Carry Sorrow?

RantWoman mental excursion during a recent Meeting for Worship:

"...Dietrich Bonhoffer writing about '..blessed are those who mourn' except Bonhoffer was translating from Greek to German using words which translate as 'blessed are those who carry sorrow.'"


RantWoman language brain:

...carry idioms in Spanish...


-- ...determinate and indeterminate verbs of motion in Russion, going straight from Pt. A to Pt B or wandering around in space and time...?



But what if it's not regret exactly and definitely not trying to fix, just carrying around, or in RantWoman's case, physically carrying from one place to another through the sheer physical accident of one's feet going from one place to another.?

RantWoman is thinking of Weighty Blind Friend. Toward the end of Weighty Blind Friend's life, a couple years before RantWoman's own  vision began obviously to melt, she invited RantWoman to join her Care Committee. In our Meeting care committees do different kinds of looking in on a person, helping them with details of life or loss or illness depending on need. Care committees are semi-formal with some discernment about who to ask to join, some practices to help all sides have realistic expectations. Realism seems to be a key element; at it's best, realism buoyed by tenderness.

Weighty Blind Friend asked RantWoman to join her care committee. RantWoman accepted and went faithfully to committee meetings. RantWoman found it easy enough to attend consistently because of living on the same bus route; RantWoman did not necessarily find it easy to visit more often: RantWoman could visit on her own way home by hopping off one bus, stopping for a visit, and getting a later bus home, but going round trip involved a tiresome underpass and some pedestrian backtracking. In other words Care Committee and time at Meeting were it.

RantWoman listened to life details and upheld the care of those who took Weighty Blind Friend shopping, gave her rides, to Meeting, and sometimes tracked other matters RantWoman did little else except also make sure to say "Hi" when someone else brought Weighty Blind Friend to Meeting. RantWoman would have been happy to call Weighty Blind Friend for periodic chats, but Weighty Blind Friend really no longer enjoyed the telephone and all felt much better connected in person.

In Weighty Blind Friend's case, part of tender realism had to do with the fuzzy boundary between managing independently and needing more help than a care committee can provide. Weighty Blind Friend's care committee did the best we could. RantWoman has previously written of Weighty Blind Friend here:
http://rantwomanrsof.blogspot.com/2013/01/because-god-asked-you-to-all-ministers.html


That is not the carry sorrow story on RantWoman's heart today.

A few years after Weighty Blind Friend passed away, RantWoman got to go to the state convention of the WA Council of the Blind. RantWoman's ineptness as a social butterfly has previously been noted but one night during the convention, RantWoman wanted into a meeting of the history committee. RantWoman heard details of history she is REALLY glad never to have previously interacted with.

Then RantWoman brought up Weighty Blind Friend's name. RantWoman was deeply touched to realize that she was in the room with a number of Weighty Blind Friend's former professional colleagues. Former colleagues no less than Weighty Blind Friend found it hard to go anywhere; some were more into the telephone than others but Weighty Blind Friend was not alone in being less than enthusiastic about it.In other words, never mind getting together or calling each other up. RantWoman was kind of it as far as sustained contact. RantWoman was further delighted to hear Weighty Blind Friend's colleagues' genuine gratitude for news, even sad news of care and community. This gratitude is one of the ways that knowing Weighty Blind Friend has given RantWoman courage. a sense of how small things, specific circumstances sometimes matter a great deal.

RantWoman previously had thought little about moments when one carries assorted sorrows but the carrying is carrying but not necessarily burdensome. Blessed are those who....



PS
RantWoman was looking on this blog for something else and also came across an item about the passage above
http://chrismsf.blogspot.com/search?q=seasoned