Making Meaning (Longest-Night Reflection)

One of the beautiful features of our complex brains is that they help us find meaning. We are meaning-making creatures. The meaning making emerges through us in so many ways: in our story telling, through our artwork, and the way we communicate. 

We can look at an oak tree and say, “I know a friend who is strong like that oak tree.” No one will wonder if your friend is made of wood, or flesh…

At night, I look up at the stars and know them to be angels around God’s heavenly throne. When I mentioned that in my sermon this morning, no one stopped on the way out to ask if I didn’t understand that stars are scattered millions of lightyears apart and are formed of gasses burning so hot the fusion immits radiation and light, and their gravity holds them in the tension of galaxies... Angels. Messengers of God. Stars are singing angels.

Last week on my Advent retreat, we walked, or really, stumbled around a hill country ranch littered with rocks and cactus. It was a moonless night with no flash lights, we paused at a dry creek bed and talked. I observed so many shooting stars. I saw a star for each of my relatives who has died. I declared it so without too much over assigning which star was for whom, or counting. The symbolic world dries up with too much explanation. Each time I saw a bright line thread through the sky, I said, ‘Hello, I love you, too.’ 

Back around the campfire I continued my watch while friends played music. I accepted the healing notes of their guitars and voices to reverberate through my skin and soul and work some healing in me. I found some tears that needed to be set free, and I eventually shared some of my sad songs, too. 

One of the campfire musicians who lost his dad recently

shared a dream in which he was talking with his dad about his grief. His dream-dad was giving him some advice, and ended by telling him he needed a shower. My friend looked up at us for help interpreting the dream, and his cheeks were streaked with tears. I said, “there’s your shower.” 

Grief is not something apart from us, it is who we are when we love and experience loss. It’s not a temporary ailment, it’s a transformation of our world. On our grief journey, we have the power to accept the signs and symbols wherever we see them, and declare them our very own visitations. We can accept a song on the radio as a moment of healing meant just for us, and pull over to have a cry, then when we catch our breath, say back, “Hello, I love you, too.” 

This blessed, dark season, allow them to say “I love you” in a beautiful sunset, through the night sky, or even a coyote trotting by; accept the healing medicine of music and food and family. Know that your grief painful as it is, is part of who you are, and a symptom of love. 

They are here with us, in these candles, in those stars, and present helping us slowly find meaning in a world that’s forever changed by love and loss.