Roger Talbott

What to Say to a Grieving Person

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Last September I started a series of blog posts on grief. I never finished due to the fatigue that I suffer from Long COVID. I was just starting to feel better when our son called us about his diagnosis. “I am going to die,” he said. I am writing this partly to offer thanks to all those who have reached out to us with your prayers and condolences. Nothing makes it better, but we have felt supported.

A few weeks ago, Jacquie and I lost our oldest son to pancreatic cancer. He was 49. His wife and two teen-age children are grieving and disoriented from the fact that he was fine until about 10 weeks before his death. So are we.

We got a lot of cards, emails, and personal expressions of love and support from dozens and dozens of people. People told us that they were sorry for our loss. Our Jewish friends and family usually said, “May his memory be a blessing.”

Many of them admitted, “I don’t know what to say.” Some just said, “There are no words.”

In fact, we found those expressions of wordlessness the most comforting. They matched our own feelings of inexpressible grief.

The French philosopher, Montaigne, the inventor of the essay, tells a story about a king who was defeated by his enemy. To torture the king, his enemy had the king’s beloved horse brought forward and then had the horse slain in front of the king. The king cried out in dismay.

The enemy brought forward the king’s closest advisor and best friend and cut his throat. The king howled with grief.

The enemy then brought forward the king’s wife and children, and murdered them before his eyes. The king said nothing.

The enemy was surprised. Why had the king wept for a horse, howled in grief for his friend, but was silent about the loss of his family? The enemy thought he had failed to break the king’s heart.

But, as Montaigne said, “Lesser griefs weep. Great griefs are dumb.”

There are no words.

Statisticians can tote up the numbers murdered in the Holocaust. Historians can trace the development of Hitler’s final solution. But anyone who walks through the Holocaust museums in Washington, D.C. or Jerusalem leaves knowing that there are no words.

We have been fortunate not to have encountered the kind of people that Gardner Taylor, one of the Black Church’s great voices of the 20th century, used to call, “Spiritual Speakeasies.”

I used to meet them in funeral homes when I visited parishioners who had lost loved ones. They, to paraphrase Reinhold Niebuhr, always seemed to be able to describe the furniture of heaven and knew the temperature of hell. They glibly said things like, “we know (insert the name of the deceased) is with (insert the name of a dead grandparent) and they are rejoicing to meet all their other loved ones.”

Well, maybe.

The New Testament tends to describe the afterlife the way you might describe Florida to an Eskimo without the aid of photographs. All you would be able to say is, “There are no polar bears in Florida. No ice. No snow.”

So, Jesus says that there is no marriage there (Matthew 22:30). And Revelation says “there will be no more death’ nor mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”

To come back to the Eskimo analogy, you could say that Florida has palm trees and white sandy beaches, but it would not mean much to someone who has never seen them. The Eskimo might take your word for it that Florida is a nice place, but would not sign up for trip there anymore than most of us want to be on the next bus to heaven.

Death, especially the death of a child, leaves us with more questions than answers, more grief than confidence.

There is a part of me that cannot believe that my son still lives. But, I have no proof of that, either.

Death is a great mystery.

Maybe when we die, we die.

Maybe our atoms return to the stars from which they came.

Maybe we get to try life all over again.

Or maybe there is something after death that is beyond all that we can ask or think. I hope so.

We do not grieve like those who have no hope. We only grieve like those who have no words.

Re-membering: How Grief Makes You A New Person

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Seeing the Whole Person


In the days after my Dad died, his grandchildren put together a display of photos. There were pictures of:

  • A grandchild steering his garden tractor while sitting on Dad’s lap.
  • Christmases past surrounded by kids and grandkids.
  • Dad giving his daughters away at their weddings.
  • Dad and Mom, barely out of their teens, at their own wedding.
  • A 12-year-old farm boy standing proudly next to his first deer.


Suddenly, it seemed like all of him was there. Not just the man I had seen the last time we were together: an old man who could barely hear anything you said. I also saw him in the prime of his life. I saw the young man I remembered from when I was a boy. My memories brought all of him together in a way that would not have been possible when he was alive.

Our memories ambush us years after the funeral. The smell of fresh-baked bread reminds me of one grandmother. The sight of a new commemorative postage stamp reminds me of the the other, who encouraged me to collect them. What triggers your memories of those long-gone?


When we remember our loved ones, we re-member them. We put them — and ourselves — together in a new way.


Re-membering Together


People gather after someone dies to share their memories. It may be the calling hours at the funeral home; an Irish wake; or in Greek Orthodox culture, a dinner honoring the deceased on the one-year anniversary of their death. Jews observe Shiva for a few evenings after the funeral. Friends, neighbors, and extended family visit the immediate family in their home.

Every traditional community has a way of creating these gatherings. Our secular suburban life is poorer when we don’t have them. But, just sharing a cup of coffee with good friends in those first few days after a death can help. In this pandemic era, we have even learned how to gather on Zoom.


We gather to listen with empathy as the most-bereaved talk about losing their loved one. Telling these stories can help them process their loss. But, it also helps the most-bereaved to hear stories about their loved one from others who knew that person.


