{"id":2366,"date":"2010-08-01T11:44:09","date_gmt":"2010-08-01T18:44:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thegatheringcincinnati.org\/?p=560"},"modified":"2010-08-01T11:44:09","modified_gmt":"2010-08-01T18:44:09","slug":"emily-dickinson-love-and-loss","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.gnhuu.org\/index.php\/2010\/08\/01\/emily-dickinson-love-and-loss\/","title":{"rendered":"August 1, 2010, Emily Dickinson: Love and Loss"},"content":{"rendered":"

Summer Reading: Love and Poetry<\/strong><\/p>\n

Message 28, \u201cEmily Dickinson: Love and Loss\u201d, 8-01-10\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a9 Doug Slagle, Pastor, The Gathering UCC, All Rights Reserved<\/p>\n

Service-Program-8-01-10<\/a><\/p>\n

(At end of message, please see a related pictorial video link.)<\/p>\n\n

Thornton Wilder, the famous playwright, when he was asked who it is that understands the nature of death and eternity, responded that only<\/span><\/strong> saints and poets have such insight.\u00a0 This month, and in preparation for our September book club, I\u2019ve chosen to look at three poets and their understanding of that greatest of human emotions, love.\u00a0 It is in the various dimensions of love that we find so many of our most significant emotional responses.\u00a0 In deeply caring for another person or another creature, we emote anger, joy, hate, fear, grief, compassion or altruism.\u00a0 For our purposes this month, what knowledge might we gain of ourselves and our world by exploring the topic of love as it relates to loss, to fear and to social justice?\u00a0 I\u2019ve taken three well-known American poets \u2013 Emily Dickinson, Robert Frost and Langston Hughes and chosen to examine one of their lesser known poems to speak to us and offer a springboard for our thoughts and discussion.\u00a0 In doing so, perhaps the relevant poems can offer breath and life to the Sunday topics.\u00a0 Poetry, music and visual images are all windows into our thinking.\u00a0 These forms of communication take ideas and then express them with artful nuance and emotion.\u00a0 I hope we will find such expression with the poems we consider.\u00a0 I also hope our words, our music and some visual cues will inspire our thoughts.\u00a0 These right brain ways of thinking call into work our intuitions and feelings which allows us to internalize and remember the concepts.\u00a0\u00a0 And so, let us today look at love and how each of us must deal with its eventual loss.<\/p>\n

My interest in our topic focusing on loss has much to do with Emily Dickinson and her own life.\u00a0 As a poet, she was unsung and virtually unknown prior to her death.\u00a0 Never married, living an isolated life, likely a lifelong virgin and almost always dressed in white, Emily still experienced the heights of love and the dashed dreams of its loss.\u00a0 To read one particular portion of her poems is to feel her deep love for a sister-in-law, Susan Gilbert Dickinson.\u00a0 This was a passionate love which may never have been fulfilled and was apparently later rejected by Susan.\u00a0 Emily\u2019s love poetry is candid, open and while not luridly specific, leaves many readers wondering if this was a chaste 19th<\/sup> century expression of friendship between two women or a deeper and more profound romantic love.\u00a0 Most modern interpreters classify them as Dickinson\u2019s lesbian poems.\u00a0 Even so, they capture universal sentiments of love and its dimensions of attraction, desire, hope, joy, pain and loss.\u00a0 Let\u2019s now read one of her final poems about Susan entitled \u201cNow I Knew I Lost Her\u201d.\u00a0 You can find the words to the poem on the back of your programs\u2026<\/p>\n

Now I knew I lost her–
\nNot that she was gone–
\nBut Remoteness travelled
\nOn her Face and Tongue.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Alien, though adjoining
\nAs a Foreign Race–
\nTraversed she though pausing
\nLatitudeless Place<\/strong><\/p>\n

Elements Unaltered–
\nUniverse the same
\nBut Love’s transmigration–
\nSomehow this had come–<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/strong><\/p>\n

