Christopher S. Penn – Marketing AI Keynote Speaker

A Choice with Grief

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Christopher S Penn
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A Choice with Grief

You have a choice with grief that results from loss, from death. On the one hand, you can choose to let it consume you, to let it haunt you, sapping your vitality away, until all that is left is a mere shell of what once was a human being. This was the fate of my grandmother after her husband of 50 years died. She lingered on for years after, but her heart and soul died with her husband, and her body just needed to catch up.

On the other hand, you can transmute grief. You can transform it into raw motivation, motivation to do great things, accomplish great works, help as many people as you can, in the name of the person you’ve lost, until their name outshines the grief, banishing the darkness with the light you dedicate to them. Your grief can be fuel for the fires of creation, solution, and that grief can change the world, make it a better place for all who survive the one who was lost.

How will you honor the ones you’ve lost?

Seems I lost my my status quo.
I looked up one day, you were pulled away
now I ain’t got much to show.
Where you’ve gone to I don’t know,
But I can love you.

And if you love me I can hold on tight,
and if you love me I won’t fall off this ride.
And if you love me I can go anywhere.

So I will wait for you I swear.
The night feels like it’s unending,
but I don’t care.
And I will wait for you I swear.
The sun’s coming up in the morning
and I’ll be there.

Every step just makes me tired.
Every answer brings more questions.
Though I try to feel inspired,
I can’t change the way I’m wired,
but I can love you.

And if you love me you can heal my scars.
and if you love me I’ll move to the stars.
And if you love me I can bend but I won’t tear.

When it’s done we’re not alone–
the door opens on its own
and we will come home.

– Matthew Ebel

Dedicated to Ashley Spencer’s kids.

Comments

5 responses to “A Choice with Grief”

  1. A Choice with Grief

    […] and in that role I was lucky enough last year to meet a wonderful blogger and podcaster called Christopher Penn who has just written a beautiful post on grief and how we can either let it destroy us or use it as […]

    Reply
  2. Matt Searles Avatar
    Matt Searles

    I’m struggling with this right now. It seems to me that transformation, particularly in light of death, isn’t a totally conscious process, and arguably making choices in general isn’t as much a conscious process as we often think of it as.

    For me the transformation started before my mom died. I imagine it must sound like a strange thing to most people.. but it was as if there where these little whispers speaking to me.. as if coming to me from beneath realities surface. I just sorta stood in wonder, and kind of still do.

    People often talk about “God’s plan” but often such talk sounds like.. nothing more then an idea you might use to try and comfort your self when, to put it in technical psychoanalytic terms, you’re ego was somehow threatened. But the thing for me was that those whispers seemed to speak of a plan, that you could pear into like some old testimate prophet. The whispers seemed to be answering my hearts questions.. And when my mom did die, beneath all the grief and loss and all the rest of it.. in the terms of the whispers, it kinda sorta seemed right, almost like a miracle.

    God is, after all, a symbol of a mystery. The ration of the known to the unknown is what.. 1 to infinity? Meaning comes from context so what does anything mean if the ultimate context in a mystery? And then isn’t life and death kinda the ultimate mystery?

    We spend half our lives getting to know the world out side our selves, and the other half getting to know the world within. I believe in a process of dialog with the unconscious, that true transformation comes out of this kind of dialog.. with lets say both the unconscious and the mystery more generally.

    It’s funny how some of Matthew’s lyrics echo my own experience. Jung used to say that religion is a defense against religious experience… and there’s a way that a status quo experience of reality blocks out the mystery.. I mean maybe you need something like that for survival, for worldly pursuits.. but in grief that shatters… like some superficial idea that has no business being clung to. When that shatters you get flung into the unconscious.

    It’s a bit like Zen mediation on emptiness. Psychologically, such meditation creates a psychic vacuum on the level of the conscious mind… the energy can then go beneath the surface with the potential of activating unconscious content that can that blast out at us, into our vacuum, in the form of a satori or revelation.

    Well, I guess this is sorta long from a blog comment, so I guess I’ll leave that there.

    Reply
  3. Matt Searles Avatar
    Matt Searles

    I’m struggling with this right now. It seems to me that transformation, particularly in light of death, isn’t a totally conscious process, and arguably making choices in general isn’t as much a conscious process as we often think of it as.

    For me the transformation started before my mom died. I imagine it must sound like a strange thing to most people.. but it was as if there where these little whispers speaking to me.. as if coming to me from beneath realities surface. I just sorta stood in wonder, and kind of still do.

    People often talk about “God’s plan” but often such talk sounds like.. nothing more then an idea you might use to try and comfort your self when, to put it in technical psychoanalytic terms, you’re ego was somehow threatened. But the thing for me was that those whispers seemed to speak of a plan, that you could pear into like some old testimate prophet. The whispers seemed to be answering my hearts questions.. And when my mom did die, beneath all the grief and loss and all the rest of it.. in the terms of the whispers, it kinda sorta seemed right, almost like a miracle.

    God is, after all, a symbol of a mystery. The ration of the known to the unknown is what.. 1 to infinity? Meaning comes from context so what does anything mean if the ultimate context in a mystery? And then isn’t life and death kinda the ultimate mystery?

    We spend half our lives getting to know the world out side our selves, and the other half getting to know the world within. I believe in a process of dialog with the unconscious, that true transformation comes out of this kind of dialog.. with lets say both the unconscious and the mystery more generally.

    It’s funny how some of Matthew’s lyrics echo my own experience. Jung used to say that religion is a defense against religious experience… and there’s a way that a status quo experience of reality blocks out the mystery.. I mean maybe you need something like that for survival, for worldly pursuits.. but in grief that shatters… like some superficial idea that has no business being clung to. When that shatters you get flung into the unconscious.

    It’s a bit like Zen mediation on emptiness. Psychologically, such meditation creates a psychic vacuum on the level of the conscious mind… the energy can then go beneath the surface with the potential of activating unconscious content that can that blast out at us, into our vacuum, in the form of a satori or revelation.

    Well, I guess this is sorta long from a blog comment, so I guess I’ll leave that there.

    Reply
  4. Chel Wolverton Avatar
    Chel Wolverton

    So many messages behind this and great thoughts. *hugs you* Thanks.

    Reply
  5. Michelle / chelpixie Avatar
    Michelle / chelpixie

    So many messages behind this and great thoughts. *hugs you* Thanks.

    Reply

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