Navigating Collective Grief: Finding Faith, Resilience, and Solace in our Shared Struggles

How does collective grief impact our faith and resilience? In our recent heart-stirring episode of Resilient Faith, Pastor Laura East candidly explores this profound question. She paints a vivid picture of the shared pain and loss we all experience, emphasizing our interconnectedness during times of turmoil. Our conversation journeys into the inspiring pages of the book 'Lives we Actually have 100 Blessings for Imperfect Days' and shares a powerful blessing designed to comfort us during internal and external trials.

Pressing onward, you'll find solace as Laura invokes a prayer for God's mercy and peace in the face of overwhelming violence and destruction. Her encouraging words prompt us to lean on our faith community for comfort, reminding us that we are not alone in our struggles. The icing on the cake is the thrilling announcement of a six-week series based on their popular sermon series, 'The Gospel according to Taylor Swift'. We also shed light on the Brentwood Presbyterian Church's online services, allowing you to join our Sunday service virtually. Tune in to this episode and find your strength, motivation, and solace amidst adversity.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:08):
Welcome to Resilient Faith, the podcast.
Opportunities to find deeperresilience within ourselves can
come when life seems mostchallenging.
This podcast is to help youdevelop that resilience and
connection with God.
Being resilient and havingpower starts with faith.

Speaker 2 (00:41):
Welcome, friends, to another episode of the Resilient
Faith podcast.
My name is Pastor Laura Eastand I'm so glad to be with you
today.
As we are citizens of the world, we are not exempt from
experiencing the pain and griefwhen terrible things happen,

(01:07):
both near and far.
And so, as we continue to readthe news, as we continue to
check our social media feeds, aswe continue to connect with our
friends, our family, our lovedones, we can be reminded how
small the world actually is andhow closely we are impacted by

(01:31):
war, by natural disaster, bygrief, by death, by loss, and
that, as a part of the humanexperience, we often have
collective grief.
It doesn't even have to be forone particular thing or for one
particular person, but sometimesthe culmination of so many

(01:53):
things, of the experience ofhuman suffering, can gather us
together in this collectivegrief.
And so today, as I wasreflecting on what to share with
us, I turned to a book I havebeen turning to frequently over

(02:15):
the last couple of months.
It's a book I'm really enjoying.
It's called the Lives weActually have 100 Blessings for
Imperfect Days.
It's by Kate Bowler and JessicaRichie, so I wanted to read
this blessing called FourCollective Grief, and I share

(02:40):
this with us, for whatever isgoing on in our lives, whatever
is going on in our world that istouching us so deeply, it can
be external, it can be internal,it could be both.
We are really living in someboth, and space where we are

(03:04):
experiencing things that arehappening in our world far away
and things close by.
So, friends, hear this blessingfor collective grief.
This world, impossible,unthinkable.

(03:25):
We are brought to our knees,God.
Today there is no true north,and when I last checked, the sun
did not rise at all.
Today, the innocent stillsuffer, buildings still fall,

(03:46):
families still grieve.
A world has ended without anyreasonable fanfare.
This is the way of tragedy, howit breaks in and robs us while
we sleep.
Help us to know what to feel,what to do, how to grieve

(04:10):
together.
Blessed are we who try to seethings clearly, though the truth
of it all feels unimaginable.
Blessed are we who ask and waitand ask again for answers that
may not come, for hope thatseems hard to find, for comfort

(04:36):
that is not easily offered Alongthe way, show us how to live
when we've lost the things wecannot get back.
Remind us that you, o God, areour home and our refuge when
life's unthinkable fragility istoo difficult to hold.

(04:57):
Take my hands as we let thisblessing for collective grief

(05:38):
marinate in this space, marinatein our spirits and our bodies.
I offer this prayer.
Oh God, it seems likeeverywhere we look in our world

(05:59):
today, there is violence anddestruction and trauma, fires
and floods and earthquakes andwar.
It is overwhelming.
It can be easy to fall intodespair and hopelessness.
So much violence, so manyinnocent victims.
We are all your children,creator, and we know you value

(06:23):
each of our lives.
The same God.
We pray for our Jewish siblings,near and far, who are
experiencing devastating griefand terror.
We pray for our Palestiniansiblings suffering destruction
and death.
God, we pray for those who aresuffering in ways often

(06:46):
unfathomable.
When peace feels like animpossibility, remind us of your
peace that surpasses allunderstanding.
When the darkness feelsall-encompassing, remind us of
the light that shines in thedarkness.
Remind us of your love and yourgrace and your mercy.

(07:08):
Give your Holy Spirit upon usto fan the flame of love and
justice in our hearts and in ourworld Through your son Jesus.
We know that you are with usand are suffering, and you hear
our cries.
Help us lean on one anotherduring these difficult times, so

(07:29):
that we can be comforted in ourcommunity of faith.
For us is your hands and feetin the world to enact justice
and righteousness.
Hold us fast, o God, thykingdom come, lord, have mercy

(07:50):
Christ.
Have mercy, spirit.
Have mercy, amen.
Friends, we hope and pray thatthis season of blessings and

(08:16):
prayers has been meaningful foryou, and, of course, they are
available for you to go back andre-listen to at any point.
You need something a littleinspiring, a little motivating
or something that just bearswitness to our collective lives.

(08:36):
I'm excited to let you know thatnext week we are going to be
launching a six-week seriesusing our sermons that we
preached earlier this fall.
The series is the Gospelaccording to Taylor Swift.
We had so much fun doing thissermon series earlier this fall

(09:01):
and we are excited to share itwith you.
We had a great conversationwith myself and Pastor Dave and
our worship and arts director,nancy Reeves, and the producer
of this podcast, janice McQueen,and so we're excited to share

(09:22):
that conversation with you,where we talk a little bit about
the series and what ourexperience was of doing it, and
then you'll be able to hear thesermons in this podcast as well,
so something to look forward tobeloveds.
I hope you enjoy it.
Know that you are always in ourprayers and that we do this

(09:49):
podcast for you.
Please feel free to check outthe Brentwood Presbyterian
Church website, bpcusaorg.
You can check us out onFacebook, on YouTube, on
Instagram, we do webcast ourSunday morning service.
If you are not local to LosAngeles, you can worship with us

(10:11):
virtually every Sunday morningat 1030.
Thank you for being a part ofour resilient faith community,
our community of faith.
God bless you.

Speaker 1 (10:29):
You've been listening to Resilient Faith.
The podcast Resilient Faith issponsored by Brentwood
Presbyterian Church in West LosAngeles.
You can follow our church andthis podcast on Facebook at
BPCTeam and Instagram at bpcunderscore USA.

(10:50):
Make sure to subscribe on yourfavorite podcast platform and
thanks for listening.