In response to the first of this series, my sister-in-law, Jo-Anne, said that everyone’s life is like an elephant. The people who know us are like the blind men who famously announced their true, but very different, conclusions about that elephant. We all see only part of a person — including our parent, spouse, sibling, or child. Hearing stories about them from others helps us fill out our picture of this person who is so important to us.


I came away from my Dad’s funeral with a much bigger picture of him. I listened to people who had worked with him at the electric company, or on the volunteer rescue squad and the town board. Neighbors told me how he had helped them. After all, he could fix anything; from your refrigerator to your kid’s broken arm.

This also happens when I gather with my brother and sisters. Each of them related to our parents differently. As I listen to their stories, they fill in the picture, and at the same time, deepen the mystery, of who my parents were.


The Pieces Come Together in a New Way


“Closure” is a myth. We have this fantasy that, after someone important dies, we will go through the stages of grief: denial, anger, depression, and acceptance. Then we should be able to pick up where we left off.


Instead, we are changed

as we re-member our dead

into our lives.


The Mystery of Your Existence


All my grandparents were born in the 19th century. All my grandchildren were born in the 21st century.

If you are now in the Third Half of your life, you can probably say the same about many of the people who loomed large in your childhood and some of the people who are dearest to you now. And, here you are in between the past and the future.

We are participating in some kind of grand scheme of things. My hope is that we are moving toward Shalom, wholeness, peace, good will toward all people, and toward Creation itself.

Remembering and passing on our memories is one way we actively participate in this grand scheme.

The Bible says God does not forget us. Whatever resurrection is, it is definitely a kind of re-membering.


Remembering is the work of grief that lasts long after the tears stop flowing.

There are three more aspects of this work:

  • We make sense out of our memories
  • We forgive.
  • We decide what we believe about life, death, and life after death.”

I will write about them soon.

Let me leave you with this beautiful litany:

A Litany of Remembrance – We Remember Them


In the rising of the sun and in its going down,
we remember them.
In the blowing of the wind and in the chill of winter,
we remember them.
In the opening of buds and in the rebirth of spring,
we remember them.
In the blueness of the sky and in the warmth of summer,
we remember them.
In the rustling of leaves and in the beauty of autumn,
we remember them.
In the beginning of the year and when it ends,
we remember them.
When we are weary and in need of strength,
we remember them.
When we are lost and sick at heart,
we remember them.
When we have joys we yearn to share,
we remember them.
So long as we live, they too shall live, for they are now a part of us,
as we remember them.

by Rabbi Sylvan Kamens and Rabbi Jack Riemer
From Gates of Prayer, published by Central Conference of American Rabbis.

Image credit: Raul Diaz, Berlin Germany, Holocaust Memorial https://www.flickr.com/photos/radzfoto/2621999611/in/dateposted/

Acquainted with Grief: 1 Grieving all the Time

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If you are in the Third Half of Life, you are probably grieving.

The grief may be passing through your life like a thunderstorm, or sitting over you like long days of rain. Or it may, for now, be part of the climate of your life.

You may or may not believe that global climate change is real, but I bet you have noticed in this Third Half of Life that the emotional climate of your life is not as bright and carefree as it once was. Your days, no matter how bright, may be tinged with sadness, the warmest of hugs and most intimate conversations may be accompanied by a chill.

This does not mean you are morbid or unhappy, it just means that you know in your bones that things — and people — can end.

As with global climate change, ignoring these changes only makes things worse. Acknowledging the fact that grief is part of the Third Half of Life enables us to savor the sunlight and find meaning even in the rainiest of days. Grief can make us more human, if we don’t avoid the work that goes with it.

My personal experience with grief has been blessedly ordinary. Like almost everyone my age, I have seen both my grandparents’ and parents’ generation pass away. I have been spared, so far, the loss of my beloved, or any of our younger family members. My only credential is that I have watched people grieve for over half a century. More than that, I have grieved with them.

I was not many years into the ministry before I realized that part of the psychic load of being a pastor was that I was grieving all the time.

Believe it or not, I loved my parishioners. I had to. It was the only way I could stand most of them. Given all my faults, I must have been loved by them in return. So, I grieved when they died. And, I did not have to be an empath to feel the deep griefs so many of them carried in their hearts. Not that it was a constant topic of conversation, but there would be moments when:

  • A widow would recall the life she shared with the man she loved.
  • A mother would recall a child who died before I was born.
  • A man would mention that he still missed a cat that he had to euthanize a year ago.
  • Someone would talk about father who died when he or she was fourteen.

These were the vibes that people emanated whether they told their stories or not.

Most of all, I have had a ringside seat with people when they lost loved ones. I sometimes had to bring them the news myself. As we prepared for the funeral, I coaxed them to describe their loved one. I would follow up with them in visits weeks and months afterward.

That work helped me develop some deep convictions about grief — especially what the work of grief is. Most of that work is subconscious — it is soul work. It cannot be described in words.

A colleague of mine, the pastor of a neighboring church, pointed to this inner work when he described how he handled his brother’s sudden death in an auto accident. The two of them were a about a year apart in age. They had been close all their lives. So, my colleague felt the loss of his brother very deeply. He said that he mowed his lawn almost every day for months after the funeral. Pushing his mower back and forth over his large lawn gave him the space to do that inner work that no one can describe.

