From Grief to Nostalgia

Dear Grieving Ones:

I’ve been thinking a bit these past weeks about grief—the word, the experience, the process. A social worker acquaintance of mine commented that I must be very busy with my “grief work”. It struck my ears as odd to suggest that grief was some task akin to taking out the garbage or clearing outdoor pots for summer flowers. Approaching grief as a work project makes it feel like something I should put on my Things to Do Today calendar, somewhere between paying bills and shopping for dinner. 

In its simplest form, the word grief came from a Bronze Age Proto-Indo-European prefix, gwere-, which originally meant heavy. Remnants of that ancient syllable may be found in words like aggravate, the notion of giving someone grief, or bringing up something from one’s past to make the present experience harder to bear. In grief we face the present moment out of sorts—there is something extra, or something missing, which brings added heft to the burden of the day. This sense is also found in the gospel hymn “What a Friend We Have in Jesus,” where we sing, “all our sins and griefs to bear,” implying there is a weighty transfer of heavy recollection onto the load-lightening grace of Christ. I’ve been leaning into that notion of grace which brings release from the baggage of the past, making it easier to discern what to carry into the future. 

It struck me the other morning that the difference between grief and nostalgia is their relationship to time. Nostalgia may be wistful, even generating a longing for the past, but it is always completely aware of its place; nostalgia never leaves its ‘that was then’ consignment. Grief, I think, may be nostalgia untethered from its place in time. Grief suggests there may be something in the present to be done about it, to soothe it, to lighten its force. But energy expended trying to fix the past becomes endless work; nothing done today can alter what happened yesterday.

The prophet Jeremiah was known for his expressions of grief; he is credited with writing a book of laments. Lamentations is a collection of five sorrowful poems in which the author expresses grief over the fall of Jerusalem to the Babylonian Empire. But in the middle of his recounted sorrow, we find these lighter verses plopped into chapter 3:

The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases,
his mercies never come to an end;
they are new every morning;
great is your faithfulness.
“The Lord is my portion,” says my soul,
“therefore I will hope in him.” (vs 22-24 NRSVUE)

The real work of grief is coaxing it back to its place in time; there it ceases to bring weight and becomes a lighter and sweeter memory. It opens us to God’s present mercies and invites us to see tomorrow’s hope; the recollections of the past become only nostalgia.

Hoping to give as little grief as possible, I remain,

With Love,
Jonathan Krogh
Your Pastor