Henceforth to remember
\nNature took the Day
\nI had paid so much for–
\nHis is Penury
\nNot who toils for Freedom
\nOr for Family
\nBut the Restitution
\nOf Idolatry.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The loss of love is an event shared by everyone.\u00a0 Whether it be from a relationship break-up or a death, the loss of someone we have loved will be experienced by virtually every person at some point in their lives.\u00a0 And this pain is both sharp and memorable.\u00a0 For Emily, the object of her attention and her love might has well have died.\u00a0 Even though she and Susan continued to live next door to one another, after their break-up Emily never again set foot in Susan\u2019s home nor did she write any further love poems \u2013 after having written over 300.\u00a0 Whatever the cause, the one person in Emily\u2019s life with whom she apparently had deep romantic feelings, no longer reciprocated those feelings and became, as Emily writes in the poem, an alien or unknown person.\u00a0 And we feel her pain as we can all likely remember someone who no longer brightens at seeing us and whose attitude, demeanor and interest in us becomes remote, alien, foreign and latitudeless, as Dickinson\u2019s poem so eloquently expresses.\u00a0 Our investment of love, time and passion is not just lost, but we are left with an ache that is difficult to describe.\u00a0 Our love for another cannot be fulfilled.\u00a0 We are, to use a possible comparison, starving for nourishment as we stand next to a table loaded with food that we are forbidden to touch.\u00a0 The object of our desire is so near and yet so very far.\u00a0 We are hungry but we cannot eat.<\/p>\n

Emily\u2019s shock and hurt are compounded by her self-recriminations \u2013 something we often do as well.\u00a0 In the face of loss, we rebuke ourselves for allowing the situation to have ever happened.\u00a0 The goddess of love exacts her toll \u2013 in Emily\u2019s words \u2013 as penury and poverty come not to the noble freedom fighter or devoted parent, but to the love sick one who has created an idol in the image of his or her beloved.\u00a0 And it is this form of sometimes irrational love, that Emily calls idolatry, which she stoically self-condemns.\u00a0 Buddhists see this as harmful attachment to an object or person which hinders self-enlightenment and progress to nirvana.\u00a0 To the Christian, idolatry is the love of anything more than one\u2019s love for god \u2013 and it is completely condemned.\u00a0 For most people, it is a common way we fall in love.\u00a0 And the Bible memorably evoked such anguish in the story of Abraham when he is called by god to sacrifice his only son Isaac.<\/p>\n

As you may know from reading the Bible, Abraham and his wife Sarah were well into advanced age, many, many years past the years of fertility, when they realized they would never have a son.\u00a0 In such a patriarchal and chauvinist culture, sons were worth far more than a daughter.\u00a0 After a series of mishaps and painful episodes as they struggled to fulfill their fervent desire for a son, Sarah miraculously finds herself pregnant.\u00a0 And a boy is born who is named Isaac and all is well with Abraham and Sarah who now see their legacy living onward.\u00a0 A cherished son \u2013 the object of countless hours of prayer and hope and disappointment \u2013 is finally theirs.\u00a0 But soon god decides to test Abraham\u2019s love and trust in him.\u00a0 This is a cruel test to be sure and one that was very likely contrived to instruct instead of being actual history.\u00a0 God, as the story goes, tells Abraham he must take Isaac to the top of Mount Moriah, the hilltop on which Jerusalem was later built, and there kill and sacrifice him as a sign of love for god.\u00a0 And Abraham agrees, despite anguish and pain and much crying on his and Sarah\u2019s part.\u00a0 Just as he is about to plunge a dagger into the heart of his only son \u2013 a boy loved by Abraham virtually as an idol \u2013 god stays his hand and all is made well.\u00a0 This is a cruel, jealous and petty god who is not one I choose to accept, but the story is nevertheless instructive.<\/p>\n

For those who choose to make any thing<\/em><\/strong> or any person<\/em><\/strong> into an object of absolute worship, the hand of fate and pain will eventually take it away.\u00a0 We are called to love with devotion and passion but a loss of clear eyed respect for the soul of the person we love is dangerous for our own well-being.\u00a0 As hideous as this story is \u2013 of a jealous god who petulantly forces Abraham to show his love for him in a sadistic stunt, the lesson we might take from the story is important.\u00a0 In our love for someone, do we objectify<\/span><\/em><\/strong> the other?\u00a0 Is he or she simply an object to which we can attach affection out of some unresolved need or insecurity within us?\u00a0 Or, to the contrary, is our love a kind that does not idealize or idolize the other?\u00a0 Is it a liberating love that, as Abraham was willing to ultimately prove, is capable of loving the other so much that we are willing to let go \u2013 both emotionally and physically?\u00a0\u00a0 If not, then nature will, as Emily Dickinson so wisely observed, have its Day of vengeance, our idol will be taken from us and we will be left in a form of loveless penury.\u00a0 Contrary to all of our love impulses, the more we seek to hold on to our lover, the more we objectify and idolize him or her, the more likely we will be to lose it all.<\/p>\n