However, there are four things we do when we grieve that can be described imperfectly, haltingly, because we tread on the edge of mystery. These four things are:

  1. We remember
  2. We make sense out of our memories
  3. We forgive
  4. We decide what we believe about life, death, and life-after-death.

These are not “stages of grief.” You can find lots of books on that subject. This is the work we do for everyone we love and lose. It never really ends. Right this moment, you are doing that work for people who have been dead longer than a lot of the adults you know have been alive.

In the next few weeks, I am going to go into this work in more detail.

It would help me to hear from you about how you have handled the grief in your life.

Image credit: Raul Diaz, Berlin Germany, Holocaust Memorial https://www.flickr.com/photos/radzfoto/2621999611/in/dateposted/

Your Club Grows More Exclusive Every Day

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I first realized that I belonged to an exclusive club in the middle of a sermon one Sunday morning. I said, “We all remember where we were when we heard that President Kennedy had been shot.”

I saw the characteristic rightward movement of eyes that told me that people were accessing that vivid memory — in most people. But I also saw some people’s eyes glaze over — a terrifying sight for a preacher. These were people — adults!– who hadn’t been born yet, or were so young that they had no memory of that event.

At about that same time, I was helping some of the singles in our church create a fellowship. There was a debate about whether to have a 36-and-over group and a 35-and-under group, or if they could all meet together.

One of the planners shook her head and said, “You can’t play trivial pursuit with anyone under 35. ‘Who was Nikita Khrushchev?’ leaves them blank.”

If you remember where you were on November 22, 1963. If you know who Khrushchev was. If you ever wore a coonskin cap, played with a Chatty Cathy doll, know all the words to “Happy Trails to You” — We belong to the same club.

Everywhere we have gone, we have walked into new accommodations built just for us, from Kindergarten rooms to college campuses.

My former associate, a Millennial, said, “I’m already looking forward to the delapidated nursing home where I will end my journey through the dilapidated elementary school, high school, college dorm, and all the other things that were built for Boomers.”

That solicitous attention has made us a fractious club. As a generation, we senior Boomers have been incredibly selfish, self-righteous, and self-involved. The Clintons and Donald Trump are members of our club.

Interestingly, neither Biden nor Bernie are. They are the last vestiges of my parent’s generation — the “Silent Generation” — who skillfully managed the legacy of the “Greatest Generation.” Until last year, they never elected a president. And, do you notice how quiet things have been recently?

But, I digress.

I keep wondering why I work at keeping my high school classmates in my Facebook newsfeed. So many of them are scared to death of vaccines, Black Lives Matter, Antifa (which is really scary, since no one even knows what it is!) and, of course, that Democrat who is coming for your guns.

I do it because, in this Third Half of Life, I recognize that what connects me to these people is bigger and more important than all that separates us.

It’s not just that we all know where we were on Nov. 22, 1963. Or that we remember our first TV, hula hoop, or transistor radio. It’s that we have been through all this change together. We have gone from seeing little girls being escorted to school by U.S. Marshalls to Obama, from an NRA that was focused on gun safety to one focused on our right to weapons of mass destruction, from making life hell for gay classmates to congratulating them on their anniversaries.

Some have embraced these changes. Others have fought against the same ones. But we have all been through these changes together.

We have all watched our hair change color (or fall out), little kids become parents of little kids, who are on the verge of becoming parents themselves. We have moved from feeling immortal to not buying green bananas.

We don’t have a special hat, or a motto, or even a secret handshake, but we know who we are when we meet.

Frederick Buechner, b. 1926, was of my parents generation, but what he wrote a couple of decades ago about his own cohort, applies here:

As time goes by, you start picking them out in crowds. There aren’t as many of them around as there used to be. More likely than not, you don’t say anything, and neither do they, but something seems to pass between you anyhow. They have come from the same beginning. They have seen the same sights along the way. They are bound for the same end and will get there about the same time you do. There are some who by the looks of them you wouldn’t invite home for dinner on a bet, but they are your compagnons de voyage even so. You wish them well.

It is sad to think that it has taken you so many years to reach so obvious a conclusion.

from Whistling in the Dark

Keep Coming Back

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Two of the churches I served hosted 12-Step groups: AA, NA, and OA.

Sometimes, I would run into stranger in the community who would say, “Oh, I go to your church!”

When I looked puzzled, he would say, “I go on Wednesday nights.” The guy might have been wearing a suit and tie, but the lines on his face told me that he had walked some hard roads. And the tone of his voice told me that “going to my church” had saved his life.

I sometimes wondered if anyone who came to church on Sunday mornings would feel that “going to my church” had saved their life? It recalled something I had heard more than once at their meetings:

“Religion is for people who are afraid of hell. Spirituality is for those who have been there.”

I sometimes came to work the on Thursday morning after one of their meetings and, although they were good at cleaning up, they sometimes left up a sign or two. These had slogans that sound like cliches, until you need them to save your life.

