Emmanuel
The annual Homicide Memorial Service, organized each December by the York YWCA Victim Assistance Center, comforts all of the survivors who have lost loved ones to homicide, for any reason, at any time. The YWCA has asked the Unitarian Universalist congregation to be the permanent home for this inclusive community worship service.
Emmanuel. It means, “God is with us.” We might hear this word, especially around Christmas time. We might hear it in songs on the radio, or over the loudspeaker in the store. We might see it on holiday cards, or on sparkly tree ornaments. Maybe we’re hearing it in church. Emmanuel. God is with us. Hard to believe sometimes.
When loved ones are taken from us. When pain aches in the background for years, returning sharply each holiday season as regularly as leaves falling from the trees. When well-meaning people say the worst possible things during times of grief. When another family joins this community of mourning. Is God with us?
The presence of the Holy might be hard to hear during this season of noise and relentless commercial jingles. Who can see the sacred when we flash back and forth between flooding red and green lights and the darkest nights of the year. The comfort of the eternal may feel out of reach when the rest of the world seems to spin merrily onward, leaving behind those who can’t bring themselves to join the dance. If you don’t find God in the jingles, or the floodlights, or the ornaments, then where?
Losing a loved one to homicide is not a moment, not a temporary condition. The mark is permanent, even when others can’t see it. We are transformed by the people we have loved. How can one but be changed forever when violence claims a beloved, a vulnerable one, a hero, a neighbor, a human being. People need sources of solace and hope that are enduring as well. We need comfort that travels within and among and around our communities. What stays with us?
Some have stopped looking for God. Maybe faith was never part of their life to begin with, or maybe the experience of loss led them to seek elsewhere. That’s OK. If we don’t name the sources of comfort and hope among us as God, we might name them as human compassion, strength of purpose, or the faces of those who need us. There are seeds of resilience underneath the frost. Something is with us. The community in this room, the advocates and counselors and neighbors, the quiet spaces that give permission for sadness and rage and memory. Those are with us.
Compassion and community endure, generation to generation. The comfort of past years hands down to the open arms of the present. Your story is still important. Your feelings are valuable, yes, all of your feelings. The memory of your loved one is still relevant. Whether your loss was this week or fifty years ago, there is space for you. Let every heart prepare room.
On the other hand, perhaps God has been a constant comfort to you, or perhaps your sense of God’s presence flits in and out of your peripheral vision. Perhaps the Eternal Presence is in the neighbor who offers kindness in silence. God may be in the new baby that you wish your loved one could have met. The Holy may not have a human face at all, but lives in the invisible connection between members of a community, or those who share a terrible yet tangible connection. Sacred Mystery might be found in the silence, the place of freedom where tears that hide from light can finally come.
There is no right way to grieve, no universal timeline, no to-do list that gets checked off for good. Peace does not cover the land all at once, but in a million tiny and unique ways, sometimes with cold spaces in between, like flakes of falling snow. The Holy comes to us in small packages, proportioned to slip through our defenses. The absences, the spaces in between, give us room to reach out, and perhaps to touch other hands in the process. Emmanuel.
For those who mourn, the winter holidays might seem far off, yet I think the essential message of those holidays belongs to people in the midst of struggle. Hanukkah is a story of rebuilding hope when all seems lost. The winter solstice is a reminder that all things move, and that sorrow may come and go in a spiral. Christmas tells us that there is great power in that which is vulnerable. Hope sometimes walks among us, in human form. Sometimes hope doesn’t walk or roll or travel on its own, but relies on human care to nurture its small voice until it grows strong enough to wake the nations.
This holiday season, I pray for a heart that is open to the quiet presence of the hope that travels with us. I pray for the strength to be vulnerable. I pray that all those who cry, and rage, and reflect, and grow, and work to transform our world may be held in love. May it be so.
Emmanuel. It means, “God is with us.” We might hear this word, especially around Christmas time. We might hear it in songs on the radio, or over the loudspeaker in the store. We might see it on holiday cards, or on sparkly tree ornaments. Maybe we’re hearing it in church. Emmanuel. God is with us. Hard to believe sometimes.
When loved ones are taken from us. When pain aches in the background for years, returning sharply each holiday season as regularly as leaves falling from the trees. When well-meaning people say the worst possible things during times of grief. When another family joins this community of mourning. Is God with us?
The presence of the Holy might be hard to hear during this season of noise and relentless commercial jingles. Who can see the sacred when we flash back and forth between flooding red and green lights and the darkest nights of the year. The comfort of the eternal may feel out of reach when the rest of the world seems to spin merrily onward, leaving behind those who can’t bring themselves to join the dance. If you don’t find God in the jingles, or the floodlights, or the ornaments, then where?
Losing a loved one to homicide is not a moment, not a temporary condition. The mark is permanent, even when others can’t see it. We are transformed by the people we have loved. How can one but be changed forever when violence claims a beloved, a vulnerable one, a hero, a neighbor, a human being. People need sources of solace and hope that are enduring as well. We need comfort that travels within and among and around our communities. What stays with us?
Some have stopped looking for God. Maybe faith was never part of their life to begin with, or maybe the experience of loss led them to seek elsewhere. That’s OK. If we don’t name the sources of comfort and hope among us as God, we might name them as human compassion, strength of purpose, or the faces of those who need us. There are seeds of resilience underneath the frost. Something is with us. The community in this room, the advocates and counselors and neighbors, the quiet spaces that give permission for sadness and rage and memory. Those are with us.
Compassion and community endure, generation to generation. The comfort of past years hands down to the open arms of the present. Your story is still important. Your feelings are valuable, yes, all of your feelings. The memory of your loved one is still relevant. Whether your loss was this week or fifty years ago, there is space for you. Let every heart prepare room.
On the other hand, perhaps God has been a constant comfort to you, or perhaps your sense of God’s presence flits in and out of your peripheral vision. Perhaps the Eternal Presence is in the neighbor who offers kindness in silence. God may be in the new baby that you wish your loved one could have met. The Holy may not have a human face at all, but lives in the invisible connection between members of a community, or those who share a terrible yet tangible connection. Sacred Mystery might be found in the silence, the place of freedom where tears that hide from light can finally come.
There is no right way to grieve, no universal timeline, no to-do list that gets checked off for good. Peace does not cover the land all at once, but in a million tiny and unique ways, sometimes with cold spaces in between, like flakes of falling snow. The Holy comes to us in small packages, proportioned to slip through our defenses. The absences, the spaces in between, give us room to reach out, and perhaps to touch other hands in the process. Emmanuel.
For those who mourn, the winter holidays might seem far off, yet I think the essential message of those holidays belongs to people in the midst of struggle. Hanukkah is a story of rebuilding hope when all seems lost. The winter solstice is a reminder that all things move, and that sorrow may come and go in a spiral. Christmas tells us that there is great power in that which is vulnerable. Hope sometimes walks among us, in human form. Sometimes hope doesn’t walk or roll or travel on its own, but relies on human care to nurture its small voice until it grows strong enough to wake the nations.
This holiday season, I pray for a heart that is open to the quiet presence of the hope that travels with us. I pray for the strength to be vulnerable. I pray that all those who cry, and rage, and reflect, and grow, and work to transform our world may be held in love. May it be so.