“When near the end of day, life has drained out of light, and it is too soon for the mind of night to have darkened things, no place looks like itself, loss of outline makes everything look strangely in between, unsure of what has been, or what might come.”
– John O’Donohue, “For The Interim Time” from The Bless the Space Between Us
“Prayer is a matter of relationship. Intimacy is the basic issue, not answers to problems or resolutions ‘to be better.’ Many of life’s problems and challenges have no answers; we can only live with and through them. Problems and challenges, however, can be faced and lived through with more peace and resilience if people know that they are not alone.”
-William J. Barry, SJ from Letting God Come Close: An Approach to The Ignatian Spiritual Exercises
As I write this piece, well after midnight, I am awaiting another text or phone call from my sister or brother-in-law to update us about her condition. I wonder if it will be yet another sleepless night of enduring radiating pain down her left side, her leg, her left arm, as well as pain within her chest. Seemingly around midnight the pain had migrated to her face. If this sounds alarming enough to warrant a visit to the ER, or a call to 911, or at the very least phoning in to the advice nurse on duty – you are thinking as we all have. It has been a week-long stretch of being in constant contact with the hospital and her doctor. Still, she has not been able to qualify for a test for coronavirus despite her obvious presentation. These neuromuscular and neuralgic symptoms along with strange bouts of overwhelming fatigue, stomach distress, elevated liver levels, headaches, and nausea seem to be the lingering after-effects of what we (“we” includes several doctors within the family) all suspect is COVID-19. It has been two months now of a strange and frightening ebb and flow in and out of sickness. And for those of us who love her, it has been an agonizingly painful time of remaining vigilant with her from afar as best we can.
And so I sit in my office trying to write by the same candlelight I use for my directees and clients each day. I pray desperately for God’s grace to remain in a palpable way for my sister and her family. I sit and wait, and I cry. Staying awake, waiting for another fearful text in the dark of night is the only thing I can do for her now. She has asked if I can be with her in this way as she knows I am a night owl, but also, I’m her older sister…and some things just don’t change with time.
I restlessly make tea and re-arrange meaningless things in my kitchen and then I come back to my computer and stare at the screen. The paralysis feels thick as the hour-hand hits two, then three hours past midnight. No word from her so I pray that she was able to sleep. I get lost momentarily in a YouTube spiral as one is prone to do when attempting to dissociate from the stress of it all. But eventually I come back to a place where I can handle the silence, save for the clacking of my fingers upon the keys. I come back to the candle and attempt to find some focus. And it is in this coping loop that I am reminded of a universal truth that has struck so many of my clients in this time—that it is imperative to not rush through lament.
In fact, perhaps many of us find ourselves still lingering in Good Friday even though eighteen days have passed since Easter Sunday. I so appreciate the gospels for offering the very real and very human responses with which the disciples dealt with traumatic grief. Some (namely the women) stayed vigilant and remained. The day after Sabbath they were back at the tomb ready to tend to Jesus’s body, again. Some fled the scene altogether. At least one railed in his grief and needed to see the proof in order to believe. So many of us can relate to at least one of these responses, I’m sure. And yet, in all of this I observe and I am drawn to how Jesus was with them. It doesn’t appear that he rushes them through the process of their grief. At times his way is mysterious and even feels too slow for my liking. Nonetheless, he remains where they are. He lingers long enough to wait out their veils of confusion and disorientation. He walks with them, cooks for them, allows them to touch his wounds…and he rehearses life with them until they can see the familiar signs that intimate true and long-suffering companionship.
I am not sure I am offering anything new, but perhaps it is enough to reinforce things we already know at a time like this. As a trauma care practitioner and spiritual director, so often these days I find myself ruminating over healthy coping skills and resiliency patterns with clients, friends, and family. My invitation is less about how to build and discover resilience in this moment than it is about remembering and recalling what your body already knows. We can too quickly move toward the recovery process when it is enough to simply remain present to our response. The world is still enduring the pandemic and recovery from a collective trauma such as this is a slow, graduated process that can only happen if we move through the experience one moment at a time, both on an individual and communal level.
A few contemplative questions come to mind to close this piece. My hope is that something may rise to the surface or linger from these next reflections (maybe just a word, phrase or image), but certainly it is okay if does not. What do you need to remain present to in this time? Are there things that have remained hidden or that you have set aside for the sake of coping? Who might witness you in your journey and remind you that you are seen and heard? How may remaining present to yourself invite you to notice how Jesus/Holy/Divine/Spirit may remain with you? And how may this allow you to slowly increase your capacity to hold space for others as well?
Whatever your experience, my prayer and my hope is that grace does not feel far removed from you and that, somehow, the presence of the Holy remains with you in exactly the way that you need – if even just by candlelight.
Naisa Wong, Mdiv, DASD, New College Berkeley faculty in spiritual direction