Some weeks ago, my wife, Grace, and I took an afternoon drive to the country cemetery where my father is buried. His body has been interred in that sacred space for 62 years. 62 years.
As we stood at my dad’s grave I remembered – as I always have on such visits – the day I stood next to that space the first time; the funeral day when dad’s grave was an open hole (4’ wide, 6’ deep, and 8’ long), prepared to receive his casket. I was 10. It was so soul-searingly difficult to look down into that gaping hole.
On this latest visit an additional thought occurred to me. It was this. Whatever does it mean when someone dealing with loss or tragedy or some trauma in their life says, “ I need closure. I need to have closure so that I can move on with my life.”
While I think that I understand what closure means and why it is important to have some sense of resolution (closure?) of events that tear at our emotions, emotional trauma, and soul-challenging loss, the truth is that grief, in some of its emotional forms, is always with us. So, what does ‘closure’ mean and how does this ‘closure’ thing enable moving on?
This past week a group of family members of the 11 women murdered in Cleveland by Anthony Sowell – the convicted, and now deceased, serial rapist who brutally took the lives of those 11 women – gathered at the site where their bodies were found.
The site at which they gathered is greatly changed. The house where the bodies of those women were entombed in the basement and walls has been torn down. Where the house horrors once stood now one will find a ‘Garden of 11 Angels’. Family members and community supporters gathered at that Garden of 11 Angels to consecrate a memorial to the memory of those 11 women. Family members said that the memorial brings ‘closure’ to a great tragedy which occurred in their families. Now they can move on.
Again, amid life’s tragedies I can understand the word, ‘closure’, and the important resolution or sense of understanding that is sought by the survivors of such tragedy. But whatever does this language arising from such an often elusive, but painful desire, even mean?
Is it even possible to find this thing we call ‘closure’ and to move on? How does a parent of a child lost in a school shooting or anyone dealing – for whatever reason – with loss and its attendant grief, find closure and move on?
It is honest for me to admit that I have no ‘closure’ to my sense of loss at my dad’s death all those years ago. While grief at his passing from our family’s life has certainly changed in its intensity, the grief is still open ended and always able to sneak up on our memories and souls. There is no ‘closure’ to his death. We have all moved on. But that said, the truth of the matter is that in terms of moving on there has been no choice in the matter. We have moved on (whatever that means) just like countless others have done and do, despite hurtful things, losses, and grief.
Rather than seeking ‘closure’ I have learned, in the ancient language of the Apostle Paul, to be “content.” (Philippians 4:11-13).
“Content” does NOT mean complacent. Content does NOT mean acceptance of injustice or loss or hurt as just the way of things. Content does NOT mean indifference. Content does NOT mean resignation. Content does NOT mean having come to a sense of satisfaction or fulfillment. Instead, learning to be “content” is an active spiritual condition of being at peace; a peace that passes all understanding.
This spiritual peace means that the losses, hurts, injustices, grief, and disappointments which occur in our individual or corporate lives are ALWAYS put in the context of believing that our lives are not meaningless. Spiritual peace occurs by being put in the context of believing that in the living of our lives we are not alone. Spiritual peace is learning that our lives are joined in a great purpose of working toward the achieving of some measure of The Kingdom of God.
This learning to be content, and in this sense to be at peace, like all education, does not come naturally and is not a once and for all achievement. I am LEARNING to be CONTENT. Sometimes it is a daily, even hourly, education. It is not inexpensive in terms of emotional energy. It does not come without effort. It does not come without investment in efforts which move the needle forward to make things better for others, and consequently ourselves.
I am LEARNING to be content. And there is one thing more. I am LEARNING, as the ancient text affirms, that I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.
This means that I can stand at any grave and trust that life is not a random crapshoot of profit or loss…… a daily tally of who is “winning” and who is “losing” or who succeeds or who fails. Such learning of what and who it is that strengthens me means that I learn to live with hope, courage, investment in what is good and what enables good for others.
Such learning means that I RESIST what is evil and I REFUSE to participate in evil in all its forms. Such learning means ACTIVELY EXPLORING the truth that you and I will one day have – not ‘closure’ – but a beginning in a kingdom not made with hands. That kingdom is not a gated community but a family as REAL as the air which we now breathe and the life which we now know. And best of all, it is all good.
As the composer, Natalie Sleeth, put words to music after standing at the grave of a friend wrote,
IN OUR END IS OUR BEGINNING; IN OUR LIFE, ETERNITY.
IN OUR DEATH A RESURRECTION; AT THE LAST, A VICTORY.
UNREVEALED UNTIL ITS SEASON, SOMETHING GOD ALONE CAN SEE.
So, as hard as it can be to stand at a grave or live during great tragedy, I have learned, and am daily learning, not to seek an allusive ‘closure’ but to be content.