A phone rang on a Sunday morning in September 1959. It broke into the joyful chaos that is life with five children between the ages of three and fourteen. It was a phone call she knew was coming, but that fact never does prepare one fully for the reality. It was the phone call that told her that her beloved husband, her soulmate, the father of her children was dead at the age of 38. The brain tumor that had taken his health and vitality, and had even begun to take his personality over the summer, had taken his life.
Breaking into the silence of an empty nest, a phone rang in the summer of 1972. She thought it might be one of her kids calling or perhaps her surgeon husband calling to say he was on his way home. It was the phone call that told her that those swollen lymph nodes she had noticed were not the lingering effects of a winter cold: they were cancer.
A phone rang in a farmhouse kitchen on a cold January morning in 1990. The nurse on the other end confirmed what she already knew in her heart. Her husband of 27 years had died in the night. His body had given out. The cancer that had spread throughout his body and sent him into a coma, had taken his life.
The portable phone on the end table next to the couch rang on a fall afternoon in 2003 and interrupted the quiet solitude of an afternoon spent knitting and reading. It was her doctor on the line. The biopsy results were back. She had lymphoma.
These four phone calls all came to the same woman. And each time she hung up the phone, she had a choice. When she lost her parents or had to endure the pain of watching her own children or grandchildren suffer, she had a choice. Her choice was to let that piece of news, that painful, horrible loss be the defining event of her life or to look around her and be grateful. If she chose the former it would be the lens through which she viewed the world and she would let tragedy define her. It would be a lens that would be a source of stress and worry. It would be an approach that would mean she would always be waiting for the other shoe to drop. It would be an approach that would not add hours to her span of life but instead would diminish the quality of her life.
Or if she chose the latter, if she chose gratitude, then she could celebrate the life and joys of her children. She could be an active and involved mother who continued to play tennis and take her children to the lake in the summer. She could marry again and spend the happy years of her husband’s retirement living on a farm in Maine. She could be the host to her grandchildren for countless summers, reading to them, teaching them about the farm, and about their own family history. She could be a great-grandmother who moved to an apartment in the city to be nearer to her family and to be able to watch her great-grandchildren learn to walk.
The woman on the receiving end of these phone calls was my grandmother. She died in the spring of 2013 at the age of 92. She was a woman who dealt with a significant amount of personal tragedy, and who chose to let her life be defined by its many blessings rather than its tragic losses.
Today is All Saints Day and it is a day on which we remember those we have lost — those who have been “saints” in our lives and in our faith, those who have been examples and inspirations to us on our own faith journeys.
In our gospel this morning, Luke tells us that those who are poor or hungry or mourning are blessed because they will be provided for and comforted. Luke tells us not to fight back when we are persecuted, but rather to overcome challenges with kindness and gentleness. We have the classic passage that reminds us to “turn the other cheek” if we are struck. I have often thought of these passages as being about direct confrontation — about the times when we are physically harmed by another person. But in reflecting on these passages in light of my grandmother’s life, I realize they can be taken on a more metaphorical level. They are not just about the times in our lives when we have been persecuted or confronted by another human being, they are about any time in our lives when we have faced a significant challenge, when we have struggled, when we have lost someone.
We can be blessed in the midst of our pain; we can overcome challenges with kindness and generosity. But this doesn’t just happen by itself. It requires action on our part. It is a choice we make, just as my grandmother did. It is a choice we make to either let our lives be defined by what is missing, by the pain we have suffered and what we have lost or to allow our lives to be defined by our blessings, by all the gifts and sources of joy we have.
Being blessed doesn’t just automatically happen — it is like forgiveness, it may be freely offered by God, but it only has meaning in our lives if we accept it and live with gratitude for the gifts we have been given.
I am sure we all know people who have had moments of choosing loss, choosing pain. We have all had those times when we have preferred to stay in our own misery and discomfort, because at least they are familiar and may make us feel more in control. We have had those times when hurt or anger have gotten the better of us. We’ve had those times when we feel that God or the world owes us because it is entirely unfair that we should have to suffer. The issue, ultimately, is not whether or not we have moments of being focused on our pain or our anger. We are right to be angry. We are right to cry out in pain when we suffer. Sometimes life is horribly unfair. We lose jobs. We fail tests in school. Beloved young people die far before their time. Our bodies give out. We are faced with illnesses and our own mortality. Sometimes life is really hard. It is okay to be angry and it is okay to be sad. The issue is whether or not we stay in that place — whether we choose to let our anger and our pain get the best of us. The issue is whether we choose to let them blind us to all the gifts and blessings in our lives.
This is why I am so grateful for my grandmother and her incredible example of faith. She faced a great deal of loss and challenges in her life, but she never let them define her. Nor did she expect her life to go perfectly or be devoid of suffering. Those who do let loss define them, those who expect life to go just swimmingly, are the ones being warned in Luke’s gospel today: "Woe to you who are full now, for you will be hungry. Woe to you who are laughing now, for you will mourn and weep. Woe to you when all speak well of you, for that is what their ancestors did to the false prophets” (Luke 6:24-26).
We will face challenges and difficulties in the course of our lives. It is best to come to grips with that fact and not live with the presumption that everything will go swimmingly. We will not always be full, laughing, or spoken well of. But that does not mean that our lives will be overwhelmed by pain or challenge. No; we are people of faith. We believe in resurrection. We believe that the love of God is stronger than anything in this world, even death. As the psalmist says, “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth should change, though the mountains shake in the heart of the sea; though its waters roar and foam, though the mountains tremble with its tumult” (Psalm 46:1-3).
As people of faith, we can choose to trust in God. We can choose to seek out our blessings. We can choose to live with gratitude. We can choose to follow the example of all the saints in our lives, all those who have been examples of strength and hope to us, by choosing to define our lives by joy and blessing rather than by pain and loss. The challenges will come, and it is by holding fast to our faith, to our hope, to the ever-present reality of love and blessings in our lives that we can overcome those challenges.
The world needs more people whose lives are defined not by pain and loss, but by love and blessing. The world needs more blessing. Let us give thanks this day for all those in our lives who have showed us what it is to bless the world with our lives. Let us go forth and do likewise. Amen.