I recently listened to a speech that Martin Prechtel gave on the nature of grief and praise. HIs speech spurred me to reconsider my perception of grief and to appreciate its beauty with many of his points:

America has a culture of individualism, and in this culture, you cannot afford to grieve for fear of looking irrational and not having a community to support you.

His observance of American culture in relation to grief rings with truth. We live in a culture where crying is a sign of weakness and emotions are disregarded. I know whenever I feel my throat getting tight due to grief or any strong emotion, I try to swallow it or go somewhere private to cry. Since I have grown up in this culture, I never thought that it was illogical. However, Prechtel’s argument for community in grief has made me question my culture. Perhaps I would grieve more and carry less baggage if I were able to express what I feel. As a culture, we have no problem praising victories together; why are we then so scared of praising what is lost in community. If we come together to celebrate when we are strongest, we should do the same when we are weakest and support one another in grief.

After you are done grieving, you feel alive. If you are able to grieve, it brings you back to life.

This point is so important; the ability to let go and to let yourself feel your emotions is powerful. Avoiding your emotions is stressful. If you face them head on and ride them out, you will feel more settled and at peace, even if nothing has changed. I can personally relate to this because I try to avoid expressing grief. After I do allow myself to cry however, I always feel exhausted, but also relieved. Often, I even feel the urge to laugh because I feel so free and alive, free from bottled-up grief and alive with feeling.

In the Mayan language, the word for song and the word for weeping are the same word. We praise everything. Everything has to weep. That is praise of life.

This point caught my attention because it is such a poetic observation of nature and life. Images come to my mind such as the clouds crying and the trees swaying in the moaning wind. I am struck with this connection between weeping and song because these emotive scenes are also beautiful and pleasing to the ear. Grief is a natural season, a part of life’s song. I think this poetry relates to the human experience in that weeping can be beautiful. We weep because we are overwhelmed with emotion, and we praise life with our tears. Although some tears are in the midst of tragedy, they are still a part of a larger narrative, a larger score; this is an important perspective to remember.