  • Let go and let God.
  • Nothing changes if nothing changes.
  • One day at a time.
  • Easy does it.

Sometimes they left a sign hanging on the inside of the front door. It would be the last thing the members saw when they left the meeting.

“Keep coming back.”

The older I get, the more I think that this is THE fundamental spiritual practice: keep coming back.

Like in meditation, for example.

Many people say they can’t meditate. “My mind wanders.”

I meditate almost every day. My mind wanders. I need something for my mind to come back to when it wanders: counting my breaths or a mental image of a candle flame, for example.

The Bible I read suggests many objects to focus on in meditation: new born babies and the stars above (Psalm 8), or anything good, beautiful, and true (Phil. 4:8), to name just a few.

Whatever you choose will be something you can come back to when your mind wanders.

“Wander” is not quite the right word. When my mind “wanders” it gets trapped in addictive thoughts: my worries, my fears, my resentments, my to-do list.

I think I am meditating when I am watching my breath or focusing on a Bible verse. But, I’m not meditating when my mind is captured by one of my addictive thoughts. The first is a “spiritual practice.” The second means I’m not “spiritual” enough.

In fact, the real spiritual practice is when I recognize that my mind has wandered into addiction and I bring myself back to my focus. “Coming back” is the center of the practice.

Coming back is the fundamental practice of a life worth living.

It is no accident that the first word Jesus says in the gospels is “T’shuvah.” It is usually translated as “repent,” a word that is covered with almost as many barnacles as the word “God.” At heart, T’shuvah means “turn around.”

He illustrates the meaning of this word with one of his most famous stories:

A young man can’t wait for his father to die. So he demands his share of the inheritance and gets as far away from home as he can. He spends all his money. He winds up living in a pigpen. It is there that he, first of all, “comes to himself.” Second, he decides to return to his father’s house.

Just as my mind wanders when I am meditating, so my life wanders away from its true center.

This “true center” is where we can be our truest selves: Home.

We may run as far away from home as we can — and stay there for years. Some of us have never felt at home, anywhere. But, sooner or later, most of us will feel so uncomfortable in the place we are in or the skin we are in, that we will long to find that place that feels like Home. We may remember it — or not. But we will know it when we arrive.

In his story, Jesus doesn’t tell us how the Prodigal got home. I think the road is different for everyone. Finding that road is where Jesus’ advice to “ask, seek, and knock” comes in. You can try this door or that road. Keep looking until you find it.

You could do worse than just turn around. After all, if the road you are on carried you away from Home, why wouldn’t turning around take you back?

Or, you could ask for directions. AA began when one drunk asked another if he knew how to get sober.

Maybe the best road Home is to treat someone else the way you need and want to be treated. (Note that the “Ask, Seek, Knock” passage ends with the Golden Rule.)

You may not be as far away from Home as you think. That is what a lot of people find when they pray or meditate. When we quit running away into our addictive thoughts and actions and just watch the miracle of our next breath, or call out the name of Someone we believe will save us, we often find that our True Self was right there waiting for us all along.

Wandering — even getting lost — is a big part of life. Everybody does it again and again.

Just remember the sign on the door:

Keep Coming Back.

The One Question To Ask When Reviewing Your Life

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I sometimes think that we waste our lives looking for answers, when we should be looking for good questions.

A few days ago, I was part of an online presentation to some people who were considering a cochlear implant. One of them said he was afraid to undergo the surgery. “What if it fails?” he asked.

A surgeon who does cochlear implants responded, “It never fails.”

That’s what my surgeon told me when I expressed the same fear.

The surgeon went on. “Some people think that they will immediately go from hearing at thirty percent to hearing one hundred percent. Even if they eventually get up to ninety percent, they think it was a failure. People who were hearing at thirty percent and hoped the implant would raise it to fifty percent — and wound up hearing at seventy percent, think their surgeries were wildly successful. It all comes down to what you expect”

That’s the question I’ve been looking for.

I have been looking back at my life. Was it a good life? Or was it a failure? Was I blessed? Or cursed? Did my life have any meaning or purpose? Did I make any difference in this world?

Before I answer any of those questions, I need to ask another.

“What did I expect?”

I realize that most of my expectations were set by a 27-year-old who thought pretty highly of himself.

  • He got good grades (if he cared about the subject).
  • He married the love of his life (out of his league, frankly).
  • He got a lot of affirmation in his early years as a preacher and pastor.
  • He had two sons who were scarily smart and blessedly healthy.

Why wouldn’t he expect to live a life he could be proud of? Do great things? Be loved and admired?

Didn’t happen. Certainly not on the scale he expected.

Part of my job in the last few years is to teach that young man some compassion.

Compassion basically means accepting people’s frailties, their weaknesses, not expecting them to behave like gods. That expectation is cruelty, because they will not be able to behave like gods and then they will fall in your estimation and will also fall in their own self-respect.

Osho

This question, “What did I expect?” leads to compassion.

Compassion is not cheap grace. I made some major choices that were cowardly or selfish. They led to real failures. I own that. One reason I made some of those choices is that the 27-year-old inside of me did not think I could fail.

Ask the owners of the Titanic how that works out.

