I’ve spent a lot of the past week grieving, and it has surprised me. I didn’t expect this. After six months of supporting and encouraging our Venezuelan friend through her time in detention, she’s now free, and gone to live with family in the southeastern US. As a result, there’s a big hole in our Saturday schedule, and in my heart. I’d become accustomed to visits with her. I looked forward to them, despite the grim circumstances, because of the joy we brought to her face by our presence. Our relationship helped to sustain her during her detention, and it brought us many gifts as well.
Now she has moved on, and we will too—and it’s important to acknowledge the grief when relationships change.
Today is Trinity Sunday. Today, Henry and I celebrate our liturgical anniversary: We were married on Trinity Sunday, 25 years ago. The actual date was a few weeks ago, and we celebrated that, too. Today I’m celebrating by preaching a sermon, about Trinity Sunday and Father’s Day, at the Desert House of Prayer, a retreat center here in Tucson. For the content, I’ve expanded upon a Trinity sermon I preached back in 2015, but the focus remains the same: relationship.
One of the things I’ll talk about today is how God has called Henry into the role of father over the course of his life. He’s a biological father, a priestly father, and was a spiritual stepfather to our friend during her time at Eloy. Over the years, those roles have also changed. His children have grown and now have children of their own. He has “fathered” countless people for a few hours, days, or months, through various incarnations of his priestly ministry over the years.
Each of our relationships teaches us, forms us, and helps us understand our relationship with God. Richard Rohr writes about the Trinity as a divine dance. Our own lives are a divine dance of relationship, with those around us and with the God who sustains us. We are also in relationship with the earth beneath our feet and the web of interconnected and interdependent life all around us.
It is this interconnectedness that has deepened my grief. Eloy Detention Center is so overcrowded that cots are being set up in the hallways. There is a flood of refugees coming to America in search of a safer life, and we’re not equipped to handle the influx. Yet, if these people stay home, they are likely to be killed, or starve, or be conscripted into gangs and cartels. I literally cannot imagine such a life—and yet I’ve been given a window into it through the testimony of our friend at her asylum hearing.
That was a challenging two hours. All we could do, sitting in the back of the courtroom, was to silently bear witness, silently hold all that she shared, while knowing that there were literally thousands of other such stories being held in the hearts and minds of the other detainees in Eloy—and there are many more places like Eloy, all along our southern border.
Each of these people are also children of God. Each of them is also in relationship—with the Trinity, with family, with those who helped them along the way and those who turned their backs. I believe we are called by God—by the very nature of God—to be in relationship. But it must be a joint effort.
What part are you called to take in the divine dance of relationship?
So wish I could hear you preach today! I pray your message will inspire and fortify many in the holy dance of relationship with their grief and their belovedness.
You and Henry have given so unselfishly of your time, love and energy. May that be returned to you in blessings ten fold. As your Venezuelian friend moves forward in the next phase of her life she will carry the light and love of the Holy One with her. What a gift!
I wonder who / what is next in your journey and ministry of love and connection?
Thank you, Joyce, for your prayers on my preaching! I wish you could be with us today as well, and am grateful for your friendship. Thank you also for your good wishes for each of us who have shared this journey together. I also wonder what comes next…and I wonder who you might be called to accompany, in your own way, in your own time…. 🙂
Peace,
Shirin
Dearest Shirin
I’m filled with grief too because of the situation with Tom and Jane Bates. I’m not sure if you’re aware but they placed her on hospice care Friday. I called Tom yesterday and she’s going home very soon.
Just thought you might want to know.
Blessings, Nila
Ah, Nila, I join you in that grief. Thank you for letting me know about Jane. My prayers are with her and Tom, and you and all of us in the broader Good Shepherd community who are grieving.
Peace,
Shirin
I was so proud of you two this week.
I wanted to let everyone know that I know people who are making a real difference in the lives of the refugees on the border. And there is so much more to do.
I feel like my divine dance is one that I’m still trying to figure out!
Thank you, Damien. Yes, there is much more to do…and I sense the divine dance works best one relationship at a time…. Perhaps by sharing, you have opened others’ eyes and hearts. That’s part of the dance. I could see it in the eyes and conversations I had at Desert House today. Happy dancing!
Peace,
Shirin
Shirin, thank you for being open to sharing your grief with us. I think that when we share our grief, it allows others to grieve their own losses. I am reminded of something a friend in Al-Anon says often: “When we share our joy, our joy increases. When we share our pain, our pain decreases”.
Thank you for sharing your experience at Eloy. We need to know.
You’re welcome, Sondra, and thank you for sharing that bit of Al-Anon wisdom. It is true. Thanks for sharing the burden with me.
Peace,
Shirin
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Peace,
Shirin
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Peace,
Shirin
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Thank you, Annelle. I hope you are inspired here often.
Peace,
Shirin