Exploring the Beatitudes: Mourn

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Welcome to our eight-part video and audio series on the Beatitudes.

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These provocative and often confusing

sayings of Jesus are said to provide a

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blueprint for living the Christian life.

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So let's dive in with our

Good News team Lynn Shematek,

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Lauren Welch, and Jon Shematek.

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Lauren Welch: Our beatitude for

today is the second beatitude.

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Blessed are those who mourn,

for they will be comforted.

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Jon, what do you think of

when you think of mourning?

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Jon: Wow.

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Okay.

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When I think of mourning,

I think of a loss.

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I think it is the way people

respond when they have had a loss.

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Either One that's occurred.

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It could be, the usual kinds of things

I think that people think of are deaths

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of someone that they've cared about.

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But I think we mourn

almost any kind of change.

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When we change jobs.

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When we age and start losing some

of our physical and maybe mental

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faculties our position in the

social structure as we age, people

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sometimes become invisible to others.

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If you become ill or have a

disability gosh, I just think

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of so many life circumstances.

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that that are about or that include

loss and how that is really a

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universal kind of experience.

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Everyone knows what it is to

lose something or someone.

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Everyone knows how They have

felt when they lose that.

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Mourning to me, when I just think about it

immediately, I think it's a negative thing

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in a way, because it's a time of sadness.

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It's a time of grief.

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It's a time we don't want to think

about in our culture too much.

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But my first, reaction to it

is, yuck, I don't like mourning.

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And how on earth is there any

blessing involved in mourning?

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So boom, there's my

thought about it, Lauren.

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Lauren Welch: Lynn, what

would you add to that?

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Lynn: I'm not going to, obviously not

going to say yuck, but I find mourning

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it is a feeling I always like a good

comedy, but I really prefer something

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that's a little more thought provoking,

so I if there's a little change or

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something, and I can think about it,

and I really don't mind mourning.

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I think that I have to be careful

with it because I can tend to get very

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introspective and then I'm not, trying

to find the good of anything or trying

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to find some happiness or whatever.

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I really, I enjoy the Not so

much the feeling, but it's the

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thinking about things, of how

it's changed, what's happened.

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And I've been very fortunate in my life

in that most of the people that have

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gone before me were wonderful people,

and I thought they had a good life,

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and most of them had a good long life.

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And so it's I don't really have

anything this terrible that I think,

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oh my goodness, I'm just going to,

lose sleep over or anything like that.

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But I think mourning is

a time for introspection.

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And it's the time to say, okay, now

it has changed, your body, your, the

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circumstances, the person is gone, and

at this point then, what you have to do

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is say, okay, how do I respond to that?

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So I'd have to say mourning is a is

an ever going thing with me though.

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So it's and I think that probably

most people that have reached

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my age, it is, that's true too.

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Lauren Welch: I agree with you, Lynn that

mourning is a part of our daily lives.

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For the most part, even if it's not in

our own lives, it's somebody with somebody

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around us who is grieving and I love the

way that you talked about introspection

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and and looking for what is new,

looking for what is trying to be born.

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It's what I was hearing from you

with what is trying to come forth

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out of whatever has been lost.

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So that's what I heard you

your introspection being about.

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And I think that is 1 of

the ways we are comforted.

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I think that grieving is I think

that one of the things that we see in

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our grieving is that we begin to see

glimpses of that new birth coming to be.

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How else might we be comforted?

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Jon: Yeah, so I guess for me, it's

what are the sources of comfort

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when when something has happened,

something negative has happened,

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particularly a loss of some sort.

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I think there are a couple of

things that are important to me.

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One is and very hard actually for me

to accept is the comfort that others

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offer you, the people that you're in

relationship with the family friends.

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The church all of that are great sources

of comfort, could be great sources

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of comfort if you allow them to be.

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And I think sometimes when people

have something where they're stricken

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by grief you'll hear people often

say that their heart is broken.

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That seems, may seem extreme,

particularly if you're more of a

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thinker than a feeler in a way.

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But if your heart is broken, if you

think of those terms, which I do have a

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little comfort thinking of mourning in

that way, if your heart is broken, then

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this is one of those situations where

,that broken heart is open to divine.

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I won't say intervention, but yeah,

divine intervention, but that the Divine

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One can actually enter into that grief

with you and be a comfort and support.

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I think it's what we talked about with the

first beatitude of prayer being of that.

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It's just nurturing your spiritual life

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I think sometimes people misread this.

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beatitude thing about God sending bad

things to people, and that's why they're

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and somehow there's a blessing in that.

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Bad things just happen, in my opinion.

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God doesn't send a bad thing or will

anything bad or evil to happen to anybody.

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But when it does, and it does, for sure

then God is there to be our source of

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comfort, to enter into our broken hearts,

if you feel comfortable with that image.

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Lauren Welch: Grieving is part of our

daily life, especially in our world today.

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All we have to do is read the

news, and we will find something

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to to grieve with others.

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I think it's important to grieve.

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A lot of times when something bad

happens, many people will try to

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get us to see the bright side or

to see something good right away.

