Grief and Innovation...

Weird right?
Why put those two things together?
Grief is bad; innovation is good.
What could grief possibly have to do
with innovation? (Isn't grief what some
lucky working stiffs get three days
leave to deal with?)


Grief does not work that way: it takes as long as it takes.
Anyone who is human and loves, will encounter grief and find this out for themselves. Reconciliation, (not recovery...as Dr. Alan Wolfelt, grief expert instructs) is the path. It is a slow road of feeling what arises.  Sound Zen? It's even more ancient than that.

In our speed culture, why lavish the time needed to grieve?
Because it affects our ability to discern, and perceive... (and wait for it) create the new. If we live our lives numbed-out and afraid to see in the dark, we cannot see the whole range of challenges, opportunities and possibilities before us. We limit ourselves; our lives become smaller.

Our garden is choked with weeds...(and right weeding is the answer).

Better to 'dose' yourself, rest, and repeat...until you thaw.
Humans avoid and deny what is painful for many self-protective reasons, but all these fearful strategies, are for the sprint. They don't keep you safe in the long run.

The good life is about the marathon–not a sprint (of denial).
The only authentic long term strategy for a good life, is to deal and cope in time and, as you are able with the spiritual compost of loss: jobs, relationships, marriages, identitys, aging, caregiving are just a few examples of the trenches of love we humans may experience.  They are all little deaths and the only way beyond them is through.

Yep. It's messy to go through your loss, but you can then access your best life. (As Oprah correctly shouts from her magazine covers.)  It's a sound bite, but it's true. Authenticity is about seeing better...so is innovation.

Necessity is a mother, alright. 
So is grief, but we can do this...with the uber superpower of kindness, patience and persistence  A.K.A. love. 

I know a couple of things for certain... about grief

• FIRST, Grief is real work.
  It takes patience and kindness and persistence to complete it .
  
  
• The SECOND thing I know is That it takes as long as it takes.
  We do not conform to any schedule. There are no rewards as for speed (Again, the wisdom of Dr. Wolfelt).

We must wait here...like a garden in winter.
When we wisely do the honest, inner work of grief...at root level, we can THEN mourn into the world that and those we have loved and lost. In this way, we can be ripe enough and ready enough to plant new seeds and new stories.

The Earth answers us... with spring.
To paraphrase ee Cummings the poet, in his early work, when we ask difficult questions, which are on our heart, of nature...the Earth answers as she has always done... The earth answers us with the season of Spring – with its promise of renewal.

When we ask our higher power, (the Holy One of Many Names, God...) these same mortal questions, our answers are not in denial, fear and anxiety...the answers for us are in Love.

Love is the voice under all silences, the hope which has no opposite in fear; the strength so strong mere force is feebleness: the truth more first than sun, more last than star...          –e.e. Cummings

My fellow chaplain and author will have the final word here:

Walk fearlessly into the house of mourning.
For grief is just Love squaring up against its oldest enemy.
And after all these mortal human years, Love is up the challenge
         –Rev. Kate Braestrup, Beginners Grace


Taken in part from remarks prepared for an AseraCare's annual celebration of life, Stockton, California, Saturday, June 8, 2019.

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