The Shaping of Sadness

Autumn.

It is full of new school supplies like sharp yellow pencils and crisp reams of paper, new schedules, layered clothes and boots, steamy beverages, and fiery colors at our feet and against the sky. Brisk wind dances with the possibility of learning something or meeting someone we have never known before.

There’s also an undercurrent of melancholy to autumn, a beautiful ache that seems to whisper in every falling leaf, “Remember when?, “Let go” or “Maybe there’s more beneath and beyond it all”.

Do you hear the ache?

I’ve been reading “Song for Autumn” by Mary Oliver aloud over my spiritual direction friends ever since my spiritual director read it over me. Here it is for you.

I hear the song of longing, sadness, and possibility much like these recent scenes from my life.

nAn old memory rose to my pen, a painful break-up in college, made more so by the tragic death of his younger brother during Thanksgiving break.

“We broke up when my hair was long and wild, sweater off one shoulder. I drove across town and bought a canvas, a jar of gesso, paints in black and blue. A tube of titanium white.

I spent days painting an abstract scene of full sails on rough waters. I propped it up on a ledge in my dorm room and went to Mad Dog and Beans for a burger. The cute boy who took my order asked me out for coffee. I said no. I had painting to do.

Eventually came creativity, compassion, awe, and a deeper friendship with the astounding God who chases and catches me in a fall. This fall day has me thinking of that time and the shaping of sadness.”

I was thinking of all that break-up eventually gave me. But not until I waded through it, torn and heavy.

That break-up reminded me of other sad times in my life - moving before I was ready (many times), betrayals and rejections from people I loved, loss of friendships, miscarriages, sharp, unkind words just when I let my guard down, when I first met autism, and the death of a dear mama friend way before she was done mothering.

It wasn’t fun to let all that heartache rise to the surface. We may have been taught to forge ahead and put our pain behind us without taking a long look at it. But lament is part of an honest life.

Michael Card reminds us that lament is a lost language,

“Jesus understood the honesty represented in the life that knows how to lament.”

Our sorrow and joy are quirky friends who often hang out together. In fact, I find so much goodness happens when they do.

Along with my broken heart from miscarriages came the awe and care of God knowing us before we were born, along with meeting autism up close in our family was compassion and appreciation for all kinds of wiring and ways of learning and running to Jesus with my sadness.

Along with my heartache, come other gifts shaped by sadness - humility, gratefulness, patience, tenderness in the face of grief, deeper desires for God, hints of wisdom from Jesus’ suffering, heightened awareness of Christ’s nearness to my broken heart.

As I was writing this, a friend reminded me that repentance has been a gift shaped by her sadness.

Michael Card again,

“If it is true that we must be conformed to His image (Romans 8:29), then perhaps we must learn to speak His lost language [of lament].”

I offer you two practices that have helped me through sorrow.

One is taking nature walks and collecting bits and pieces of the season. Creation is full of signs of life and death and life again. Here is the bounty of an autumn walk I took recently.

Another practice I find cathartic is holding what I call an Ollie bowl and inviting Christ to fill it up. An Ollie bowl is any empty, preferably irregularly handmade bowl you can wrap your hands around in prayer while you pour out your heart to our listening God.

Read on about my Ollie bowl.

“I emptied my Ollie bowl of its contents and started holding it during my prayers. It was a symbol of pouring my heart out to God; all of my worry, sadness, joy, hurt, anger and praise. At the same time, I invited our Ocean-Pouring God to fill me up with who he is - generous, constant, faithful, patient, kind, good, beautiful, just, merciful. My Ollie bowl reminds me not to hold things in and carry them all alone. The empty bowl is meant to hold space for God to work; He Who is made to carry them with me and ultimately Who holds them in his hand. I hold to let God hold me.”
Terri Conlin

My friend, Susan, has given Ollie bowls she found on Etsy as gifts to hurting friends along with an excerpt from my blog like the one above. Feel free to copy her great idea and use my words. We are all in this terrible, beautiful life together.

Want to find your own Ollie bowl?

I recently found another Ollie bowl while thrifting with my youngest daughter. This one is smooth without a live edge but feels as though it was made in a home wood shop. It has a heft that feels good resting in my hands on my lap. You’ll know it when you hold one in your hands.

If you want an Ollie bowl for yourself or a friend, try this on Etsy or this on Amazon. (I have ordered similar ones, but they are rustic so please read all reviews for size, shape, and quality before ordering.)

If you want to read more about being honest in your friendship with God, here is a post about the art of lament.

7 Things I Learned this Fall (2022)

5 Things I Learned This Summer (2022)