“What did I expect?” leads to humble realism about myself and other people. I learn to accept my failures and I am kinder to others.

This question, “What did I expect?” also leads to gratitude. It pushes me to ask, “What did I have a right to expect?”

The answer, of course, is, “nothing.”

As someone who has buried lots of people who are younger than I am now, including parents of teenagers, teenagers, children, and even newborns, I know that none of us has a “right” to life. Even being born exceeds what we can expect.

Starting with no expectations at all, I see that . . .

  • Spending my days with the wisest, most open-hearted (and attractive) woman I know
  • Being able to breathe and walk on my own
  • Having four of the people I love the most call me “Grandpa”
  • Feeling the sun on my face

All of these are blessings beyond compare.

What do you think of your own life?

It’s a good question. A necessary question.

But first, ask yourself:

What did you expect?

street lights

What is Your Brand?

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The shortest description of marital conflict that I ever heard came from a man who said,

“First, you have to understand that my wife is Nordstrom’s and I am WalMart.”

It’s amazing how much we can tell about people by where they shop, the logo on their shirt, what kind of car they drive, even where they choose to live and what organizations they belong to.

For example, if I tell you that we own a Prius, that I love living in one of the most diverse neighborhoods in New York City (and the world), and that I belong to a church that has a huge ministry to homeless and LGBTQ+ people, you probably can guess how I vote.

My brands say:

  • I care about the environment.
  • I believe in diversity.
  • I am a compassionate human being.

The problem is:

  • My carbon footprint is still Sasquatch-sized.
  • My closest friends look like me, talk like me, vote like me.
  • I care a lot more about MY physical and financial security than I care about YOUR physical and financial security.

My brands are. . . . shall we say . . . “aspirational.”

My brands are a mask I wear on life’s stage to win the applause of the audience.

The Greek theater mask gives us the word “hypocrite.” You already know enough Greek to understand that “hypo” means “below” and “crit” is the root of “critic.” It comes from the Greek word “judge” or “discern”. Thus, hypocrites have not risen to the level required to make discerning judgments. They literally, “know not what they do.”

Jesus called out hypocrisy, because it was what got him killed.

My brands are my way to unconsciously pretend to be someone else, which is a very human thing to do.

The French philosopher, Rene Girard, called this tendency “mimesis.” It is the reason why, if you put two three-year-olds in a room full of toys, the only toy one of them wants to play with is in the other kid’s hands.

Marketers understand that very well.

When JoJo Siwa wears a new hair bow, thousands of “tween” girls want the same hair bow because they identify with JoJo. They, too, are positive, talented, and they stand up to bullies, just like JoJo.

I have zero interest in luxury watches, but I read a whole full-page ad that said that Daniel Craig wore a Rolex while playing James Bond. Since I, too, am ruggedly handsome, resourceful, witty — like Bond — I wondered if I should wear a Rolex.

Our brands give us our identity. They tell us — and others — who we are.

Perhaps this is necessary in the first half of life. We all start out identifying with Mom and Dad — our family is our “brand.” Then we individuate by identifying with peers: jocks, band kids, nerds, losers. Young adults may emulate mentors or personal heroes.

The Tantric religions like Buddhism and Hinduism call our brands “attachments.” The Abrahamic religions: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, call them “idols.” Both traditions tell me that

I will never find God or my True Self (which is either God or the Image of God), without letting go of my brands.

If only it were as easy as giving my shirt with the polo pony logo to Goodwill.

The truth is that giving up the “brands” that matter most to me, feels like this:

Banks, Thomas; Anatomical Crucifixion (James Legg); https://www.royalacademy.org.uk/art-artists/work-of-art/O1350 Credit line: (c) (c) Royal Academy of Arts /

Jesus’ words: “Whoever would follow me must take up the cross daily,” mean different things to different people in different circumstances. That is the beauty of them. To me, in this Third Half of Life, it means letting go of my “brands.” My understanding of my “self” has to die so that something new and more real can take its place.

Sounds nice, but it feels like being crucified — slowly and painfully. We can do this intentionally through practices like mindfulness or letting go of our things, or we can just wait for life to nail us.

Anyone who practices mindfulness encounters stuff that contradicts the image that we like to present to the world — our personal “brand.” And that hurts. I know I am really meditating when, like Scrooge on Christmas Eve, I run into things that I don’t want to see:

  • The wrong turns I took in the past.
  • The needs of the world that I ignore.
  • The fact that I will die and all that I have will not matter at all.

It’s not fun. It feels like dying. I only do it because I keep finding something truer and less superficial underneath my “brand.”

Of course, you don’t have to meditate. Life itself will rip the brands off you, sooner or later.

When loved ones die, it can feel like a part of you has died. You lose one of your most important “brands”: “son” or “daughter,” “brother” or “sister,” “husband” or “wife.” Getting used to thinking of ourselves without those “brands” is not the only component of grief, but it is an important one.

One way we do grief work is that we often dream about the deceased in the first few weeks and months. Then, when we wake up, we realize they are really gone. It is one way our souls come to terms with the loss of that person and our “brand” in relation to that person.

