The Emmaus Road: “Dear Spiritual Director, I Am Struggling With Grief.”

Introduction: Many spiritual directors are formed and trained to remain focused on the individual coming for direction and discouraged from revealing personal experiences or struggles, as doing so could hinder a directee from entering into his or her own experiences and exploring his or her relationship with God. These essays seek to enter into places of vulnerability that reflect common human experiences—of both a spiritual director and directee— and demonstrate how God meets us both on the path of accompaniment, just as He did for the two disciples on the Road of Emmaus. This is the first of what I hope will be many future essays in which I share a “behind the scenes” perspective as a spiritual director writing about my own journey with the very topics that are brought to me by hypothetical directees. 

My brother and I were in the process of cleaning out our father's home and preparing to list it on the market. In the process of going through our dad's belongings, we found a few glass jugs that my dad had painted many years ago. My brother, not wishing them to be sent away in a junk pile for the landfill, tucked them on the floor of his rental truck to bring them over to my mom's house for the meantime.

Little did I know how close they were to the door. Thinking I would help my brother unload his truck, I opened the door to be greeted by a jar with painted cherry blossoms bouncing on concrete and then shattering in the driveway. Something inside me shattered as well, especially after I heard my mom say that this particular jar was the one my brother wanted the most. Staring at the jar and the fragmented glass, a funny feeling came over me- both familiar, and yet cold— a feeling I had as a little child when my parents divorced and my brother and I shared different custody arrangements. 

Our parents have been divorced for over thirty years and it was strange to find in my dad’s house many items that belonged to both of them at one point in time, including a deck of playing cards that was inscribed with their first names. After a full week of clearing clutter and working to progressively empty a very dusty house, I went home and wept.

Grief is exhausting and can present itself in unexpected ways. We often think of grief in the context of a loved one passing away; however, grief is often more nuanced and complicated than that, sometimes surprising us as quickly as a violent storm upon an otherwise calm sea. Grief is not only for those attending a funeral. It is a normal and natural response to the loss of anyone or anything that we loved and valued.

We can experience grief in the midst of life transitions, such as leaving a job we loved, moving to a new city and away from friends, or saying goodbye to a beloved teacher who is retiring. Even priests can experience grief. I remember seeing my college chaplain crying at the thought of leaving the students at the Newman Center for a new parish assignment. Likewise, I have seen priests shed tears as they perform the funeral rites for their own parents.

No one is spared from the journey of grief, not even Jesus, and this is something we are invited to consider and contemplate deeply. Grief can often be an emotional space in which we experience desolation, the seeming absence of God in our life with the accompanying feeling of being unloved by Him, yet grief can also be the very place we encounter the Lord. Jesus was attracted to the grieving widow of Nain and approached her with a particular desire to comfort her heart. The result of His presence was nothing less than miraculous (cf. Luke 7:11-17).

While I cannot promise anyone who is grieving that Jesus will perform another miracle like he did at Nain, I do believe that the very person at the center of our faith, the very one who we call, “The Resurrection and the Life,” (John 11:25) wept at His own impending death and confronted it with agonizing prayer. We know this because the Scripture records it in all its raw and brutal honesty, noting that Jesus was in such agony he was sweating profusely and that He cried out loudly to God (Luke 22:41-44; Hebrews 5:7). This might not be the comforting image of God as the one who dries our tears or shepherds us into green pastures, but maybe that is the point.

My dad was on hospice care at home for about a week before he passed. I was with him the night he died, and afterwards on my drive home, I cried out to God in a loud, visceral way: “Where is he? Where is my dad?” My heart was heavy with grief and raw from the wounds of loving a soul who was away from the Church and the life of grace. It was more painful for me to lose my dad in a state of uncertainty about his eternal destiny. The restlessness in me drove me to cry out to God, even if I knew I might not receive an immediate answer.

Some have said that silence is the language of God. We must not be afraid of God’s silences. I like to think that God is silent because He is listening deeply, inviting us to speak, or cry, or even to groan before Him, with inexpressible groaning (cf. Romans 8:26). Our discomfort with silence and prayer is often the symptom of our discomfort with whatever is coming to the surface from within our own hearts and demanding our undivided attention. It is not easy to be with God if we cannot stand being with ourselves. We need to remember that God dwells within us as in His own temple (cf. 1 Corinthians 3:16). That includes a temple torn apart by grief.

Perhaps this image is especially appropriate because when Jesus died, the curtain in the temple was torn in two, demonstrating that even in the grief and sorrow of a world broken by sin, a new intimacy with God is possible—one that previously had been unthought of (cf. Matthew 27:50-51). We have access to God’s very heart. We are God’s beloved children.

If you struggle with grief, you are not alone and grief does not need to be a dead end in your spiritual journey. Perhaps it is an invitation to discover how much your heart and the heart of Christ have in common. Perhaps it is a journey that will lead you to understand the importance and necessity of journeying with others, receiving the compassion and care you need and deserve.

Grief and suffering have a tremendous power to attract the kindness and generosity of other people. Twenty minutes north of where I live, there are three communities that were devastated by an EF-3 tornado which formed without much warning and flattened homes and businesses, leaving a 12 mile trail of utter destruction. While the grief was like a thick fog hovering over the broken glass and debris scatted across the neighborhoods hit by the storm, the bright sun of compassion and hope began to shine, at first gently and then brilliantly through the fog, bringing warmth and light to all. Volunteers and community members came together to feed and to house, to offer a listening ear and to pray, to clean up and to plan for a rebuild, to protect and to offer support. A beautiful work of God has begun in the community just north of where I live. Grief was the catalyst.

As a spiritual director, if you came to me and shared a struggle with grief, I may not share all of these personal stories with you, but I want you to know that grief is a journey that all of us walk and you do not have to walk it alone. My hope and prayer would be that you find God’s compassionate presence, through the care and compassion of other people willing to walk with you and lift your eyes to the sunrise that comes after the dark of night. Your struggle with grief does not need to be an obstacle to your spiritual journey. It might even lead you closer to the heart of God.