Rethinking Closure

For many years, I have been a proponent of closure.  To intentionally say good bye,  to cherish meaningful moments at the end of life. to create rituals marking transitions or new phases in life are important.   While I try to make closure on a regular basis, every few years I also set aside a larger amount of time to thoughtfully attend to some accumulated losses due to deaths or transitions in my life.  I want an opportunity to reflect on the people who have touched my life and gone on to be part of the saints in glory.  I need to learn from the successes and failures of the past few years so that I can grow and improve.  Even acknowledging that in positive changes there can be grief, helps me to process my feelings.  Each of those involve some measure of closure - a person, an event, a dream, a phase in life.    However, closure also seems to indicate that there is a clear end.  The dictionary says closure is the act or state of being closed, a conclusion, a feeling of finality or resolution.  The more I’ve thought about it,  the more I’ve wondered if that ever completely happens. 

University of Minnesota professor, Pauline Boss, says that a desire for closure comes from our “culture of mastery”, where we think that we need to be in charge of all our feelings and events that happen.  She has written a book about the many different ways that losses occur in life and was recently on NPR talking about ambiguous loss and the myth of closure.  She made some points that have stuck with me.  She said,  “I believe that “closure,” is a perfectly good word for real estate and business deals but ‘closure’ is a terrible word in human relationships. Once you've become attached to somebody, love them, care about them, when they're lost, you still care about them. It's different. It's a different dimension. But you can't just turn it off. Somehow in our society, we've decided, once someone is dead, you have to close the door. But we now know that people live with grief. They don't have to get over it. It's perfectly fine. I'm not talking about obsession, but just remembering... There is no such thing as closure. We have to live with loss, clear or ambiguous. And it's OK. It's OK to see people who are hurting and just to say something simple. “I'm so sorry.” You really don't have to say more than that.”
 
To recognize the degree to which all of us live every day with an element of grief seems essential for understanding the nature of relationships.  To grieve is not bad or wrong.  We don't somehow "get over it."  It just is.  And some days are better than others.   Relationships come and go in a variety of ways but there is also the remembering that goes with each one, no matter how they end up.  We honor our remembering by knowing that closure will never be complete.  We just keep growing, changing and living.  There is no end to the impact one life can make on another.  There is no end to the lessons learned from certain seasons in life.
 
As I’ve been rethinking closure, we “closed” on our Mason City home where we lived for 20 years and raised our 4 children.  Next week, I will “close” on the 80 acres of Minnesota land where my father spent his retirement years planting, pruning and harvest trees as well as gardening 14 acre by himself.  Even though these are real estate transactions, it has been helpful for me to recognize in these “closings” there is an element of remembering that will continue on.  Grief is a part of processing the life that we are given and I have been blessed by many wonderful people and memories.

Cleaning Up!

It’s sabbatical time again.  I have looked forward to this extended 8 week sabbath for quite a while. Since a sabbatical is intended for rest of the body, mind and spirit, I did just that my first week.  I read a little, rested a lot, and reflected on the beauty of God’s creation.  I’m fortunate to be in a place where the trees and water feed my soul and the evening sunsets are breathtaking.  

However, last week storms also came through northern Minnesota, uprooting trees, taking out power, and leaving debris everywhere. I have looked at all the fallen trees and hundreds of sticks and branches in my yard this week with resentment. How could my beautiful nature turn on me and leave such a mess!  I don’t want to have to do clean up while reconnecting with God.  

 But these trees have been teaching me a lesson about my spiritual life.  It is great to have more time in quiet for prayer, reading and reflection.  They are all important practices.  But spiritual renewal also comes with the harder work of clean-up - to be willing to take a tough look at the places where I am broken, splintered, and shallow - to  be honest about where I have dead branches or parts to be cut up and thrown on the burn pile - to accept the reality that the more I keep branching out the less energy is directed to my root system.  
Clean up was not in my sabbatical plan but it seems to have emerged as an important part of the process in order to reconnect with a sense of purpose, freedom and passion in Christ.

Psalm 51 is traditionally understood in the context of David’s confession to God after being convicted of his sins by the prophet Nathan. The prayer begins with a cry for forgiveness followed by a desire for a new beginning.  “Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin” vs 2  Interestingly, the Hebrew word for iniquity means “to be bent out of shape,” perhaps like trees blown by the wind.  In being made right again with God, the psalmist acknowledges that the witness and sacrifice the Lord desires is not something we can bring as an offering but rather who we are in our human vulnerability.  "The sacrifice acceptable to God is a broken spirit, a broken and contrite heart."  vs 17 

Clean up is hard work - outside and inside.  Yet perhaps it is in self examination, confession and forgiveness that we find the greatest rest and renewal.

"Create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a new and right spirit within me.  Restore to me the joy of your salvation and sustain in me a willing spirit."  Psalm 51: 10,12