I recall the day I learned my ex-wife and I would divorce.\u00a0 We remain good friends today and she has been graciously and wonderfully supportive of me.\u00a0 Even so, even as I sought to come to terms with my own identity, the impending separation and divorce was like a death.\u00a0 I was heartbroken, depressed and cried for days with the coming end of my first loving relationship \u2013 one that lasted 18 years.\u00a0 In its aftermath, I could not eat for many weeks and I lost a lot of weight.\u00a0 My head knew what was best for my wife, for our daughters and for me.\u00a0 But my heart had witnessed a gentle romance, the birth of two cherished children, the long years of education, growth and struggle as we sought to find our individual life purposes and the everyday give and take of a marriage.\u00a0 We were the first lovers for one another, we married very young \u2013 ages 22 and 23, we both knew and discussed my sexuality confusion and we were each other\u2019s best friends.\u00a0 We knew each other as well as two people can understand another.\u00a0 At the end, despite her hopes for me and my concern for her well-being, we parted ways still the deepest of friends but I had an ache and an empty hole in my heart where she had once lived.\u00a0 My circumstances are obviously unique but I know, and I understand, the great pain of love and loss.<\/p>\n

As many of you know who heard him speak here in February, my partner Ed experienced the loss of his first love in a different way.\u00a0 His first partner died from the ravages of AIDS and Ed was left to mourn alone without the support of family or many friends.\u00a0 Ed fell in love when Michael had already been diagnosed with AIDS, so he never contracted HIV himself but he was forced to watch the person he loved \u2013 and still deeply loves \u2013 slowly slip away.<\/p>\n

And from private conversations with some of you, I have been honored to share a bit of your private pain \u2013 the gnawing, heart-wrenching ache of lost love.\u00a0 It is as if we are each taunted by the gods and goddesses of Eros to climb the summit of attraction, passion and soul pleasing love.\u00a0 And then, once at that summit, too many of us find ourselves tossed into the abyss.\u00a0 Mountain top euphoria gives way to the valley of tears.<\/p>\n

But, of course, we rarely stay in the valley of tears.\u00a0 We all have heard of the several stages of grief \u2013 time periods within the process of emotional healing which vary in duration and severity from person to person.\u00a0 These were first proposed by Elizabeth Kubler-Ross and have often been used by therapists to assist persons in dealing with personal tragedy.\u00a0 As we first learn of lost love, we often move into a period of shock, denial and numbness.\u00a0 Our senses cannot comprehend the tragedy and so we find ways to cope \u2013 we shut down, we ignore reality and we cease to feel.\u00a0 Emotional and physical shock are ways we cope with pain \u2013 the natural instinct is to deny our loss so that the pain cannot be felt.\u00a0 When this emotional shock wears off \u2013 which it always does, we are confronted with what is true \u2013 the end of a romance, a partnership, or a marriage.\u00a0 Our common instinct then is to react with fear which manifests in anger, depression or both.\u00a0 It is often here that the dark pit seems to envelope us.\u00a0 We are still close enough to the past feeling of love that its loss is so acute and so powerful, we are in deep and sharp pain.\u00a0 Often, we have difficulty emerging from this place where hurt cannot be avoided, reality has set in and we are in mourning.<\/p>\n

Experts all suggest that this phase of grief is not only common but ultimately healthy.\u00a0 In order to heal, we must allow ourselves to feel, to cry and to mourn.\u00a0 This is a part of a normal healing process.\u00a0 Life is all about loss \u2013 we along with all of nature are continually in a state of creation and re-creation where, in order for new life to occur, some loss must happen.<\/p>\n

To deny our loss or to sublimate the feeling is to remain in the first stage of denial.\u00a0 Too often our cultures tells us that grief must be stoic, silent and unmentioned.\u00a0 It is not proper or mature to cry, to mourn and to deeply feel a loss.\u00a0 Many experts disagree.\u00a0 And I do too.\u00a0 We all know that crying or venting our anger in safe places is cathartic, that it releases pent-up emotions and thus gives them free expression.<\/p>\n

In one often quoted teaching from Jesus \u2013 \u201cthe truth will set you free\u201d<\/strong> \u2013 I believe it is in acknowledging the truth of our feelings and their open expression that our hearts and minds are liberated.\u00a0 In this regard, we are not alone and we should seek friends, family and communities like the Gathering to share our grief.\u00a0 In doing so, we accept our loss of love and the pain that results.\u00a0 In our state of grief, we must also give ourselves time and space to experience it fully.\u00a0 Some might cry once and that is enough.\u00a0 For others, the pain is more acute and it must be continually acknowledged and brought into the open with gentle friends or with professional counselors.\u00a0 As Jesus taught in his Sermon on the Mount, \u201c<\/strong>Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.\u201d<\/strong> <\/strong><\/p>\n

