Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    The Secret Sorrow: A Memoir of Mourning the Death of God
    The Secret Sorrow: A Memoir of Mourning the Death of God
    The Secret Sorrow: A Memoir of Mourning the Death of God
    Ebook168 pages1 hour

    The Secret Sorrow: A Memoir of Mourning the Death of God

    By Jay E. Valusek

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    Valusek stands with one foot on either side of the chasm that separates those who believe in God from those who do not, inviting us to build a bridge from the raw materials of our common humanity. I tremendously respect his effort.
    Eric Maisel, Ph.D., author of The Atheists Way

    The Secret Sorrow is a poignant, mesmerizing memoir, proximately about the loss of faith but more generally about encounteringand working throughthe pain that accompanies the loss of meaning. Valuseks journey takes us into bleak territory, but never abandons us there. Instead, he leads us to a new place of affirmation centered in a sacred view of the natural world. I loved it.
    Ursula Goodenough, Ph.D., professor of biology, fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, author of The Sacred Depths of Nature

    Jay Valusek has written beautifully about how mindfulness helped him find meaning and joy in the midst of great loss. Present, loving awareness became a powerful way of healing his suffering, enabling him to emerge from the darkness of despair into the light of a new moment.
    Micki Fine, M.A., L.P.C., certified mindfulness teacher, founder of Mindful Living of Houston, Texas.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisheriUniverse
    Release dateSep 28, 2010
    ISBN9781450258319
    The Secret Sorrow: A Memoir of Mourning the Death of God
    Author

    Jay E. Valusek

    Jay E. Valusek is a meditation teacher and award-winning writer with a master’s degree in earth science, living in Colorado. A former director of adult education in the Episcopal church and former Christian mystic, Valusek now considers himself a “contemplative naturalist”—one who sees Nature as both ultimate and sacred.

    Related to The Secret Sorrow

    Related ebooks

    Religious Biographies For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      The Dark Side of Awe

      Jan 29, 2024

      The Dark Side of Awe
      10 min read

    • Article

      Prayer Consists of Attention: On Reading as a Spiritual Practice

      May 9, 2022

      I realized that all words, even those contained in secular literature, have the potential to become prayers. The post Prayer Consists of Attention: On Reading as a Spiritual Practice appeared first on The Millions.

      6 min read

    • Article

      Overcoming Thoughts Of Suicide

      Jun 8, 2018

      Today’s contributor shares spiritual ideas that enabled her to help a friend struggling with the question of whether his life was worth living.

      3 min read

    • Article

      Death During The Times Of Covid

      Mar 3, 2021

      THAT the world, as we know it, fundamentally changed with Covid, is not seriously debatable. It was often said in jest between relatives and friends, that they found time to see one another only at weddings and funerals. Now, with grandiose weddings

      4 min read

    • Article

      The Dark World

      Sep 17, 2020

      The Dark World
      5 min read

    • Article

      Rooted IN Compassion

      Dec 17, 2019

      Rooted IN Compassion
      7 min read

    • Article

      The Beauty In The Bittersweet

      Feb 14, 2022

      Susan Cain burst onto the literary scene 10 years ago with the publication of Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking, which launched an entire Quiet Revolution and a few spin-off titles. For introverts, Quiet has provided v

      6 min read

    • Article

      Knowing In The Unknown

      Jun 13, 2018

      Words PETER WHITE Many people take their spirituality for granted. By spirituality, I am referring to an individual’s experience of the sacred or transcendent that expands their sense of self into a more unified state of awareness. It’s usually assoc

      7 min read

    • Article

      Joss Lake

      Jun 16, 2021

      Joss Lake
      5 min read

    • Article

      The Boundless Energy of No-Self

      Mar 7, 2023

      The Boundless Energy of No-Self
      11 min read

    • Article

      Letters To The EDITOR

      Sep 29, 2023

      D ear readers, we love to hear your thoughts on the stories that we publish, what is going on around the world, and what the Lord has placed on your heart! Email your letter through to editor@joymag.co.za for a chance to be featured – please try to k

      8 min read

    • Article

      Clearly, God Loves Me: The Millions Interviews Nada Alic

      Sep 21, 2022

      "The whole point of art is to ask, 'Are you seeing what I’m seeing?'" The post Clearly, God Loves Me: The Millions Interviews Nada Alic appeared first on The Millions.

