"Beats and Beatitudes
5. The Art of Mourning"
Matthew 5:4
John 16:6-24
First Presbyterian Church
Rev. Donald E. Ray
July 20, 2008
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A month ago the first
Sunday of our summer series, I confessed that I had missed the “beat
generation.” Much of it being so
counter to the family culture in which I grew up, and not being a rebellious
type, ‘beat’ just blew right by. Since
then, I own a copy of Jack Kerouac’s “On the Road” and have read it; have
read “Why Kerouac Matters,” John Leland’s analysis of “On the Road”--
so I am now an authority on the Beat literary generation. Well
that’s a bit of a stretch—quite a stretch really.
Leland subtitles his book,
“The Lessons of ‘On the Road’ (They’re Not What You Think)” On
the one hand, the lessons differ from what they might have been thought to be. Leland
characterizes many of the events on the road that Keruac describes as
parables—narratives with meaning larger than, sometimes other than the
sequence of events. Those who see
Dean Moriarty and Sal Paradise as pioneers to be followed on the road with pit
stops in bars, drugs, brothels, larceny, might miss the lessons of Kerouac’s
parables.
On the other hand, the
lessons of “on the Road” are not about thinking at all. If
you think about it, setting out to go across country with enough money in you
pocket to maybe get you to
Whether it be with a red
line on a map marking a route cross country and setting out with a little money
borrowed from an aunt, your thumb in the air at the exit of the nearest truck
stop, picking up menial jobs for food and bed along the way--which I suspect
most of us here are not likely to do--or setting out on a spiritual quest for
God not being found in historic beliefs and practices-- which I hope we all
do--the only way lessons are to be learned is on the road. Life
is a journey. Not all the routes are
mapped; the ride is not always in comfort. But
it is in taking the journey that life is lived.
Though not always easy to
see through the counter culture of the Beat literary generation, there was a
spiritual quest in their journey. But
then, we do not always find it easy living the way of the one who spent more
time on the road from Jerusalem to Jericho than in Temple and synagogues; and
who because of that saw life very differently and conveyed a refreshed image of
God.
This summer series has been
and is very much like “on the road.” Other
years Tom and I early on have identified the relevant themes and texts we each
were going to focus on. This year,
we posed the possibility that a couple of introductory sermons, Matthew’s
eight beatitudes, and a wrap up would fill the summer. But
as late as last Sunday, we still just looked at each other over defining the
specifics. So, I let go my task
oriented bent and we are “on the road” for this summer.
Weeks ago, still in the
stage of trying to plan the course, I laid claim to Matthew’s second
beatitude; “blessed are those who mourn.” What
I thought then was planning, I now realize was just “on the road”—part of
the journey. Where I was with this
beatitude then, and where I am with it now are part of being on that journey.
In the late 1980’s this song by Bobby McFerrin from the movie “Cocktails.” topped the charts:
Don’t worry, be happy.
Put a smile on your face.
Don’t bring everybody down like this.
Don’t worry. It will soon pass,
Whatever it is.
Don’t worry. Be happy.”
There was meager wisdom in the lyrics—
In your life, expect some trouble.
But when you worry,
You make it double.”
but for the most part, that was lost in the carefree, care less attitude popularized by the song.
Sometimes offered as consolation for bereavement is this poem by Pearlie Duncan Walker that would give voice to one who has died:
“When I’m gone; don’t cry for me.
I am not dead; I’m in sweet eternity.”
While in faith there is
truth to its message, the poem’s sentimental lyrics too often serve to stifle
the appropriate tears of grieving. To
grieve is to feel grief or great sorrow at a loss. Grieving,
I liken to a white water rafting trip. A
few well place paddle strokes may guide the raft on the best course through the
rapids, but there is no avoiding the turbulence or reversing the course.
Mourning is to express that
grief and sorrow. To mourn has been
further defined as “showing conventional or usual signs of sorrow over a
person’s death. Conventional
mourning, wearing dark colors, a subdued and restricted life style for a year or
so, I think fails to plumb the depth of this beatitude.