Some days will be good ones as we seem to move beyond the hurt of loss.\u00a0 On other days, we will regress and mourn or feel anger all the more.\u00a0 This too is normal according to many therapists.\u00a0 The trajectory of healing is individual and it is often marked by many ups and downs and many mistakes.\u00a0 And that is not only ok, it is good.<\/p>\n

Eventually, we arrive at a place where we realize that despite the loss of love, a new life is possible.\u00a0 We will survive.\u00a0 We are not destined to live forever in the valley of tears.\u00a0 The process of re-creation and renewal has begun.\u00a0 Our love is not forgotten or forsaken.\u00a0 It has just been moved into an appropriate place in our memories \u2013 one where we might cherish the love we experienced and give thanks for it, or one where we might appreciate all that we learned from the painful loss. \u00a0With every death there is new life and with every loss there is something new to be found.\u00a0 The Bible\u2019s Book of Psalms poetically says, \u201c<\/strong>Weeping may remain for a night, but rejoicing comes in the morning.\u201d<\/strong> <\/strong><\/p>\n

And it is at that perfect emotional place where I believe true healing has taken place.\u00a0 For us to love, we must undertake risk \u2013 risk that the other will not respond the same way, risk that the other will hurt us or leave us, risk that the other will die or even risk that our own love will wane and not remain.\u00a0 But for each person who experiences the summit of passion, this feeling is worth the risk.\u00a0 For most, the summit does not last and they move on to a more constant and tranquil form of love.\u00a0 While all of our loves are eventually lost, we are never the worse for it.\u00a0 Indeed, I believe that love is actually never really lost \u2013 it is just transformed to a newer reality.\u00a0 If we understand that the love we had still remains but in a different form, we can celebrate the fact that we once were on the mountain top, we did experience the exhilaration of attraction and the realm of pleasure given and pleasure received.\u00a0 Even if the object of our love has hurt us, that does not negate the beauty of our original love.\u00a0 We can give thanks for it and for the many ways we learned and grew into more enlightened individuals.\u00a0 In this regard, I am reminded of a silly but nevertheless profound bumper sticker I once saw.\u00a0 It read, \u201cLove like you will never be hurt.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

For Emily Dickinson, she refused to accept such a truth.\u00a0 For her, to have loved once and then lost it meant a lifetime of relative isolation and stoic acceptance of fate.\u00a0 Until her death, she regularly dressed herself all in white as if she were some young virgin on the threshold of a great romance.\u00a0 She poured her heart out in poems and letters \u2013 many of which were never sent or shown to others.\u00a0 And it would not be until after she died that her relatives discovered many volumes of poems and letters she had written offering insight and beauty into her lonely pain. \u00a0Apparently, Emily never consummated a loving relationship and the pain from the love she lost with Susan appears to have sadly never healed.\u00a0 And yet, in so many ways, the love she had did not die as it lives on forever in her poetry.\u00a0 Emily may not have emerged from her loss, but she has likely helped countless others understand such pain.<\/p>\n

Love is the nectar of life.\u00a0 It is what moves and motivates the world.\u00a0 We form relationships, we create life, we work and we play – all for love.\u00a0 We might love things or money or other people, but we are driven by its force.\u00a0 Ultimately, I believe all human relationships either succeed or fail due to how skillfully we love.\u00a0 And while the method<\/span><\/em><\/strong> of our love is a topic for another day, the loss<\/span><\/em><\/strong> of love is one we consider today.\u00a0 How do we understand, grieve, and heal from love\u2019s loss?\u00a0 Be it from death or mistake or hate or a natural separation of ways, we will all lose at the game of love.\u00a0 But it is a game \u2013 if it were only that – which we cannot and must not refuse to play.\u00a0\u00a0 To love and be loved.\u00a0 Such is life.\u00a0 We all want to know what love is.\u00a0 We all want to feel its life enriching power.\u00a0 We want to see it, feel it and live within it.\u00a0 But, despite the risk of loss, despite pain, anger and denial, we must always \u2013 we must always – love<\/strong> freely and love extravagantly\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n

Click here to link to a related pictorial video<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Summer Reading: Love and Poetry Message 28, \u201cEmily Dickinson: Love and Loss\u201d, 8-01-10 \u00a9 Doug Slagle, Pastor, The Gathering UCC, All Rights Reserved Service-Program-8-01-10 (At end of message, please see a related pictorial video link.) Thornton Wilder, the famous playwright, when he was asked who it is that understands the nature of death and eternity, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2366","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gnhuu.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2366","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gnhuu.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gnhuu.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gnhuu.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gnhuu.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2366"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.gnhuu.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2366\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gnhuu.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2366"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gnhuu.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2366"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gnhuu.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2366"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}