Grief in September

Our men's group meets every second Saturday of the month, and we're going through Leap Over a Wall by Eugene Peterson, one chapter a month. Yesterday's meeting was on Sept 11th and the chapter was on Grief, David in Lament. Here's how Peterson closes the chapter:

A failure to lament is the a failure to connect. If we refuse to learn the Davidic lamentation, our lives fragment into episodes and anecdotes, a succession of jerky starts and gossipy cul-de-sacs. But we're in a story in which everything eventually comes together, a narrative in which all the puzzling parts finally fit, about which years later we exclaim, "Oh so that's what that meant!" But being in a story means that we mustn't attempt to get ahead of the plot -- skip the hard parts, erase the painful parts, detour the disappointments. Lament -- making the most of our loss without getting bogged down in it -- is a primary way of staying in the story. God is telling this story, remember. It's a large, capacious story. He doesn't look kindly on our editorial deletions. But he delights in our poetry.

For me this chapter took me back to Sept 8th, 2001 and the death of my father.

- Peace