Grief is often passed over during the holiday season, leaving those who experience it unable to express what they are feeling amidst the hustle and bustle. One of the Pastoral Care classes at BSK, Pastoral Care: Death, Dying, and Grief, wrote poems this semester as an exercise in expressing grief. Read their words below:
We agreed that BSK seeks to form the person ‘holistically’ so that it’s not just clinical training, or theological training, or educational training, but it is experiential training which taps into the deepest part of who we are a humans. The poetry exercise illuminated the beautiful means of experiencing education in new ways, so we’re sharing.
As holiday season is upon us and many carry sadness and sorrow with them as silent companions, we offer these poems:
If I find you lying in the ditch of your grief,
I will not cross to the safe side of the road.
I will bind up the angry wounds of your heart,
We will finish the journey to a new day together.
-DVIf I speak up against the madness of injustice,
I will not trample the voices of those in the thick of the torture;
I will swallow my pride and listen with great intent to change,
We shall overcome.
-DHDIf I find you with great need much like or quite unlike my own,
I will not co-opt your story;
I will remind you of that you are beloved creation called into right relationship,
We shall build together.
-DHDIf I travel the world,I will not judge;I will embrace the world and all its challenges.We shall pray for the world and live in peace.
-MF