Conversation Point

In This Moment

On Mourning

Two communities continued their grieving this week.

The town of Guinsaugon, Philippines, is gone. Eighteen hundred people, wiped away by a mudslide last Friday, are gradually being found and laid to rest in mass graves, each holding twenty to thirty people. With no one left to identify the dead, priests from nearby villages come to perform religious rites while small groups of strangers stand silently nearby as witnesses to the passing of these human souls they never knew. A few survivors remain dazed by the incomprehensible moment which removed the world as they knew it, replacing it with the silence of the unknown.

Another community, located in West Warwick, Rhode Island, recalls its loss in a gathering of three hundred, near where The Station nightclub used to stand. Three years ago, on February 20, 2003, one hundred people died in one of the worst fires in United States history. Those who escaped with their lives still carry the horror of the night in their memories. Insufficient exits prevented the crowds inside from escaping the rapidly moving flames, ignited by the band Great White's pyrotechnics. Scrambling to get out of the way of the escalating neat and destruction, some who made it to the doors leading to the cool haven of the night air found themselves blocked by a growing pile of human beings, trampled by others passing over and past them. While litigation, new laws improving fire safety, and time have begun to heal the emotional wounds, the physical signs of that night remain on limbs that stop short of completion and grafted skin reshaping itself to new locations.

These two communities, separated by half a world, embody Jesus' words from the Sermon on the Mount shared in Matthew's gospel. "Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted (Matthew 5:4)." While the few remaining residents of what was Guinsaugon are still in shock, theirs is a familiar space in which anyone who has suffered a loss has found themselves. Disbelief mingled with a deep sorrowful pain which only time and gentle reverence can ease. It is at this stage of mourning that we depend on those around us to carry the daily tasks, the burden of living itself, until we are able to begin to live again on our own. The people of Guinsaugon are blessed with the comfort of pastoral leadership to bury their friends and family with love and respect, and people who are able to mourn on their behalf until they can pick up this full mantle of grief for themselves.

Those who have gathered in the brisk New England winter air each year on this tragic anniversary know these beginning lessons of personal resurrection. They have reconnected with day-to-day living, encountered the rage and the acceptance of altered realities, and are now united once again to remember. But while in past years they have recalled the incident that brought them together, this year the focus seemed to have shifted a little more to remembering those whom they loved, and who have also moved on.

Hearts and spirits are known to heal slowly, in their own time and space. That is simply, poignantly, a fact of life. But we also know God's love and understanding of loss, and eventually, new hope in the Psalmist's words: "Weeping may linger for the night, but joy comes with the morning (Psalm 30:4)."

Until next time, God's blessings.

posted by Cory L. Kemp @ 5:50 PM