Thankful and Grieving
Reality-based Spirituality
As a pastor, I am aware and often reminded of the importance of anniversaries, both happy ones and sad ones. The 8th and 9th of September are hard days for me and my family. September 8, 2023, is the fifth year anniversary of my Dad’s death and September 9 is my Mom’s birthday (the fifth year anniversary of her death was April 23, 2023).
One of the most important things I have made part of my weekly life is lifting up my parent’s names in prayer each Lord’s Day. A weekly part of our worship service, called “The Prayers of the People,” includes this invitation:
“We remember before you all your servants who have departed this life in your faith and fear, especially those we lift up to you now, that your will for them may be fulfilled; [Silence] and we ask you to give us the grace to follow the good examples of St. Michael and of all your saints, that we may share with them in your heavenly kingdom.”
During the place within the petition for silence, I thank God for Jim and Elaine Snyder, my dad, and my mom. Each time I say this my thankfulness for them is tinged by the grief of their deaths. This tinging roots my spirituality to reality, whether I wanted it to or not.
As I have grown in my faith, its flourishing or lack thereof, has been tied to my willingness to look reality in the face and allow God to be God in the middle of reality. In 1984 my cousin, Howard Dean died. He was 19 years old. It was then I heard for the first time that “It was God’s will,” and that my acceptance of this as fact was part and parcel of my Christian maturity.
Fast-forward to today, almost 40 years later, I comfortably and without equivocation believe that this is a lie, both that death is God’s will and that accepting (rather than rejecting) said lie is tied to Christian maturity.
Today, almost five years after my Dad died capping a nightmare season of loss in my life, I still hate that my parents died. I hate that they died when they did. I hate that that they died how they died. I hate that they were in their early seventies. I hate that they weren’t able to be a part of my three eldest children’s weddings. I hate that Dad is not available to me to help me with manly “around the house” questions and needs. I hate that my last memories of them are their lifeless bodies and the reality of death.
Living with this reality, and learning to let God be God within my reality, has enabled my spiritual life to flourish, but in ways that I did not anticipate.
This website is my attempt to begin putting on paper and making available to those who’d like to listen and reflect along with me, my reflections about God, life, and in particular how reality and human flourishing blend.