Blessed is Our Complicated Grief
Blessed are you, holder of grief and giver of healing.
In recognition of the Jewish High Holy Days and the overwhelming grief that 2020 held for many, this prayer echoes the Mourner’s Kaddish and yet calls us towards hope.
Blessed is our complicated grief.
In the shadow of heartbreak and the throes of loss,
It is our love that breaks us open again and again like waves against the rocks.
When we wander, lost, as though through an endless and unfamiliar desert,
What keeps us going?
In our confusion, let us open our awareness.
Let us notice the still, small voice, which is always with us, no matter how lost we are.
We are the created and the creator, we are always taking part in making the world even as the world makes us. Let us feel both our vastness and our minuteness, knowing that we are both the entire cosmos and a brief candle flame.
Let us remember, in this knowing, that hope is not a thing which is delivered to us from a source on high. Let us not idle, expecting the mending to come to us from a mysterious savior. Let us not wait out our entire earthly lives, believing that all will be made perfect in the next.
Nor is hope a thing which a person alone can generate. Isolated, we cannot exert healing in our lives or in the world. No person alone has the power to find meaning amid the broken stones at the bottom of the valley.
Not from without nor from within, but all-encompassing: we find the power to continue our seeking in that sacred thing which connects and creates us, which depends on our participation but goes on without end before and after our brief existence.
When we gather in the name of justice, when we gather in the name of healing, when we gather in the act of faith which says that it is worth trying no matter how small we might be, something beyond us appears.
Appear with us, o presence, and unite our broken hearts to create the holy in this place. When smoke and shadows loom above us, show us that we are larger than fear. When life and health are threatened and liberty is denied, remind us of our shared power. When loved ones and champions and strangers alike are lost to death, comfort us with the patience and compassion to sit together through the pain of mourning.
As we enter into the time of the High Holy Days, our Jewish family have prepared their spirits for the arrival of the new year. May we remember that, as we pray for the arrival of something new, we must prepare ourselves - repairing our bonds with others, becoming accountable to ourselves, and placing each of ourselves in the great family of humankind. May we remember the many who have come before and led us by example, and may each memory be a blessing.
Blessed are you, holder of grief and giver of healing. Creator and created, blessed is your name. May you bring peace to us and to all the world. Amen.