Grateful Gatherings Resources Grief & Gratefulness
When we are in a relationship with our grief, we understand it as a profound expression of love — a response to what was and a forging of what is to come.
Joe Primo
Introduction
Grief arrives in the wake of all kinds of loss and sorrow — from the death of a beloved to witnessing the rapid ecological changes to our planet. It is an appropriate response to heartbreak, loneliness, illness, and ongoing global crises. The list is long, and the experience is universal. It is, as Francis Weller writes, “our common bond. Opening to our sorrow connects us with everyone, everywhere.”
What, though, does gratefulness have to do with our grief? They certainly seem an unlikely pair, existing at opposite ends of the spectrum of life experiences. When we’re grieving, especially as a consequence of devastating loss, feeling grateful for anything can seem not only impossible but irrelevant. What could the practice of gratefulness possibly offer our broken hearts?
To begin, it’s helpful to return to Br. David Steindl-Rast’s important framing about what it means to live gratefully. He reminds us that of course we cannot, and should not, be grateful for everything that happens in our lives. Remember, grateful living is not about looking for a silver lining in the worst situations. Instead, the practice of grateful living offers guidance and tools to help us show up to the uninvited life that emerges in the wake of loss and disappointment. This grateful stance acknowledges heartbreak and despair, while building our capacity to carry our sorrow alongside our joy. Br. David puts it this way, “Times that challenge us physically, emotionally, and spiritually may make it almost impossible for us to feel grateful. Yet, we can decide to live gratefully, courageously open to life in all its fullness.”
Gratefulness challenges us to be awake to all that life brings, even its heartaches. It helps us be present to what is, while remaining open to the possibility of what we can’t yet imagine. Francis Weller writes, “Gratitude is the other hand of grief. It is the mature person who welcomes both. To deny either reality is to slip into chronic depression or to live in a superficial reality. Together they form a prayer that makes tangible the exquisite richness of life in this moment. Life is hard and filled with suffering. Life is also a most precious gift, a reason for continual celebration and appreciation.” Both, and — always.
Everyone knows grief, and chances are that you’re living with some sort of grief right now, whether acute or generalized. It is not to be avoided, and in many ways it can be our greatest, even if unwelcome, teacher — expanding our hearts and reminding us not to take anything for granted. If we live like that each day, keenly aware that nothing is guaranteed but so much is possible, that may very well add up to the grateful, meaningful, and joyful life we desire.
For Reflection:
- Have you experienced grief and gratefulness simultaneously in your own life, and how would you describe the relationship between the two?
Poem
Let This Darkness Be a Bell Tower
by Rainer Maria Rilke
Quiet friend who has come so far,
feel how your breathing makes more space around you.
Let this darkness be a bell tower
and you the bell. As you ring,
what batters you becomes your strength.
Move back and forth into the change.
What is it like, such intensity of pain?
If the drink is bitter, turn yourself to wine.
In this uncontainable night,
be the mystery at the crossroads of your senses,
the meaning discovered there.
And if the world has ceased to hear you,
say to the silent earth: I flow.
To the rushing water, speak: I am.
From A Year with Rilke: Daily Readings From the Best of Rainer Maria Rilke, Harper Collins and Harper One, (2009). Posted on our website by kind permission of Joanna Macy and Anita Barrows.
For Reflection:
- How does Rilke invite us to lean into the intensity of our grief while simultaneously encouraging us to find meaning, to say yes to life?
Video
Wonderment by Reflections of Life
In this beautiful, 9-minute film, Lisa Smith shares her story of coming to know the meaningful relationship between sorrow and joy. Amidst the devastating loss of her husband, she tapped into an abiding joy “deep, deep, deep” within herself.
For Reflection:
- Out of her awareness of how precious life is, Lisa shares how something as simple as walking outside to see the light on her flowers can open her to wonderment. What simple thing can you do for yourself to cherish life’s gifts, even amidst any grief you may be experiencing?
Practice: Learning to Hold Grief in One Hand, Gratitude in the Other
Step One: Read Adrift by Mark Nepo
Adrift
by Mark Nepo
Everything is beautiful and I am so sad.
This is how the heart makes a duet of
wonder and grief. The light spraying
through the lace of the fern is as delicate
as the fibers of memory forming their web
around the knot in my throat. The breeze
makes the birds move from branch to branch
as this ache makes me look for those I’ve lost
in the next room, in the next song, in the laugh
of the next stranger. In the very center, under
it all, what we have that no one can take
away and all that we’ve lost face each other.
It is there that I’m adrift, feeling punctured
by a holiness that exists inside everything.
I am so sad and everything is beautiful.
Step Two: Visualize — Hands Apart
Holding your hands in front of you, palm up, attune to what it feels like to hold, simultaneously, both “all that you’ve lost” and “all that you have that no one can take away.” If comfortable doing so, close your eyes and spend at least a minute of silence with this visualization, focusing first on the grief you carry in one hand and then on the gifts you carry in the other.
When you’re ready, pause to make note of what this felt like — what emotions arose, what you felt in your body and heart.
Step Three: Visualize — Hands Together
Close your eyes again and begin to visualize a meaningful relationship between the sorrows you hold in one hand and the joys you hold in the other. Bring your hands together, interlacing your fingers or gently cupping one hand within the other — whatever helps you envision the relationship you would like to nurture between grief and gratefulness. Pay attention to what this symbolizes and feels like for you.
When you’re ready, pause to reflect.
- How might attuning to even the simplest gifts of life — the sunrise, one friend, one of your senses, the color of the sky — be nourishing for you as you’re grieving?
- How might allowing space for joy, for beauty, expand your capacity to carry grief? Not set it aside, not even shrink it necessarily — but carry it differently, perhaps even with more ease?
Step Four: Take Note
Take a moment to sit with or write down anything that emerged for you in this visualization and reflection. In your life right now, today, how might grief and gratefulness shape and inform each other? To close the practice, reread Mark Nepo’s poem and consider the ways your own heart can make “a duet of wonder and grief.”
Deepening Resources
The God of Loss, music video by Darlingside
The visuals in this video and the beautiful music convey the always-intertwined relationship between sorrow and joy.
Grateful Grief: A Guide for Living With Loss, On Demand Course
Did you know that we offer a six-week, on demand course that explores the relationship between grief and gratefulness? Because this is such an important and complex topic, we wanted to highlight the course here for those looking for a deeper dive.