{"id":1264,"date":"2019-01-06T12:50:34","date_gmt":"2019-01-06T18:50:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.abideinlove.com\/wp\/?p=1264"},"modified":"2019-01-06T12:59:13","modified_gmt":"2019-01-06T18:59:13","slug":"from-hiraeth-to-hope-healthy-grieving","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.abideinlove.com\/wp\/?p=1264","title":{"rendered":"From Hiraeth to Hope: Healthy Grieving"},"content":{"rendered":"

A couple of years ago I stumbled upon a wonderful Welsh word: hiraeth<\/em>. It\u2019s one of those impossible-to-translate words. Hiraeth<\/em> describes a nostalgic longing, a homesick yearning, a painful ache \u2013 perhaps for a homeland or an era that no longer exists. The Welsh are quite insistent that it means much more than mere nostalgia for past people or things or places. It wells up from deep within our hearts, and may include grieving over a past that never was or a future that could have been but is now impossible. It seems to seek a true homeland whose grasp is elusive, one that could never fully be attained or sustained in this life. In that regard, hiraeth<\/em> and hope seem closely connected.<\/p>\n

Hope is a God-given virtue that increases in us a deep desire for fulfillment in Christ\u2019s Kingdom. Hope allows us to be aided by the Holy Spirit so that we can renounce self-reliance and place our trust entirely in Christ and his promises, which will never deceive or disappoint. For he is Truth itself.<\/p>\n

The Catechism of the Catholic Church<\/em> (n. 1818) describes hope as elevating and purifying our own yearnings for happiness, bringing them all into subjection to Christ and his Kingship, ordering them towards their true fulfillment. Hope liberates us from discouragement and sustains us when we feel alone and abandoned.<\/p>\n

How do we move from hiraeth<\/em> to hope?<\/p>\n

I am convinced that the process involves healthy grieving of one kind or another. Jesus tells us that those who mourn are blessed, and that they will<\/u> be comforted. Every tear will be wiped away. But we must first pass through the dark places of our heart, our valleys of tears \u2013 preferably with all earthly and heavenly helps at our disposal.<\/p>\n

Hiraeth<\/em> is described as bittersweet \u2013 and not merely because one had something happy that is now gone. There is so much more. I believe the bitter ache is welling up from a much deeper place in our heart, a dark valley that most of us fear and avoid. The sweetness is welling up from an even deeper place, a place beyond the valley of tears, where God whispers our true eternal identity in our\u00a0 heart.<\/p>\n

Ecclesiastes describes an appointed time for everything under heaven: a time to give birth and a time to die, a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance, etc. The author remarks that God has \u201cplaced the timeless into their hearts\u201d (Ecclesiastes 3:11). Our deepest, truest self knows that all else is vanity and emptiness, and will pass away. That inevitable loss is sad indeed. But hope of our true destiny spurs us on, giving us the determination and the endurance that we need to pass through the valley of tears.<\/p>\n

How do we grieve well? The ancients tell us that virtue is found in the middle course. One extreme is to be stuck in the past, paralyzed by nostalgia, incapable of letting go or moving on. At the opposite extreme some of us \u201crush ahead\u201d into hope, pretending like everything is swell. In doing so, we are denying or minimizing our pain. It will come back with a vengeance. I think of the Pixar film Inside Out<\/em> as a masterful illustration of our need for healthy grieving and the unhelpfulness of trying to mask over our pain with false joy or false hope.<\/p>\n

Just as abiding in the Lord and bearing fruit is long and patient work, so also walking the path from hiraeth<\/em> to hope will often be slow and arduous. It may require the hard work of clearing out obstacles or cooperating with God in removing toxic filth. It is not a \u201cone and done\u201d task. Therapists compare grieving with the process of peeling layers from an onion. We shed so many tears and receive so much healing that we think the process must surely be done now \u2013 only to discover more layers.<\/p>\n

Our pain may come from various sources: death of loved ones, sudden tragedy, betrayal or victimization, childhood abuse or neglect, or the creeping realization of old age and human mortality. Often it is the oldest wounds, still unhealed, that cause the most pain. When we find ourselves \u201coverreacting\u201d to a situation in the present moment, it is likely a sign that the situation somehow poked at an old unhealed wound. Such moments are painful, but they are great opportunities to receive the healing balm of the Holy Spirit. Remember that \u201cChrist\u201d means \u201canointed one.\u201d Therefore being a Christian means allowing ourselves to be anointed. Receiving ointment on unhealed wounds is painful, but is far better than leaving them to fester!<\/p>\n

When life touches an old wound, rather than blame the person or situation that upset us, we can heed the invitation to return to the valley of tears. There we can receive strength and anointing from on high, which always happens so much better in healthy community than as an isolated individual. We can reach out to trusted friends, the godly people in our life who know better than to try to \u201cfix\u201d our problems, who will listen to us and give us the encouragement we need to persevere.<\/p>\n

On this journey, I think of the wise men following the star together to Bethlehem. They experience a longing very akin to hiraeth<\/em>. They don\u2019t go it alone, but travel together. They are humble enough to seek and receive guidance from others. They support and encourage one another during their long trek. They have no idea where they are ultimately going, but they trust the deepest yearnings of their heart, and they recognize truth and goodness and beauty when they find it.<\/p>\n

When it comes to healthy grieving, sojourning from hiraeth<\/em> to hope, we very much need the support of others. In communion with them, we will be more open to receiving the healing balm of the Holy Spirit. We will be more disciplined in rooting out from the valley of tears the poisonous plants that block our path to our true homeland.<\/p>\n

There are other hindrances and helps to consider. I\u2019ll share more next time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A couple of years ago I stumbled upon a wonderful Welsh word: hiraeth. It\u2019s one of those impossible-to-translate words. Hiraeth describes a nostalgic longing, a homesick yearning, a painful ache \u2013 perhaps for a homeland or an era that no longer exists. The Welsh are quite insistent that it means much more than mere nostalgia … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “From Hiraeth to Hope: Healthy Grieving”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1267,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[65,64,57,55,54,63],"tags":[48,45,92,44,120,49,84,83,47,43,72],"class_list":["post-1264","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-beauty","category-goodness","category-healing","category-scripture","category-spirituality","category-truth","tag-abiding","tag-beauty","tag-desires","tag-goodness","tag-grieving","tag-healing","tag-heaven","tag-hope","tag-relationships","tag-truth","tag-wounds"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/www.abideinlove.com\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/1339-Still-sourrounded-by-a-moat-7-Aug-2009.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.abideinlove.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1264","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.abideinlove.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.abideinlove.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.abideinlove.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.abideinlove.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1264"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.abideinlove.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1264\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1266,"href":"http:\/\/www.abideinlove.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1264\/revisions\/1266"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.abideinlove.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1267"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.abideinlove.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1264"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.abideinlove.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1264"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.abideinlove.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1264"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}