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©2011 drkate

Thank you, readers, for your kindness, words, and responses to the events of my August post Shelter.  Words can never express my gratitude and appreciation.

This post is written in gratitude to all of you who read and comment here, and takes a slightly different course to speak in a personal way of how much this struggle for our liberty means to me…and how it has changed me to the core. The recent loss of my mother, 96, and the despair following has had many  unexpected challenges which just are what they are, and fortunately due to God’s grace brought deeper understandings of loss and necessary rebuilding and growth.

My Mother’s parents were both born in the 1880’s, and together with my Mom (b.1915) spanned 130 years of American life…the crucial decades we now analyze  and identify the events have led to our present situation in 2011.  And it occurred to me one night as I grieved the loss of her life and its meaning, that grief’s intensity also spanned that period of time…during which unscrupulous men and women sewed the seeds of the destruction of America.  As I got to that painful yet exquisite core out came the twin realization discerned of needing to grieve and mourn for both.  This took my breath away and I fell to my knees in prayer and gratitude.

There are not orderly ‘stages’ of grief, although Kübler-Ross broke necessary and important ground in helping people understand their feelings of loss.  It is more of a crazy journey through a wilderness chocked full of sorrow, craziness, anger, fear, deep sadness, and unsteadiness, and it is lonely, uncertain, paralyzing, depressing, physical, uncharted, scary, dark, and dangerous.  There are moments of peace, light, relief, guilt, and sometimes forgiveness.  The ground is shaken under your feet and the old familiar bearings lost.  New signposts must be found, created, and remembered.  Almost everything in your own life is revisited, including the events that brought you here to this moment in time.

While  grief is the inward process of reconciling and becoming after a loss, mourning is its outward expression, engaged by sharing, listening, action, and ritual.  It is necessary to mourn in order to complete the honor, to remember, to grow.  Thus the imperative of grief requires work, it is not passive.

Finding America

Into the abyss of grief we have all gone as we watch our America as it has been twisted and turned into something it was never intended to be. The America of before is no more; of the ancestors of my grandparent’s generation, of my mother’s; of yours.

Yet, that we still stand on these pages, in our communities, and before God still hanging on to American principles and foundations is testament to our resilience, love, and holy and human purpose.  But we have been hurt deeply, must name this treachery, grieve the loss, and rebuild.  Like going all the way back to the core, in the labyrinth of our history, to find our way out again.

While we seldom express it, there is grief about the loss of America and that is why the whole Obama mess and our growing awareness feels so crazy, and we are consumed with worry, anger, fear, sadness, guilt. There is also a paralysis that comes with this overwhelming grief.

Do I feel grief that I lived most of my life not seeing or recognizing this?  Absolutely.  America gone?  😯  It is as devastating as losing a loved one.  Will I let this grief control me?  No, but, it is clear that we must name it, understand it, and think outside the box for the solution.  What if the solution involved going to our own core and then collectively–without ego–find our way back out again?  Restudying history, smashing the vortex, the false labyrinth evil has created?:

We mourn our loss by sharing on these pages, by analyzing history, by marching to Washington, by anger and frustration.  We are asking for help and seeking His blessing and grace as we pray.  We are calling our ancestors and the Founders of this Nation for help and hope they are rallying to our side.  Sleepless nights, restless  and troubled dreams when we finally rest.

I have faith that we will find our way home and then rebuild with the vigor and principles that brought us here to this moment…for all of our lives have combined to bring us out NOW.  The hope of our children, our Nation, indeed the world rest on us finding this way out of the abyss.  And hope is knowing that this feeling, and our grief and paralysis, won’t last forever.

Psalm 140

For Protection against enemies

1. Deliver me, O  Lord, from the evil man, preserve me from the violent man;
2. Which imagine mischiefs in their heart; continually are they gathered together for war
3. They have sharpened their tongues like a serpent; adders’ poison is under their lips. Selah
4. Keep me, O Lord,from the hands of the wicked; preserve me from the violent man; who have purposed to overthrow my goings.
5. The proud have hid a snare for me, and cords; they have spread a net by the wayside; they have set gins for me. Selah
6. I said unto the Lord, Thou  art my God; hear the voice of my supplications O Lord
7. O God the Lord, the strength of my salvation, thou has covered my head in the day of battle
8. Grant not, O Lord, the desires of the wicked; further not his wicked device; lest they exalt themselves. Selah
9. As for the head of those that compass me about, let the mischief of their own lips cover them.
10. Let burning coals fall upon them: let them be cast into the fire; into deep pits, that they rise not up again.
11. Let not an evil speaker be estabished in the earth; evil shall hunt the violent man to overthrow him.
12. I know that the Lord will maintain the cause of the afflicted, and the right of the poor.
13. Surely the righteous shall give thanks unto thy name: the upright shall dwell in thy presence.

Rosemary for Remembrance

I will honor my Mother and Father by devoting my being to the return of the America they built.