大象传媒

Grief is a journey everyone undertakes but a journey few talk about. No one told me that grief is so visceral, so incredibly physical. No one told me that grief is voracious in its capacity to consume memory, confidence and concentration. No one told me that grief doesn鈥檛 always begin with death.

I鈥檓 retracing some of the landmarks on my own journey of grief and, on this Good Friday, listening again to the events surrounding the crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth. This too is the story of a journey that led to the most horrendous of executions and a journey of heartache and grief for his Mother, his family and his friends

My journey of grief began, as many do, with a phone call. I can still hear my wife鈥檚 voice telling me that a routine ultra sound scan had shown something sinister on her pancreas. Hilary and I had been married for over forty years. We鈥檇 met when we were just fifteen. She was a dedicated and distinguished nurse so we both knew the significance of what that scan might be.

Major surgery was followed by intense chemotherapy. It was a long and arduous road. There was never a day I did not waken without a sense of dread, not unlike fear, buried within the gnawing hole in my gut. Grief I now realize was already the stalking companion on the road we would travel. And that road eventually led here, to St. Joseph鈥檚 Hospice in London.

This is the place where Hilary spent the last weeks of her life. And here at St. Joseph鈥檚 I was keenly aware that the hospice wasn鈥檛 just looking after her, they were looking after me too.

INTERVIEW: Bridget Leigh 鈥� Head of Psychological Services, St Joseph鈥檚 Hospice听

READING: Mark 14.32- 42.

They came to a place called Gethsemane and Jesus said to his disciples, 鈥淪it here while I pray? 鈥滺e took with him Peter and James and John, and began to be distressed and agitated. And he said to them, 鈥淚 am deeply grieved, even to death; remain here and keep awake. And going a little farther he threw himself on the ground and prayed that, if it were possible the hour might pass from him. He said, 鈥淎bba, Father, for you all things are possible; remove this cup from me; yet, not what I want, but what you want.鈥� Jesus came and found them sleeping; and he said to Simon Peter, 鈥淪imon, are you asleep? Could you not keep awake one hour? Watch and pray that you may not come into the time of trial; the spirit indeed is willing but the flesh is weak.鈥� And again he went away and prayed, saying the same words. And once more he came and found them sleeping, for their eyes were very heavy; and they did not know what to say to him. Jesus came a third time and said to them, 鈥淎re you still sleeping and taking your rest? Enough. The hour has come.....鈥澨�

MUSIC: Sleep by Eric Whitacre (CD 2743209 Decca听 Light&Gold)

O how often I came to this chapel. As much for the silence and the space as anything else. I鈥檇 like to say I found it easy to pray here but the truth is that most of my prayers died on my lips. Exhaustion meant I had little left. The journey had already been long and arduous. People would as how I was doing but truth to tell I didn鈥檛 know. Caring for Hilary and trying to do my job meant there was little left over for any kind of introspection. I used to come here and sit and look round the Stations of the Cross on the walls. Those pictures of Jesus carrying his cross on that last journey to crucifixion. I remember seeing the exhaustion in his face; his body bent with the weight of that cross. And yes, I remember the confusion in my mind of desperately not wanting my wife to die but also wanting it to be over. If I knew anything, it was the rawness of that Gethsemane prayer that the hour might pass. No one knows how hard these last days became. Hilary gradually withdrew from the concerns of this world as her physical symptoms grew worse. Yet 听to my mind she became more beautiful in a way I still find impossible to describe. By now she was asleep most of the time. I was with her during the day and sleeping fitfully in her room at night. Some said that when the end came it would be a relief but I knew it is never like that. Grief was no longer the unseen stalking companion on the journey but an increasingly forceful presence.

How hard it is even now, even sitting here in the silence of this chapel. Hard to remember that early afternoon in her room when I was quietly reading aloud some of the Psalms we had come to love for their forthright realism and spiritual honesty. To remember how her breathing changed. To remember I was holding her hand when she took her last breath. Nothing can prepare you for that moment. I鈥檇 worked in hospices. I鈥檇 spent the greater part of my life trying to help those who鈥檇 lost husband, wife parent, child. Dear Lord, I now realize how little I understood. Maybe it鈥檚 always like that when, what you know in your head becomes the inconsolable hole in your heart. Grief was now within. Nothing can prepare you for that final moment when the terrible, overwhelming truth and the deep dread of past months come together in such piercing pain. That convulsive, body-racking uncontrollable cascade of tears. Anguish and lament. Protest and passion. Even now there are no adequate words to describe that moment of utter desolation, that soundless scream. According to one account Jesus died with words of dereliction from the Psalms on his lips and I had the words of the Psalms still echoing in my mind......听听听

My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me and art so far from my health and from the words of my complaint.(Ps.22)

I am brought into such great trouble and misery that I go mourning all the day long. I have roared for the very disquietness of my heart.(Ps 38)

Out of the deep have I called unto thee O Lord; Lord hear my voice. O let thine听 ears consider well, the voice of my complaint.(Ps130)

I am come into deep waters so that the floods run over me. I am weary of crying; my throat is dry, my sight faileth me for waiting so long upon my God.( Ps 69)

Hear my prayer O Lord and let my crying come unto thee. My heart is smitten down and withered like grass.(Ps.102)

READING

And when the sixth hour had come there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour. And at the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, 鈥楨loi, Eloi, lama sabachthani? which means, 鈥楳y God, my God why hast thou forsaken me? And some of the bystanders hearing it said, 鈥橞ehold, he is calling Elijah. And one ran and, filling a sponge full of vinegar, put it on a reed, and gave it to him to drink, saying 鈥榃ait let us see if Elijah will come to take him down. And Jesus uttered a loud cry, and breathed his last........(There were women looking on from afar, among whom were Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James the younger and of Joses ,and Salome who when he was in Galilee, followed him; and also many other women who came up with him to Jerusalem.)

