Sitting with Sadness

They were sitting with sadness, and life was fading away, but once they recognized its presence, they could accept it and learn from the shadow.

Do you like shadows?

When I’m working out in the sun’s heat, a shadow provides a respite. A place away from the intensity of light beating on my skin.

But I’ve also noticed, at times, a shadow seemingly hanging over me. I can’t seem to escape it. I try to run from it, avoid it, and pretend it isn’t there, but I know it’s there.

It feels as if it might engulf me and swamp me into itself.

It’s there, and I don’t want to look at it.

But it’s a shadow, and what’s a shadow? It’s where some object has blocked out the light. It could be a tree, building, cloud, a person, or even a planet.

The light loses its intensity and is filtered, blocked, and hindered.

In that shadow lies a feeling I know. Sadness.

Other words link arms in the shadow. Grief, loss, loneliness, despair, depression, abandonment. It can be a pretty dark place in that shadow.

Sadness is the whisper of loss, the song of the ‘less than.’

Sitting with Sadness

I know people who have sat with sadness for a long time. They may not express it that way, but in their private world, where no one ever goes, there is a sadness that lingers around them.

They don’t want to expose it to others because it might be the tipping point to seeing the house of cards they have made, called the self, suddenly shake and wobble.

Therefore they pretend.

An image is carefully constructed, everything in control, with no gaps in the armor where the tears might leak out.

But in the quiet, there is a desire for someone to know them, love them and hold them. A desire for no words to be said other than ‘I am with you.’

It’s a sadness that might have made its entry very early in life.

Is God there?

That shadow can become so strong, dark, and overwhelming that it is like walking at the base of a forest of trees a thousand feet high.

What grows at the base where you tread are mosses and mushrooms. It’s dark, damp, and deadly.

Is God there, and if so, where?

I want a God to banish the sadness. To cut down the trees and open up my path to light.

In talking about the loss of his brother in a fatal plane crash, Larry Crabb expressed his confusion this way.

God, I know you’re good, but what are you good for? Larry Crabb

In those dark moments, we ask the questions people have asked seemingly forever.

Is God there?
Does God care?
Why doesn’t God do something?
Have I done something wrong?
Do I matter to God?
Does God love me?
Does God exist?

We ask because we feel alone, and being alone was the first thing that God described as ‘not good.’

Then the Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper who is just right for him.” Genesis 2:18

You’re not alone

You’re not alone, you’re sitting with sadness, and real humans do that.

And real humans connect with other real humans and form connections that embrace each other’s shared shadow.

We say, in unspoken words, that we don’t understand the mystery of the sadness but that it’s not so mysterious when you have a friend.

I want them in their otherness, not their closed-ness.

As I am silent and sit in the sadness, I am reminded of those who sat with the Christ. Who watched his tears mingle with their own.

Sadness is more easily borne when we have people close who are comfortable with silence and not trying to fix.

Noticing its presence

Something that might help is to notice sadness as a presence that is sitting with you.

Much like you might be sitting with a friend, and they are present with you, notice sadness as an emotion sitting with you.

I see you, I notice you, and there is a reason for your existence. You are normal to the human experience. It’s not abnormal to feel sadness in any human life. In fact, at times, it would be unhealthy and avoidant if we were not experiencing sadness.

Often the sadness you might be experiencing is the accumulation of many moments of sadness unacknowledged and unnoticed. Sadness needs its moments of recognition and acceptance.

We sit with it sitting next to us. We give it space to be itself. It has to express itself for it to be let go of.

Leaving the shadow

The shadow of sadness was never meant to be home. More so, it’s a place to move in and out of.

We rest here, reflect, learn, and commune with some safe others.

God is in the shadow and the light.

We sit in the shadow, learn about a God who is vulnerable and sheds tears, then we take a new millimeter step.

The ghosts of sad events past still echo reminders, but we are not overwhelmed by them. Instead, they are reminders of the up and down journey of faith.

Quotes to consider

Acceptance is not our mode nearly as much as aggression, resistance, fight, or flight. None of them achieve the deep and lasting results of true acceptance and peaceful surrender. Richard Rohr. Breathing Under Water: Spirituality and the Twelve Steps
You cannot heal what you do not first acknowledge. Richard Rohr. Breathing Under Water: Spirituality and the Twelve Steps
It is not events, either past or present, which make us feel the way we feel, but our interpretation of those events. William Backus
To accept some degree of meaninglessness is our final and full act of faith that God is still good and still in control. Richard Rohr
I do not believe that sheer suffering teaches. If suffering alone taught, all the world would be wise, since everyone suffers. To suffering must be added mourning, understanding, patience, love, openness, and the willingness to remain vulnerable. All these and other factors combined, if the circumstances are right, can teach and can lead to rebirth. Anne Morrow Lindbergh