IT MAY at times be hard for us to believe that death can lose its sting, and yet here we are offered convincing evidence that, with patience, time, and courage, grief can bring transformation and growth.
Duncan MacLaren is a priest in the Scottish Episcopal Church and serves as a hospice counsellor. In this, his debut book, he explicitly seeks to relate to people of all faiths and even those of none. He offers an impressive survey of the notoriously slippery word “spirituality”, ultimately opting for a broad working definition in which spirituality is that which “fosters connection, insight and growth”. Equally, his approach to loss is by no means confined to death and dying, not least because loss shadows us through life. His chief aim is to stimulate curiosity about grief: what if loss might be transformed to gain?
In nine very readable chapters, MacLaren offers tender and nuanced insights into experiences of grief in several forms, including the death of a loved one, our own mortality, the loss of a job, and even the moment when a child leaves home to go to university. He reflects on his personal experiences while also including thinkers ranging from Montaigne and St Benedict to Nick Cave.
Many may well welcome the chapter on failure. No easy remedies are offered; in fact, MacLaren suggests that not all failure is redemptive, though it can be grieved well. Similarly, in the chapter about regret, we learn how loss of this kind may in fact provide opportunities to find lost parts of the self which the fork in the road may have eclipsed. Hidden and disenfranchised loss is also brilliantly examined in the chapter on shame. The final chapter grapples convincingly with the theme of forgetting: it gives prominence to the climate crisis as a form of collective denial.
MacLaren’s insights on the fruits that loss can bear makes for an excellent companion to Kate Patterson’s intensely personal account of grief. Her husband died suddenly in his fifties; he was a vicar and father of three. Seven years later, we discover how the ashes of her bitter grief have become a crown. The theme of restoration resonates throughout. Although grief is not a “Roman road”, there can be recovery and fruitfulness. She charts her journey from horror to hope, passionately and candidly, with the intention that others may not merely endure the pain of grief, but heal and eventually grow.
Weaving her own story with the wisdom of many others, she offers an intensely rich resource to dip into. The formula is simple and sound, as each new page begins with a Bible passage, proceeds with short and original reflections, and closes with a prayer or poem, each a form of words for those whose grief may be so raw that no words of their own can be found.
Patterson’s bold and dogged determination, witnessed here, may well be a guide to many. There is no doubt that her testament of grief could prove to be a rock for others who feel struck down by or stuck in grief. Both MacLaren and Patterson offer sensitive encouragement and evidence that loss need not scare us too much, nor have the last word.
The Revd Jennie Hogan is a psychotherapist. She is the author of This Is My Body: A story of sickness and health (Canterbury Press, 2017).
All is not Loss: The spirituality of grief
Duncan MacLaren
Canterbury Press £14.99
(978-1-78622-613-6)
Church Times Bookshop £11.99
Ashes to Crowns: Grieving with hope
Kate Patterson
Independent £12.99*
(978-1-068-20080-9)
*available from giftofblessingtrust.org