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And I think it's important to give

us time, ourselves time, to, to feel

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the loss, to feel the grief because

I think it's in that brokenness, I

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like your thought of a broken heart,

Jon, allow that brokenness to break

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us open so that God can fill us.

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And I think that's, again, was,

as you say, the comfort comes, but

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it's important to take that time.

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and feel the loss deep in our being.

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I think that's where

the comfort comes from.

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Lynn: I'd like to add something,

if I could, and that is, I was

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thinking back while you both were

talking about the day of 9 11, and

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I remember how frightened I was.

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I was so frightened.

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I hadn't been this frightened, in

such a long time, as a little kid

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maybe sometime felt frightened.

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But I was so frightened.

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I felt so alone.

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And all of a sudden I thought.

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God is here.

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He hasn't left us.

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And it was wonderful.

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I just thought, oh, God has

me, even more important.

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And it was but that was out of such

trauma come these wonderful things.

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So I was comforted, definitely

comforted at that point.

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Lauren Welch: Yeah.

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There's a group of us that send

Reiki to the people of Ukraine

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and Gaza and now many other points

in the world that are war torn.

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And we do this as a

group every three weeks.

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We get together and we,

knowing people in those areas.

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We sometimes receive emails from

people thanking us because they

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know that somebody is thinking

of them and that is helpful.

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But much of, many of the times

that we are doing this, the

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sorrow and the grief that we feel.

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Imagine these people going through

it can be overwhelming for us,

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but doing it together it helps us.

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Jon: Yeah, I was thinking that, as you

were speaking about doing that, Lauren,

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and thinking about, okay, the Beatitudes

being the blueprint for the Christian life

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and what is it that it's calling us to do?

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What is it that this

Beatitude is calling us to do?

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And one piece, I think is calling

us to mourn and to mourn with others

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to be in solidarity and and in

relationship with others, no matter

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where they are and who they are.

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And I think the other, the second

piece that it is calling us as

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people of faith to do is to do what

we can to be a comfort to another.

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And that, I think that usually really

means not Saying some platitude or,

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bringing a cake Or something like

that, but although I love cake.

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If anyone wants to bring

me a cake, I'll take it.

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Cup of coffee I'm there.

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But the I think what it really means is

it's just being there, being literally

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It sounds a little trite, but just

being present, wordlessly, just being

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physically or virtually, like this, or

over the waves of the ether through a

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reiki or a prayer or whatever, being

there with someone is where the healing

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comes in, and where the I think that's

what our Christian life is about,

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yeah.

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Lynn: I think that's where we're

going to get comforted too.

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Lauren Welch: Definitely.

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That's and that I think is, as Jon said,

what this beatitude is calling us to

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not be afraid of grief, not to not to

want it to go away, but to embrace it

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and see what, comfort comes and what

we're called to do through that grief.

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So I think that's one of the reasons

that Jesus taught this Beatitude

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to his disciples so that when

the time came that they would be

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mourning his loss in particular,

but other losses in their life.

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They would know that they would be

comforted if they lived into the grief.

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Jon: Lauren, I think that's absolutely

right in that Jesus gave us an example.

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Telling us it's okay to grieve.

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It's okay to weep.

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You think of him at the tomb

of Lazarus you think of him

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in the garden of Gethsemane.

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He was weeping and I, he, I'm

guessing, imagining that he

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was mourning his own death.

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impending loss and all

that was going to happen.

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But certainly everyone remembers, or

people who've read the Bible remember

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the story of Lazarus and the two word

verse in the Bible, the shortest verse in

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the Bible, they always say, Jesus wept.

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And he showed them and us that's okay.

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If you're not a weeper, that's okay too.

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You can weep internally.

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But it is certainly okay to feel whatever

you're feeling when you experience loss.

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And in that, there is a power that

comes from God to get through it.

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Just like you were saying, Lynn, with the

9 11, you realized that God was there,

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and God would get us through it, and

I think that whenever we're in a world

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of turmoil, which we sure the heck are

we that, that article of hope is there.

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That's what I love about the Beatitudes,

there's so much hope in them.

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Lauren Welch: There he is, and I think

in the world that Jesus was living,

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people needed hope, and especially

the people that he was speaking to

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needed hope, and so he gives them this

blueprint, calling them, to not only

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survive, but to thrive in their lives.

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so now what we want to do is to

ask our listeners, what comes to

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mind when you think of grieving?

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How do you grieve?

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And how do you find comfort?

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How, what brings you comfort

in that in that grief?

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Friends, family there are

liturgies that are very helpful

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during for mourning and grieving.

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What is it that brings you comfort

when you're hurt, when you're hurting?

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Jon: Thanks, Lauren.

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I think that is a great moment for us

to to stop and think about that and

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to thank our viewers and listeners for

being with us this time, and we hope

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to see you hope to see you again soon.

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Lynn: Bye bye and take care.

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Lauren Welch: Blessings and

peace until we meet again.

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..............

Dolores: This episode on the Beatitudes has been brought

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to you by listening for clues.

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You can find us at our website

listeningforclues.com, on our

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YouTube channel or on just

about any audio podcast channel.

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hope to see you soon.