When I retired four years ago, I dreamed every Saturday night that I had to preach the next morning. Unlike my dreams of lost loved ones, these were seldom pleasant dreams. They were filled with anxiety. When I awoke, the anxiety continued. Who am I now?

I am happy to say that those dreams are much less frequent and I am beginning to like No-Longer-Reverend Roger.

It takes a long time for an identity to die. Just as it takes a long time for someone to die on a cross.

This pandemic has stripped brands from a lot of people. The “stylish” were reduced to sweat pants and undershirts. “Gourmands” had to eat their home cooking or take-out. That is nothing compared to what was taken from people who lost their homes and incomes, their life-line visits from friends and relatives, and places where they gathered with their community: their bar, their bowling alley, or their house of worship.

Most of all, there were those who lost their health or their loved ones. I’ve written before about how COVID-19 took my “brand” as a strong, vital man (see Daniel Craig, above). Yet, I am also discovering a person underneath who is:

  • more open to the flow of life.
  • more accepting of change.
  • perhaps even a tad more ready for the loss of my most fundamental “brand,” my body.

I wonder what you lost? How hard was it? What did you find underneath your “brand?”

The April Fool Beatitude: A Good Friday Meditation

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The optical illusion “The Young Girl—Old Woman” 

I suspect that this is not the first time you have seen this picture. What do you see?

  • Do you see a beautiful young woman? April Fool! It’s really an old lady.
  • Do you see an old lady? April Fool! It’s really a beautiful young woman.

What I see depends on the day. I’ve seen an old lady quite often. But today, for the life of me, I can only see the young woman.

Did you know that there is a Bible verse that works like this? It is not just any Bible verse. It is the last and longest of the nine Beatitudes:

“Blessed are you, when men revile you and persecute you and say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake. Rejoice and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in heaven. For so persecuted they the prophets who were before you.”

Matthew 5:11-12 KJV

I know, the language is a bit archaic. My 4th grade Sunday School teacher made us commit the Beatitudes to memory. Back in those days, everything was in the King James Version.

I got a glow-in-the-dark cross as a reward for getting them right!

About 10 years ago, I decided to recommit the Beatitudes to memory. I have repeated them to myself almost every day since. For some reason, I still do it in the King James Version.

It’s a little hard to see the joke in something so serious. After all, this verse calls up images of Christians being thrown to the lions in the arena, saints being burned at the stake, Coptic Christians being beheaded by ISIS — to say nothing of Jesus on the cross.

This Beatitude gives American Christians the courage to say “Merry CHRISTMAS” to the check-out lady at Walmart in response to her “Happy Holidays.” It prompts them to repost a Christian meme on Facebook that says, “Most people won’t share this, but remember that Jesus said:

For whoever is ashamed of me and of my words, of him will the Son of Man be ashamed when he comes in his glory and the glory of the Father and of the holy angels.

Luke 9:26 ESV

If the check-out lady rolls her eyes or you lose Facebook “friends” for Jesus’ sake, you can console yourself with the promise that you will have a great reward in heaven.

But, depending on the day, when I repeat these words to myself: “Blessed are you, when men revile you and persecute you and say all manner of evil against you falsely for my sake.”

Depending on the day, I might lose the comma.

Do you miss the comma?

Jesus spoke these words in Aramaic. Matthew wrote them down in Greek. There are no commas in Greek or Aramaic. You just kind of have to know how to say it.

Yes, Matthew probably understood Jesus the way King James’ translators did when they inserted that comma into their English translation. Men persecute you, for Jesus sake.

If you are a Christian, it’s hard to see it any other way.

But, Christians have had a way of making this verse work like that picture above. Christians have a long history of persecuting people — for Jesus’ sake.

Good Friday is an example.

Our son, Jim, is married to a Rabbi. Jim and their two children are also Jewish. That makes me aware that for centuries, and in some places even today, Good Friday was one of the most dangerous times to be Jewish. Christians would hear the story of Jesus’ arrest, torture and crucifixion. In John’s gospel, especially, the “Jews” are named over and over again as the perpetrators. *

These Christians would often emerge from their churches ready to do to the “Christ-killers” what their ancestors did to Jesus. Beating up Jews, burning their homes, and even killing Jewish children was as much a part of Easter as coloring eggs.

Of course, these Christians persecuted them for Jesus’ sake.

Today, I run into Christians who believe it is their duty revile and persecute and say all manner of evil against Muslims, homosexuals, and transexual people falsely for Jesus sake. As a recent Tweet said, “More U.S. Congressmen have been convicted of sexual assault in a public restroom than transexuals.” But, good Christians insist that you show your birth certificate before you enter the Ladies room.

So, who is the “you” that Jesus is blessing here? The April Fool Beatitude is always about “you,” not me.

It undermines the self-righteousness that underlies all our blaming, shaming, and maiming of people who don’t look like us, believe like us, pray like us, or love like us.

I just realized that I just reviled, persecuted, and said all manner of evil against my fellow Christians falsely (in the sense of overstating my case to make my point). Of course, I did it for Jesus sake.

