Invitation to Tears Read-Along #5

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Welcome everyone! This week we’re into Chapter 3: “Learning the Language of Your Loss”. This chapter is really about noticing what you do to both avoid and start to grieve in your way. That little pronoun “your” is so significant.  Be sure to listen for the re-telling of my son’s grief from pages 34-35.

You can listen here.

In the podcast, I read from page 33 “Fluidity, unpredictability is part of grief. Speed is not.” To illustrate this unpredictability, read this poem by Jane Kenyon that you may want to copy into your own journal or notes. I read it in this podcast, a quoted portion is also on page 33.

“What Came To Me”

by Jane Kenyon (1947-1995)

I took the last

dusty piece of china

out of the barrel.

It was your gravy boat,

with a hard, brown

drop of gravy still

on the porcelain lip.

I grieved for you then

as I never had before.

Other quotes and links pertinent in this week’s podcast:

Thanks to Brandon Hoops for this quote:

On a quiet Sunday morning, two and a half years after Amy’s death, Roger heads out in his kayak. He observes,“You can’t always make your way in the world by moving up. Or down, for that matter. Boats move laterally on water, which levels everything. It is one of the two great levelers.”

 Kayak Morning: Reflections on Love, Grief and Small Boats by Roger Rosenblatt similar to A Grief Observed.

From Parker J. Palmer Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation, “In an effort to avoid those feelings, I give advice, which sets me, not you, free. If you take my advice, you might get well, but if you don’t, I’ve done the best I could. If you fail to take my advice, there’s nothing more I can do. Either way I get relief by distancing myself from you, guilt-free.” p 63


German poet Ranier Maria Rilke writes in Letters to a Young Poet, “Love consists in this . . . two solitudes protect and border and salute each other.”
The functional atheism of Christianity that according to Parker J. Palmer requires we say “pious words about God’s presence in our lives but believe, on the contrary, that nothing good is going to happen unless we make it happen.”  p 64
For practicing self care during grief, a few guides Is It Okay to Love Myself? and Debbie Downer Fixer-Uppers.
This week in the Compass Checkpoints (p 39-40), you’ll find an original poem by Amy Kaneko, multi-champion Hawai’i Slam Poet. You won’t want to miss it.

Looking forward to your comments and questions next week as we go through Chapter 4 “Your Path Through Grief”. What questions about this chapter would you like to share? As always, please leave comments and questions for next week’s reading below. Or you can send confidential questions to mail(at)soulation(dot)org. You must have your questions submitted by 1pm MT Friday afternoon.

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