      8 min read

    • Article

      Letters To The EDITOR

      Jun 16, 2023

      Dear readers, we love to hear your thoughts on the stories that we publish, what is going on around the world, and what the Lord has placed on your heart! Email your letter through to editor@joymag.co.za for a chance to be featured – please try to ke

      7 min read

    • Article

      Death Defining

      Feb 12, 2021

      Death Defining
      11 min read

    • Article

      Death Defining

      Feb 12, 2021

      Death Defining
      11 min read

    • Article

      The Soul and Addiction

      Jan 9, 2023

      The Soul and Addiction
      9 min read

    • Article

      Death Defining

      Feb 12, 2021

      Death Defining
      11 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for The Secret Sorrow

    0 ratings

    0 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      The Secret Sorrow - Jay E. Valusek

      Copyright © 2010 by Jay E. Valusek

      All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

      Grateful acknowledgement is made for permission to reprint The Well of Grief from River Flow: New & Selected Poems 1984-2007 by David Whyte. Copyright © 2007 Many Rivers Press, Langley, Washington. Printed with permission from Many Rivers Press, www.davidwhyte.com.

      iUniverse books may be ordered through booksellers or by contacting:

      iUniverse

      1663 Liberty Drive

      Bloomington, IN 47403

      www.iuniverse.com

      1-800-Authors (1-800-288-4677)

      Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any Web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

      ISBN: 978-1-4502-5829-6 (sc)

      ISBN: 978-1-4502-5831-9 (ebook)

      Printed in the United States of America

      iUniverse rev. date: 09/23/2010

      For all those

      who took God seriously,

      for whom the loss of faith, of hope,

      felt like a very real death;

      who found no one who truly understood

      the enormity of that unspeakable loss;

      who mourned in silence

      and in secret.

      If you’re out there—

      May you find that you are not alone.

      And if you’re not, well, darn it,

      I’m talking to myself again.

      The Well of Grief

      Those who will not slip beneath

      the still surface on the well of grief,

      turning down through its black water

      to the place we cannot breathe,

      will never know the source from which we drink,

      the secret water, cold and clear,

      nor find in the darkness glimmering,

      the small round coins,

      thrown by those who wished for something else.

      —David Whyte

      River Flow: New & Selected Poems 1984 - 2007

      Table of Contents

      Preface

      A Eulogy for God

      Part One

      My God is Dark

      1

      What Do I Know About God?

      2

      Awakening from the Dream of God

      3

      Long, Dark Night of the Soul

      4

      Embracing Paradox

      5

      The Possibility of Just Sitting There

      6

      It’s Okay

      Part Two

      My House is Empty

      7

      A Huge Sadness

      8

      Something Larger than Myself

      9

      Things Left Unsaid

      10

      Tiny Island of the Self

      11

      What Faith Gave Me

      12

      The Lost Souls Club

      13

      Death (Eventually)

      14

      The Inner Voice

      Part Three

      My Soul is Lost

      15

      Existential Crisis

      16

      Grief Never Kills

      17

      Staring at the Sun

      18

      An Anguished Cry in the Dark

      19

      Flailing About for Solid Ground

      Part Four

      My Eyes are Open

      20

      All Life is One

      21

      Contemplation of Nature

      22

      On Being Lost, Mindfully

      23

      The Sacred Text of Life

      24

      Bridge Above the Abyss

      25

      On Wasting Time, Mindfully

      26

      To See the World Again

      27

      The Small Delights

      28

      Mourning to Morning

      29

      Prayer Without Words

      30

      The Fire’s Final Question

      31

      A Contemplative Funeral for God

      32

      Requiem

      About the Author

      Preface

      A Eulogy for God

      Go to any bookstore and look over the shelves on Death and Dying, Grief or Bereavement, however they’re labeled. What will you find? Books on grieving the passing of a parent, the loss of a spouse or sibling or friend, the untimely death of a beloved child. Even books on the loss of a pet. Books on the dying process. Kubler-Ross’s stages of grief. Hospice. The denial of death. Medical descriptions of the most common ways we die. And, of course, stories of personal tragedy—and of hope rising from the ashes. All good books. Wonderful and helpful books.

