Time to Mourn

1,000 names… 1,000 snippet obituaries. 1% of the dead and it is all only beginning.

The front page of the NY Times this morning was a profound piece of public worship. 

Naming! 

In Madeline L’Engles time quintet the capacity to adequately name someone becomes shorthand for love. 

The final act of violence is forgetting. 

Every single one of these deaths matter. If the 92 year old man in the LTC facility was stabbed by a robber or died from the blast of a terrorist bomb. We would remember. We would not shrug our collective shoulders and say “well, he was going to die soon anyways.” We would want justice done. 

How do we even begin to mourn?

This morning lawnmowers buzz around my neighborhood. My sister had to ask the groundskeepers to stop mowing when my Dad lay dying in his hospice bed. My mind returns to both the pain and the holiness of those last moments. The healing that would never have come if we couldn’t have gathered at his bedside.

How dow we begin to mourn our incapacity to mourn? 

The spiritual crises that yawns before us is more than just navigating our incapacity to worship together. The spiritual crises is how to we protect ourselves from becoming inured to our neighbor’s suffering as the astonishing becomes normal….. 

If I was in charge of a belfry then I think I would be ringing it daily for everyone that dies in my town. 

Since I don’t--- I would challenge you to meditate and pray with the NY Times this morning.