The Right Way to Mourn?

Photo from Yahoo News

As I skimmed the headlines this morning, I saw an article about thousands of Turks coming together to mourn a 15 year old boy’s death.  Curious, I clicked on the link to find out the significance of the young man’s life (all lives are significant, but not everyone pulls a crowd of thousands).  In a nut shell, the boy was hit in the head with a tear gas canister and died after nine months in a coma.

The details are not the point I find intriguing.  Rather, what is different in cultures that mourn, celebrate, and live life en masse compared to more reserved cultures that feign being moderately alright, when in reality they are hurting inside?

I remember reading a book in college that observed the grieving process of a particular tribe.  The people in the tribe did not quietly cry, keeping to themselves with the pretense of being alright.  Instead, they wept, wailed, enacted rituals, ever increasing their emotions, resulting in some becoming physically sick.

Diversity is a beautiful thing.  People learn from each other and other cultures.  While it seems haughty to cite a society as being wrong or bad, I cannot help but wonder what scares/intimidates certain societies about being vulnerable, intimate, open, transparent with each other, while others embrace it.

My senior year of college I took a class on the book of the Bible, Psalms.  The most important lesson I learned from that class was the value of emotion.  God created us to feel.  There are several types of Psalms, one of which is the lament.  While the typical “lament psalm” has the writer process through despairing feelings regarding a situation, they end by acknowledge God’s love and power and praise Him for it.  However, the exception to the rule can be found in one or two laments psalms in which the writer is so distraught that he does not close in love and honor of God.

As Psalm 103 reminds us, we are dust, and God knows it.  He created us to feel and does not expect perfection from us, as we are unable to give it.

I’d love to hear your thoughts if any of this struck a chord in you!

Memories of Shirley Temple

Via

I awoke bleary eyed to “Breaking News: Shirley Temple Dead at 85.”

WHAT?!

I am attached to my actors and actresses.  I remember when Don Knotts, Fred Rogers, Buddy Ebsen, Bob Hope, and Andy Griffith all died.  I felt, with many of them, that I’d lost a friend.  I felt I had a personal connection with them that was deeper than other peoples’.  After all, how many people my age watched the old films and shows they were in?

And now, the actress who played opposite Cary Grant and then became a political figure, is dead.

I loved Shirley Temple in Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm, Heidi, The Little Princess, The Bachelor and the Bobby Soxer, The Story of Seabiscuit, and so many others.

When I was in 6th grade, I went to spend the weekend with two friends.  We got a Shirley Temple movie out of the library and put curlers in our hair that night so we could have curls like hers!  Such special memories.

Slowly the era of my favorite movies is slipping away.  I just learned that Katharine Hepburn died in 2003.  I think I vaguely remember it, as that was also the year that Buddy Ebsen (Jed Clampett) and Bob Hope died.  However, in my mind it means there was the potential I could have met Hepburn–albeit slim.

Now that Shirley Temple is dead, it’s a sort of sinking feeling that affirms, I will not get to meet her.  Now, when I watch her movies, instead of thinking, “Oh!  She’s still alive!”  I’ll know she is dead.  Not to sound morbid, but it’s true.

If this snowpocolypse that has area schools closing early tomorrow hits, I may just take advantage of the snow in and watch Shirley Temple movie!