The Soul's Requirement

My three children, ages 11, 6, and 6, have a wonderful capacity to connect deeply with the significant people in their world. They desire to know and to be known by those with whom they interact on a consistent basis. As their mother, and as a clinical psychologist, I encourage this type of connection, and see it as a sign of healthy attachment.

They know that they were made for relationships. They have been hearing that said since they were old enough to talk – it’s sort of a mantra in our household: “You were made for relationship with God and for relationship with others.” My husband and I orient our lives and the lives of our children around the truth contained in that sentence. We believe that true health only comes through recognition of our dependence on God as our Source and acceptance of His gift of salvation for our redemption. In addition to that, health requires that we attempt to live in authentic connectedness with our fellow human beings – “to know and be known.” .

This weekend my kids found out that there is a down side to embracing this philosophy of their parents’: It is incredibly painful to have those we love leave us, even if they are doing so for appropriate and God-ordained reasons.

We had a farewell brunch at church after the Mass on Sunday for our rector and his wife, Father Dan and Brenda. We also had to say goodbye to one of the members of our youth group, delightful Miss L., who is leaving to attend college on the east coast later this week. All three of these individuals have been very influential in my children’s lives and hold special places in their hearts.

While all of my children are sad and grieving these losses, my six year-old son, J., who is cut from a rather deeply contemplative fabric, seems to be having the hardest time. Yesterday, when he was saying goodbye to Fr. Dan after the brunch, he went up and hugged Father and lingered there holding on to him. I was standing behind my son watching this interaction. I finally helped extricate Fr. Dan from my son’s embrace by assuring J. that this wasn’t the last time he would be seeing Fr. Dan and Brenda.

Last night, during our family prayer time, all three of the children chose to pray for Dan+ and Brenda. Our eldest daughter prayed for safety as they traveled to Indiana, our other daughter, J.’s twin and our social butterfly, prayed that God would help them find new friends in Indiana, but, J.’s prayer struck a different chord. J. prayed that Dan+ and Brenda wouldn’t forget us when they moved away.

I’m glad he can give a voice to his fears. It’s one of the primary things all of us fear with loss, really: Are we significant enough to be remembered and held in the hearts of those who are leaving (or those whom we are leaving)?

J.’s process is quite normal for a six year-old experiencing his first taste of significant loss. He hasn’t lived long enough to know what is on the other side: The making of new relationships, connections, and memories with another priest, youth member, etc. whom he can also love. It is not that these new relationships will replace Dan+ and Brenda, or Miss L. But, he will learn that he has a larger capacity for connectedness than he realizes, and that this enlarged capacity does not diminish the very real love and connection that he still maintains with these others in his heart and memory. He can have both. When this hits him (in a few years) he will also realize that people he loves like Dan+, Brenda, and Miss L. can have both too, and that he is still held in their memory because they, too, have loved him.

But right now we are living in the moment, on the precipice of this great loss, and J. is still only six. The only thing he can see is that Mom and Dad think connection is a great thing, but he sees, and he now knows experientially, that connection hurts when it is lost or about to be lost. To him there is something intrinsically wrong with this. And he is right. If we were made for connection, how can we bear separation?

There is really only one answer that ultimately satisfies, and it is the answer of the Cross: We can bear the separation because we know that because of the cross it is only temporary. We can bear the separation because the One who made us also holds us all in His hands, and has connected us into one Body through his Son. We can bear the separation because the same Holy Spirit living in us lives in them and can touch them even when we can’t.

That is our hope. That is what makes these upcoming separations bearable.

So, how do we convey this to our son in a way that is meaningful?

First, we help him acknowledge his feelings of sadness and loss. Those feelings are very real and very strong right now, and, he’s not the only one who is feeling them! It has been one wild weekend of emotion, both at the church and in our home! Next, we use this opportunity to teach him about the Holy Spirit and about our fundamental interconnectedness in Christ. In other words, we teach him to pray for the people he is missing. When he (or one of his sisters) is sad about these upcoming losses, we are present with him in that sadness and then pray with him right then and ask the Holy Spirit both to comfort us and to bless Fr. Dan and Brenda and Miss L. We use those feelings which tell us “something is wrong” as cues to direct him back to his Source, back to Jesus, and back into the state for which he was created: Dependence on God.

May God use this time of pain and loss to transform our souls, and to conform us into the likeness His Son.


"Learning is the soul's requirement, and suffering its most persuasive teacher" - Stephen Lawhead