CFC Blog #231: Embracing the Full Spectrum of the Human Experience

Bill’s beautiful piece reminds me of just how interconnected our world is. How crazy is it that one could witness birth and death in the same day? Hold space - as Bill describes himself doing here - for both deep joy and deep mourning within the span of hours?  

I have been clinging to a phrase recently: “grief is ultimately love with nowhere to go.” While life is not a zero sum game, it strikes me how fluid experiences can be, how amorphous our emotions - especially at a time in history like this. It is often embracing this fluidity and having an open heart and mind (something I was thinking about two years ago when I was transitioning to grad school) that I know helps me weather the inevitable ups and downs of life. 

- Lauren

Embracing the Full Spectrum of the Human Experience

In what seems like another life, I used to be a pastor.

Even though I have a very different perspective on life and spirituality than I did in those days, from my early twenties until my mid-thirties I had the privilege of walking alongside people through some of the best and worst days of their lives.  

On one particular Saturday in the summer of 1998, I officiated a wedding and a funeral on the same day. 

In the late morning, I joined with the family members and friends of a young couple who gathered to witness their public profession of love and commitment to each other as they beamed with joy and dreamed about their new life together. 

Later that afternoon, my attention and emotions shifted to the overwhelming grief of a family as they laid to rest a man who died so much earlier than anyone would have hoped. The weeping and wailing that rang throughout that funeral home were palpable. 

Over the past several months, I have had a visceral sense of the grief and anguish that has filled the air, and yet, as I have sought to pay attention, I am seeing so much joy in the midst of the pain.

As I reflect on these days we find ourselves in, my mind keeps drifting back to that day in 1998, probably because it feels like a microcosm of the world we are living in today. 

Recently, within a few days...

I got a text from a very close friend, with news that his 56-year-old father has died after a short battle with COVID-19.

And…

Another dear friend got married, and a couple days later landed a dream job. 

These realities remind me to be open to all that life has to offer. They inspire me to walk toward the joy and the pain, the ups and downs, the wins and the losses. And to truly embrace the full spectrum of the human experience—in my life and the lives of others around me. 

“We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience.” — Pierre Teilhard de Chardin