That’s why I keep repeating the Beatitudes every day. Just when I get to be such a good person that I can persecute bad people. Jesus says, “April Fool!” and blesses those I persecute. He reminds me just how poor in spirit I really am. I have to start again.

* This is a bit of a puzzle, because John, Jesus, all the disciples and followers of Jesus were Jews, too. Also, most of them were also Galileans. That is, they came from “Upstate” or whatever people in your nearest metropolitan area call the nearest rural area. The Galileans were the rubes, the apple-knockers, the rednecks. You could pick them out of a crowd. One of the most intriguing theories is that the Galileans called people from Jerusalem and its surrounding area, Judea, “Jews.” Jews from Ju-dea, get it? They were the slickers, the snooty city people who always thought they were better.

Living With Limitations

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What I’ve learned from my Grandfathers since they died

Last week, I wrote about my strategy for a healthy old age and how I learned it from my Grandfather Talbott.

You may have read about how I built myself up so that I could run 3 miles without stopping, and said, “How nice for you. Not everyone gets to have a healthy old age.”

Frankly, I’m not sure I will have one either.

I did the running to recover from a strange illness. In December 2019, I had fever, cough, congestion, fatigue, and brain fog. Sounds a lot like COVID-19. But, I had it a month before the WHO even knew there was an outbreak in Wuhan. I was tested for antibodies six months after I had it. None showed up. Not unusual for COVID patients, but it means I can’t prove that I had it.

In January 2019, I was diagnosed with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disorder. Life-long smokers get COPD. Now it is showing up in people who had COVID 19. I never smoked.

That is why I began walking and running last spring — to build lung capacity.

But, beginning in late November and continuing right up to today, I have spent most of my waking hours lying in bed with fatigue and brain fog. The brain fog has lifted, or I would not be writing this. But the fatigue continues. 

My “push the broom” solution isn’t working either. I’ve done enough exercising to know what being tired feels like. It is not the same as  feeling nauseous, having a headache, and wanting to fall asleep after walking around the block.

The Cleveland Clinic calls this “reduced exercise tolerance.”

This, too, is a symptom of “Long Covid,” officially: Post-Acute Sequelae of SARS-CoV-2 infection (PASC). (I have a theory that Medicine creates the most highbrow names for the stuff it knows the least about.) No one knows how long the disease lasts. Will it get better? Or worse? How will it affect my COPD and a couple of other things that I have wrong with me that require lots of exercise? Will I die of this?

All this uncertainty makes me remember my other grandfather — Grandpa Flint.

When he was in his 50’s, he had a stroke.

In his 60’s, he went blind.

In his 70’s, he spent years battling cancer, and ultimately lost the battle.

This is what I remember:

When he had the stroke, he did the hard work of learning to speak and walk again. He had to quit his job, but he started a business. He stocked a small lake he owned with trout, then charged a dollar for each one that fishermen caught. He was able to continue that business even after he could no longer see to drive or read.

Because he was legally blind he was able to get books and magazines recorded on phonograph records. He used to say that he read more after going blind than he did when he could see. He also bought a juicer. He made carrot juice everyday because he heard it was good for the eyes. When he mentioned it to his ophthalmologist, the doctor said, “Well, I never saw a rabbit wearing glasses.”

One day, he asked a fisherman, a doctor, to look at a mole on the back of his neck. The doctor told him it was cancer. That was the beginning of an almost two-decade up-and-down experience of dealing with cancer in different organs. At the end, it invaded his bones.

He decided against chemotherapy. I thought he was crazy. Looking back, I can see that, in the 70’s, chemotherapy was both agonizing and not very effective. He might have lived a few more weeks or months, but his quality of life would have been worse.

As it was, he was in a lot of pain. There was no such thing as hospice or palliative medicine in those days. Politicians believed they had to limit pain-killers to protect dying people from becoming drug addicts.

I used to visit him in his last months. I was struck by the change in his personality.

All his life, he was a big personality who liked being the center of attention. His stories always sounded better than the actual experiences probably were. His marriage to my grandmother was sometimes tense. He was an extrovert married to an introvert. He was the guy with big ideas married to someone who, my mother said, “could always see the hole in the donut.” They were opposites: just like every other couple I know.

In the end, he bore his pain with grace. He told me that he had never loved or appreciated my grandmother more. His faith in God was his source of strength when his body failed him. In the midst of his pain, he saw goodness all around him.

My cousin, Dawn, who grew up within walking distance of our grandparents  knew them far better than I did. She suggests that those good qualities were there all along. They were covered up by the boasting, gregarious personality that he presented to the world.

But, isn’t that true of all of us? Isn’t our basic goodness encased in a shell of bad habits, defensiveness, and need for approval? And doesn’t it usually take suffering in some form to crack that shell?

As my teacher and friend, Laura Atmadarshan Santoro says:

“No one ever said at the end of a good meal surrounded by loving friends, ‘I need to make  changes. My life needs to take a new direction!’ It is only when we are hurting that we change.”

I hope I will start feeling better as Spring arrives and the pandemic restrictions finally lift as we all get vaccinated. I want to get back to walking and running and working out again. I’d like to go on to a healthy old age, like my Grandfather Talbott. I like the slogan: “Live long and die short.”

