it. To peer in its orbs and read from their depths the overwhelming sensation of pain grow from my finger tips, toes, to the center. The heart. the epicenter. from which flows seismic waves of grief. tremors that follow. quakes and rumbling, groaning as a piece shifts, breaks away, and a chasm is cleaved.
I lost a friend last week. I realized it doesn't always matter how close s/he was to you. The rifts and stretching that happens in these moments in the heart still happen, laughing in the face of distance. Bleeds forth more questions, ones I have seen, asked, and groaned.
I am facing it.
I am measuring,
measuring its dimensions.
And they are of such magnitude to scale.
In memory of Bryan. "Don't you worry, don't you worry child, heaven's got a plan for you..."
