Lessons From An Icon

Since becoming a liturgical Christian, I have loved celebrating the fact that Easter is not just a day, it's a season. It is 50 days of “Alleluias” and remembrances of the reality that is the foundation of our faith. Because of this, the knowledge that the Lord is risen, and sits at the right hand of the Father at this present moment, has taken on a new meaning for me. Death, and all that it entails, has been conquered. “Christ is risen from the dead! Trampling down death by death! And upon those in the tomb, bestowing Life!” There is now a remedy for the deep rift that exists within my soul, the rift of being an eternal creature damned in a temporal existence, separated from God by my own sin and the reality of the Fall.


My favorite icon is called “The Harrowing of Hell." It sits in the corner of our dining room, in a position which allows me and my family to view it whenever we sit down at the table to eat, do crafts, or homeschool. This means that it is within my view, and therefore available for my contemplation, for a good part of any given day. It depicts Jesus standing over the broken gates of Hell, perched on two coffin lids configured in the shape of a cross, pulling out Adam and Eve, holding each by the hand and bringing them up, out of Hell, to be with Him. Standing by, watching in the background as witnesses to this long sought-after event, are many of the Old Testament saints ranging from Moses to Jesus’ forerunner, John the Baptist.

I find this icon especially comforting when I am faced with the realities of grief and loss in my own life. It reminds me that the story is not over. The endings I have experiences do not constitute all of reality. What I see as an ending, is, in reality, a beginning, and a continuation of “Reality” for those whom I have lost to death or geographical distance.

Since Easter Sunday of this year I have either experienced personally, or been made aware of much personal grief and loss. In mid-April our delightful 2 year-old chocolate lab, Gracie, was diagnosed by the vets at UC Davis with cancer. She was given about 4-6 weeks to live. This came as quite a shock to our family. We love this dog. She is truly a beautiful Labrador Retriever and her personality is as equally impressive as her appearance. She is the faithful companion one always envisions when thinking about getting a dog. I realize that she is “just a dog.” At present, thank God, I am not losing my husband, children, parents, close friends, or my own life to cancer. I am losing “just a dog.” But, I am also losing part of me. I have loved this dog, and loved her well. I have exercised my care-taking role as an heir of Adam and Eve and have nurtured this small part of God’s creation. I find that I am more myself because of it.

I realized about a week after her diagnosis that the hard part of this for me was staying connected to Gracie during the dying process. I admit, to my shame, that it would have been easier for me if she had died soon after finding out that she had cancer. It is hard to continue to care for her, love her, and relate to her when you are cognizant of an imminent “death date.” Now, I know in reality, we all have a “death date.” We just don’t always know the day or the hour, and so we don't focus on our mortality. Knowing that she, animal though she is, is going to die soon has been a challenge for me. How do I love her and pour myself into her when I know she is going to die at anytime, and certainly within the next few weeks? How do I stay in and embrace the tension between life and death that I am faced with here in the present moment?

Since her diagnosis I have often asked the Lord what I am supposed to learn from this time. As I sit to type this she is lying in the room next to me. She is sleeping and her breathing is somewhat labored due to the cancer and the steroid she is on to slow the cancer growth. Well, when one asks God a question, one should at least be willing to hear the answer. Last week he gave me a small part of that answer...

On Thursday I stopped into our church office to pick up a check for our upcoming Youth Group activity. As I was speaking to our parish administrator, our rector, who happens to be the man who introduced me to the beauty of Anglican worship and piety, the priest who baptized my children and taught my catechism class prior to my confirmation, and who heard my first and most recent confession; this man, whom I consider a friend, pulled me into his office and asked me to shut the door. I knew this was not a good sign...

He proceeded to tell me that he had accepted a call from another parish, and would be leaving our church in mid July. It was one of those moments when time almost feels frozen, and all I could do initially was feel. I could hear my heart pounding in my head and I had to remind myself to breathe. For a brief second the sadness felt overwhelming. There is was again, that gut-wrenching, familiar feeling of grief and loss; familiar, yet so unexpected and out-of-the-blue on this sunny May afternoon. It served as another poignant reminder that I am a creature and not omnipotent. I am not the one in charge; it is not “my will” that is to be done.

Now, it’s not that this news was totally unexpected. God, in his great mercy, had given me some warning. But despite “knowing” at some level that this was a possibility, the reality of losing both he and his delightful and indescribably talented wife, still generates profound pain and a reaction from deep inside me which says, “No, this is not right!”

But what is it that is “not right?” It certainly is not his call to leave. As I listened to him talk about his process and reasons for leaving it was more than clear that God’s hand was in this decision and had given both he and his wife clarity about His will in the matter. That this will be for their ultimate good and the welfare of His church, I have no doubt. For that I am thankful.

What is “not right” about this is the reality that I will be separated from people I love dearly; separated from people whose hands have, quite literally, shaped and molded much of my current piety. When I look at my family and our spiritual formation, Dan+ and Brenda's fingerprints are everywhere.

God did not fashion our souls for separation; connection was woven into the very fabric of our being. It is part of what it means to be made in the Imago Dei. No, separation is an unnatural state which we are forced to accept while we live this side of eternity. But I don't have to like it. Indeed, I shouldn't like it, for it reminds me that I was not made for this world, but for eternity.

So, for now, when I look out into the back of our property to the grave we have dug in preparation for Gracie's death, and when I am tempted to count down the days till July 15th when Fr. Dan and Brenda leave our parish for Indiana, I look at my icon. And, when I look, I am reminded that because of the resurrection of Jesus Christ, separation, no matter how long it may be, is not permanent. Someday we all (yes, Fr. Dan, even the dog - see C.S. Lewis in The Problem of Pain, Chpt 8) will be united again. And until that day, "...all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well."