MUSIC: Hear my Prayer 鈥� Purcell ( CD Faire is the Heaven, The Cambridge Singers/John Rutter COLCD 107)

No one ever told me that grief is so physical. Soon after my wife died, I felt I was falling apart. I couldn鈥檛 hold a pen without my hand shaking. My signature changed, and that caused a lot of problems with the bank. At times I found it hard to get words out, it鈥檚 as if brain and voice were no longer synchronised. And my memory was very patchy. For a good while I even had no picture of Hilary in my mind other than in her hospice bed. Even worse, my confidence was shot. The thought of speaking in public was an absolute horror鈥� Coming back here into St Paul鈥檚 Cathedral and passing into the Choir, it was along here that I used to sit as Precentor, as a canon of the cathedral. It is a very prominent position, just off the Dome and I鈥檓 surrounded by the places where the choir actually sit. But here, coming back to the cathedral, I suddenly realise that now, what was once a familiar routine of preaching in this place, and in many others, when I was Bishop of Stepney 鈥� all of that was somehow giving me a real sense of panic. I just couldn鈥檛 do it public anymore. In time I realised that one of the things that was effecting me was, when I climb up to the pulpit, or took a church service, I would first of all look round to see where Hillary was sitting. And of course now she wasn鈥檛 there. I was totally disorientated. I didn鈥檛 understand what was happening, I had not words to express how I felt, I couldn鈥檛 even talk to myself. I did come to recognise, in some music, what I felt when words failed. In a strange way, music was a vehicle for prayer 鈥� even when I had no words to pray.听

听鈥淚n prayer it is better to have a heart and no words than words with no heart,鈥� wrote John Bunyan. And it took over 2 years before I could climb into a pulpit again to preach, or indeed do anything in public.听 听

Well, I asked James O鈥橠onnell, Master of the Choristers at Westminster Abbey, why music is so powerful at bearing our grief and carrying our sorrows.

INTERVIEW JAMES O鈥橠ONNELL

MUSIC: Popule Meus 鈥� Tomas Victoria (CD Victoria; The Choir of Westminster cathedral CDH55452)

READING
When evening had come, Joseph of Arimathea, who was himself looking to the kingdom of God, took courage and went to Pilate, and asked for the body of Jesus.

When Pilate learned that Jesus was already dead, he granted the body to Joseph. Then Joseph bought a linen cloth and taking down the body of Jesus wrapped him and aid him in a tomb hewn of rock.

So, with the body of Jesus buried in a tomb the events of Good Friday come to a close.

I鈥檝e come to the church yard where my wife is buried. I was the Parish Priest here in the 1980s. through the weather is cold and bleak, this place has a strange beauty, through ancient trees and distant views. 听It鈥檚 a place not only where not only can I pray, but where I want to pray. On the headstones are the names of people I knew well, families I tried to help in times of crisis, in the time of their grief. On Good Friday Christians use the simplest of words听 - the simplest of prayers I now want to make my own and share with you:

God, help and comfort today the lonely, the bereaved and the oppressed. Lord have mercy, hear our prayer.

God, show pity on prisoners, refugees and all in trouble. Lord in your mercy, hear our prayer.

God, forgive our enemies, persecutors and slanderers. Lord in your mercy, hear our pray.

Almighty Father, look with mercy on this your family for which our Lord Jesus Christ was content to be betrayed and given up into the hands of sinners and to suffer death on the Cross; who is alive and glorified with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.

Walking round this churchyard I鈥檓 reminded that grief is a journey, a road I鈥檓 till travelling. I think we talk too glibly of grief as a process we go through as if it has a beginning, a middle and an end. Grief undoubtedly changes, but I can鈥檛 believe it will ever end. In one sense I don鈥檛 want it to end. Grief is the other side of love. To deny the strength of grief would be to deny the power of love鈥�.love that I believe not even death can destroy.

On our journey of grief I found I was a mass of contradictions 鈥� if I was with people I wanted to be alone, if I was alone I wondered why no one called. I can well understand why, after Jesus was buried, some of his friends were together in an upper room and some like Thomas just wanted to be alone.

In the days and months after Hilary died I would come here to this churchyard 鈥� a place I found I could be still 鈥� I could remember 鈥� I could pray. Ah, there were times of course, awful days 鈥� days when I was hanging with bare and bleeding fingernails 鈥� days I was hanging onto 鈥� nothing. But deep inside I realized that the profound and mysterious reality I had embraced in faith was holding onto me.

In faith, if the Crucifixion of Jesus means anything, it is that God, even when seemingly absent, is not outside the realities of this life and particularly the anguish of death, but inside at the very centre of it all. At the place of Jesus鈥檚 broken body and the place of my broken heart.

So here鈥檚 Hilary鈥檚 grave. On this journey there is always a new corner to be turned; a new bend to follow. It seems to me that there is something of infinite importance in love that will forever remain a mystery, just beyond my grasp. But then a C. S Lewis put it, 鈥淭he best is perhaps, what we understand least鈥� 鈥� or in the poetry of Elizabeth Jenning:

In some way I may later understand
I hear the singing of the summer grass
And love I find has no considered end,
Nor is it subject to the wilderness which follows death
I am not traitor to a person or a memory,
I trace behind that love another which is running
Around ahead. I need not ask its meaning.听

听