But, this period of repetitive, long-term illness has caused me to look at my Grandfather Flint for guidance, too. I can learn to:

  • Listen to my body and support my health with nutritious food and as much exercise as my body will bear.
  • Learn to make plans with the proviso that I might not be able to carry them out.
  • Love everyone around me.
  • Write some things that I hope other people will read.
  • Pray for the world, especially for those who suffer.
  • Appreciate and enjoy every day as much as I can.

When I compare this time in my life with my Grandfather’s last few months, I would hardly call my experience “suffering.” In fact, my life is so leisurely and stress-free that I fear I will become like one of Jacquie’s great-aunts. My mother-in-law always described her as “someone who enjoyed poor health.”

Nevertheless, I understand better something the Bible says:

We also rejoice in sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance,  and endurance, character, and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint, because the love of God  has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.

Romans 5:3-5 New English Translation.

What A Healthy Old Age Looks Like

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What I’ve Learned from My Grandfathers Since They Died: Part 1

One of the challenges of this Third Half of Life is health. Sure, that means eating right and exercise, but it begins inside of our heads. 

When we get older and we get sick or injure ourselves, we are tempted to look at the calendar and say, “I’m old,” and think: 

Old = sick

Old = feeble

Old = dying.

We are not necessarily helped much by the medical profession. Doctors were once taught that the paradigm of health is a man. So, they treated things that were uniquely female, like menopause or having a uterus, as pathologies that needed medication or removal. 

 That may have improved. However, it’s hard for lay people and professionals to get past the unconscious assumption that the paradigm of health is a 19-year-old. The more we deviate from that ideal, the more likely we are to get  prescriptions and procedures to “fix” us. 

As my mother used to say, “Every time I go to the doctor, I get a new pill. Then, every two years, I wind up in the hospital and they take them all away from me.” 

Too many of us are conditioned to think that there is nothing we can do about our health. When I talk with friends about how a lot of chronic diseases like type 2 diabetes or even heart disease can be healed with diet and exercise, a lot of them say wearily, “just give me a pill.” 

I think that they lack a mental image of what a healthy old age looks like.  I am grateful that my Grandfather Talbott taught me that old people can rebuild their health after it takes a nosedive.

I’ve learned a lot from my grandfathers since they died. The older I get the more I learn. It’s not that I remember stories that they told me or any advice that they gave me. But, I do remember how they lived and how they negotiated old age. I am benefitting from their examples.

“Children have never been very good at listening to their elders, but they have never failed to imitate them.”

James Baldwin

Grandpa Talbott was a dairy farmer. He was active in the Dairyman’s League, a cooperative of farmers who banded together to sell their milk at a fair price. As my Dad took over the farm, Grandpa took on more responsibility in the League’s organization. Before I got to high school, he was commuting 300 miles to New York City every week to work at the League headquarters as the treasurer. Then, he became president of what was then the largest dairy cooperative in the country.

It was a lot of stress and responsibility. By his mid-60’s, he was sick and worn out. He spent several weeks in the hospital before he retired.

Shortly after he retired, he drove up to our farm one morning. Dad and I had finished breakfast and we were cleaning the barn after milking. The cows had gone off to pasture. The barn floor needed cleaning. I had used a shovel to take care of the manure. Grandpa picked up the push broom and started down the barn floor, sweeping everything on his left into the gutter. He went very, very slowly.

My Dad and I watched him. It was kind of agonizing. When he got to the other end of the barn floor, he leaned on his broom to catch his breath.

My Dad said, “Go take that broom away from your grandfather.”

I walked down the floor and said, “Here, Grandpa, I can finish it.”

He said, “No, Roger, I need to do this.”

So, we watched him come back, sweeping the other side. Then he got in his car and went home.

He came back the next day. And the next. It took a few weeks, but then he was sweeping the floor as fast or faster than I could. He would stay and help my Dad with other chores. He also worked on my uncle’s much bigger farm. In fact, he was plowing my uncle’s fields into his 80’s.

I, too, pushed too hard and too long on my work for my own good. By the time I retired in 2016, I was overweight and suffering from a severe digestive disorder. I found a doctor who said she could cure me. And she did. I made a lot of life-style changes and got better and better. Then, I spent December 2019 suffering from a flu-like illness. I spent six weeks in bed with mild fever, and moderate fatigue and brain fog.  Sounds like COVID-19 doesn’t it? Trouble is, doctors diagnosed the first case in New York City in March 2020.

Whatever it was, I feared I was going to spend my life as an invalid. But I started walking and working out. Then, I decided to try running. My son, Jim, who lives near us, is a runner. When my knees hurt, he taught me how to shorten my gait and land on my toes. The pain disappeared.

By the end of October, I could run 5 kilometers (3 miles). I had to thank my Grandfather Talbott. 

As I tied on my running shoes every other day, I thought of him pushing that broom.

When I could only run about 20 yards, I thought about him pushing that broom.

When it rained, I thought of him pushing that broom.

He’s been dead thirty years, but I keep learning from him. Next week, I’ll tell you what I’ve learned from my other grandfather since he died. 

Who have you learned from since they died?