      What will you not find on those shelves?

      You won’t find a single book about mourning the ultimate loss: the death of God. You won’t find such a book in the Religion section either, or the Psychology section, or the rapidly growing Atheism section. I know. I’ve looked. It bothers me. I think: Shouldn’t there be at least one? I mean, doesn’t God die every day somewhere in America? Doesn’t this death cause untold grief—to someone, anyone, ever? Or don’t we care?

      When God dies, there is nowhere to turn for solace or community, even for a kindly and understanding ear. There are no spiritual guides, no psychological models, no personal stories to comfort and assure us. Yet, for some of us—unless, in fact, I am the only one, which I simply refuse to believe (yet continue to fear)—God’s death is a singular, unprecedented, unspeakably painful loss, encompassing every emotion, every stage or aspect of grieving known to unfold when someone real, someone near and dearly loved passes away, whether slowly or swiftly. Except this is a species of bereavement that we must, I suspect, keep carefully hidden—not just from others (for so many individual and cultural reasons) but often, and more tragically, even from ourselves. Grieving the death of God is, therefore, a secret sorrow. It must be borne alone in silence; shrouded, like a lifeless body, in darkness.

      Who, after all, would understand? Who would realize that we, too, require a modicum of comfort and companionship? Who would knowingly enter into and share this sort of loss with us, remembering from their own experience how we must feel? Where would one find such people? Certainly not in the houses of religion where we may have spent our whole adult lives. But, what if—I wonder, I imagine, I fantasize—what if people who feel like us are all around us? Hundreds or thousands or millions. We just don’t know it. We cannot identify them. Because no one utters the unspeakable.

      Atheists are, or so I hear, the single most vilified minority in America today. We are godless, by definition. Not only are we immoral, or amoral at best, we must not have the same sorts of feelings as other people. How could we possibly feel anything but relief or joy at being done with God? We are, after all, rejecting God, aren’t we? Like the vehement and vocal atheists who populate the bookshelves these days, surely we must feel nothing but antipathy for God, for religion, for spirituality, and for everything else the rest of the believers of the nation stand for. Mustn’t we? Why on earth would we feel bad when we ourselves have chosen not to believe in God anymore? How absurd.

      Well, maybe most of us don’t feel bad. Maybe most of us walk away—if we ever really believed in God—and never look back. Maybe most of us feel free, at last, from the outmoded superstitions of our pre-scientific past or, more to the point, free from the oppressive and narrow-minded religions of our youth. Maybe, like former lovers, we succumb to hatred, looking backward with nothing but disgust. Maybe, seeing all the damage done by so much belief, we want nothing more than to rid the world of faith. And maybe most of us never felt a single pang of sadness or loss.

      Maybe. But not me.

      After God died one cold November night in 2003, I grieved. I wept. I felt lost (as some, no doubt, would say I was). Someone with whom I had lived for more than thirty years was dead. Suddenly, without warning. Someone I had loved. Someone very real to me. Closer than my own breath. Someone whose still, small voice had spoken to me in the hollows of the night, whose mysterious and caring presence had accompanied me through so many dark times. But no more. It was incomprehensible. How could this loving and incredibly personal Other be gone? No matter what my rational and scientific mind told me, I still wanted God like I want the warm and undeniable pressure of a kiss. I was inconsolable.

      I was lucky too. My wife Barbara, God bless her (if you’ll forgive the inconsistency), understood at least something of what I was going through. She, too, had let go of her faith, although in her own, quite different way. But no one else really grasped what I was saying, what I felt, what it meant. Even trying to explain myself was overwhelming. I felt stupid, or guilty. As if I ought to be apologizing for God’s death. I mean, hadn’t I actually killed God?

      So, well, I stopped trying to explain myself. I quietly slipped out the back door of the relatively benign and progressive Christian world to which I had

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1