In my journey on the road
this last quarter century, bereavement and grieving have had significant place. Because
there are a great number who can avoid connection with church but not the health
care system, as a hospital chaplain I have had more funerals than most clergy. I
have learned that affording opportunity and encouragement to experience the
grieving; being with a loved one at the time of death, seeing the body shortly
after, acknowledging the pain and sadness all help persons through the grief. The
assuring words of the Twenty-third Psalm that God’s comfort is present in the
valley of the shadow of death came out of the poet’s sense of anguish and
abandonment lamented in the Twenty-second Psalm.
The risk in years of
experience is that one can become overly confident in what has worked. But
if life is lived on the road, grief is certainly that white water rafting trip
that can be exhausting, sometimes devastating, but also exhilarating. In
the span of this past week, two experiences have for me added fresh new brush
strokes to the art of mourning.
In just the few moments
that I have had to talk with
Then on this past Thursday,
I conducted the funeral for the sister-in-law of a colleague from work at WCA
hospital. Talking with the family, I
gleaned that Jackie had requested Ecclesiastes, Chapter 3 be read at her funeral
and that she had written something that she wanted one of her sisters to read. I
was assured that while family dynamics had not always been congenial, what she
had written would not rattle any skeletons.
The author of Ecclesiastes,
in one of his list for which there is a time and a season, writes that there is
“a time to throw away stones and a time to gather stones together.” I
have likened the stones to memories as the memorial stone engraved to mark a
grave. Jackie, in four typewritten
pages graciously, with wit and humor, expressed her appreciation for each member
of her family individually, for her friends and the opportunities of her life in
work and experiences. She shared her
hopes and dreams for all in the future. Jackie
had obviously learned well from the Old Testament writer, throwing away those
stones which should be thrown away and gathering together those stones that are
needed to rebuild life for the new day. There
were tears; there was laughter. If
it can be said there is such at a funeral, that reading was the highlight of the
day.
I have come to a new
definition for mourning. It is not
only allowing the expression of grief and sorrow lamenting loss; it is in that
but too, in valuing and appreciating the memories and that which cannot be lost.
In Kerouac’s “On the
Road, one morning after a night of bar crashing, Dean Moriarty says to Sal;
“Now, man, that altoman last night had IT—he held it once he found it;
I’ve never seen a guy who could hold so long.”
Pressed by Sal as to what “IT” meant, Dean laughs, “now you’re
asking me impon-de-rables” Attempting
to describe “IT”, Dean talks about the guy starting a chorus and just
putting ideas together as he blows. “All
of a sudden somewhere in the middle of the chorus he gets IT—everybody looks
up and knows; they listen; he picks it up and carries IT. Time
stops. He’s filling the empty
space with the substance of our lives, confession of his bellybottom strain,
remembrance of ideas, rehashes of old blowing. He
has to blow across bridges and come back and do it with such infinite feeling
soul-exploratory for the tune of the moment that everybody knows it’s not the
tune that counts but IT” (1)
John Leland describes jazz
as musicians working successive variations of the same chorus—revisiting it
from every angle and direction without linear progression. The
art of mourning is like that. It is
entering into the music of life; it is riding the raft down the river; it is
walking through the valley shadowed by death.
There is no grief without the appreciation and valuing of life. There
is no sadness at the loss of what is not treasured. There really is no life
without valuing and treasuring and appreciating and loving. Life
is lived in the moment, reveling in the moment, treasuring the persons, the
beauty, the gratification, the hurt and sadness too.
Because there is change,
there is loss; there is grief that comes unbidden, without warning. Mourning
is not to just express and live in the sadness. Mourning
is to live in all of life, the tears and the joys, the pain and the uplift; to
revisit the chorus again and again and therein find IT. In
the art of mourning, blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.
Amen.
(1) “On the Road” by Jack Kerouac p. 207-8