A TIME TO GRIEVE

Dear Friends:

My Facebook memories popped up today with the meme “What a year this week has been.”  Maybe it’s an Ides of March kind of thing. Or maybe it’s a Daylight Saving Time predicament. But what a year this week has been this year, too.

Honestly, it’s been a “year of a week” because I am grieving. I have lost two women this week who shaped who I am. Many of you grieve with me the passing of Jill Closs and the loss of her presence and witness in our faith community. She was a gregarious woman of joy and generosity who has forever shaped me and my faith, and I hope I did the same for her.  My heart is heavy for John and the girls who miss her deeply.

But I also lost a clergywoman for whom I am forever grateful. We didn’t have many encounters together, but served on a board at the same time. One day, when we were supposed to be gathering with our sub-committee, and no one else showed up, she and I discarded the agenda and just spoke frankly with one another. It was a tender and beautiful exchange. We had served, at different times, with the same lead pastor. We celebrated the joys of that and laughed about some of the challenges. We wondered aloud what kind of challenge we were to him, too.

But then there was this moment of vulnerability for which I didn’t feel deserving. She opened her heart and laid out before me the truth of her life that she had been forced to hide for too many years. For whatever reason, in that moment she trusted me with the truth of her God-given nature and shared with me the joy of the woman with whom she shared her life. She didn’t have to disclose any of that. And I am still uncertain about what it was that caused her to trust me with this precious part of her life.

There were moments after. But in her retirement she moved to another part of the country and I only kept up with her life via Facebook. Her passing leaves a hole in my life, as I am certain it does so many others. She was a leader, a woman of deep faith, and an advocate for the United Methodist Church, her church, to become the way God intended: open and welcoming to persons of all sexual orientations and gender identities; inclusive of people of all different abilities; a place where people of all mental health challenges could participate fully. 

In this “year of a week” I have had, many of you have asked me how I am and really meant it.  Thank you. I have told some of you that I am tired and that I am grieving with you. I am also hopeful and challenged. I want to love as generously as Jill did. I want to advocate and work toward the church for which my clergywoman friend dreamt.

In the tenderness of our shared grief, and the uncertainty of life, may we be gracious with one another, even as we seek to bring God’s ways “on earth as it is in heaven.”

Pastor Becky Jo