Your piece brought me back to Ecclesiastes and Job almost immediately… those places in scripture where there is no avoidance, no polishing over reality, no premature redemption arc. Just wrestling. Just sitting with what it means to be human beneath the weight of impermanence and loss.
The line:
“If you know, you know. But if you don’t, you just… don’t.”
felt profoundly true to me.
Not dismissive… just honest. There are some things that cannot be understood intellectually. Grief initiates people into a kind of knowing that words alone cannot carry. No shame to those who have not walked that road. Honestly, I’m glad for them. But those who have recognize what you are saying immediately.
Your reflection on the sock outlasting the foot it was made for feels almost Ecclesiastes-like in its clarity. The ordinary object suddenly becomes unbearable because it reveals how fragile and temporary we are.
And yet somehow, pieces like this matter because they refuse to lie about the human condition. They tell the truth without trying to control the reader’s response or escape the tension too quickly.
Maybe my particular draw to Ecclesiastes and Job has been a passive resistance to a faith tradition that has tried to tie human experience up with tidy little bows.
I think many of us were handed forms of faith that tried to explain mystery rather than accompany people through it. As though the goal was certainty instead of presence. And yet when you sit long enough with Ecclesiastes or Job, the tidy systems begin to fall apart. Those books refuse reduction.
Job’s friends are almost unbearable precisely because they cannot tolerate the tension. They need an explanation. They need suffering to make clean sense. But Job keeps telling the truth about his experience anyway.
Maybe that is part of why those books feel so alive to some of us. They grant permission to remain human in the presence of God instead of pretending to be above grief, confusion, impermanence, or longing.
And I think your piece does the same thing.
The older I get, the more I realize that some truths can only be carried… not solved. They become part of the body. Part of the soul. Not merely ideas we agree with intellectually.
Which is why something as ordinary as a sock can suddenly become a doorway into the ache of existence itself.
That is rare writing.
Thank you again for telling the truth the way you did.
“I think many of us were handed forms of faith that tried to explain mystery rather then accompany people through it. As though the goal was certainty instead of presence.”
I think that may be why Ecclesiastes feels so strangely comforting to some of us despite how unsettling it is.
It doesn’t try to rescue us from being human.
It simply sits beside us in the tension and says: yes… this too is part of life.
The older I get, the less I trust voices that rush to certainty before they have learned how to sit quietly with grief, mystery, contradiction, or longing. Presence feels far more sacred to me now than explanation.
And honestly, I think people can feel the difference.
Your writing carries that kind of presence. Not performance. Not forced resolution. Just honesty willing to remain in the room.
I am a published author and poet under my birth name that I keep private for very personal reasons, one of which is I'm a retired intelligence officer who wants to remain "off grid." Yes, every poem I publish is mine. My latest book is to help me and others, if possible, live with the great loss of loved ones. My greatest guilt is similar to the PTSD some war zone veterans feel when their brother or sister warriors are killed leaving us behind. When my beloved wife died, I wanted to go with her. We even talked about how we could do that together. However, metaphysically, we both believe, suicide is a slap in the face of God. So here I am after five years trying to put one-foot-in-front-of-the-other, and live until my termination date. I believe her energy and mine will one day be rejoined in perfect harmony, or if Buddhists are correct, in NOTHINGNESS. (I DON'T KNOW WHAT HAPPENED TO MY ORIGINAL MESSAGE)
The way you describe grief here, especially the recognition that some forms of understanding only arrive through suffering itself, wow! “If you know, you know. But if you don’t, you just… don’t.” That line carries weight because it acknowledges the limits of abstraction.
Grief changes not only what we feel, but what we are capable of seeing. It exposes how fragile we are, how temporary the physical world is, and how much of life we move through assuming permanence where there is none. Ecclesiastes speaks that same language, not to drive us into despair, but to strip away illusion. The Teacher calls things “meaningless” not because love has no value, but because life “under the sun” cannot bear the weight of ultimate permanence on its own.
What shook me was your image of the sock outlasting the foot it was made for. It’s unsettling because it reveals the strange inversion grief confronts us with: the objects remain while the person does not, and yet, biblically, the body is not the final story of the person. Christianity does not deny impermanence; it places it inside a larger hope. Dust returns to dust, yes, but love, relationships, and personhood are not ultimately reduced to material decay.
That is why grief feels so disorienting; it is the collision between our awareness of mortality and our deep sense that human beings were made for more than disappearance.
I think your reflections are the beginning of wisdom in the Ecclesiastes sense: the painful but clarifying realization that what is temporary cannot be treated as ultimate, and yet what is eternal is often first revealed to us through loss.
This is deeply moving. Is this from your pen, Mr. V?
I’m curious about the shame and guilt you feel. You are welcome to share more about it here. But if that’s too vulnerable, I invite you to send me a DM.
Also, I definitely don’t need to invade your space, so please disregard altogether if that’s best for you.
I hope, in any case, our literary journeying together will lead to greater healing all around.
And underneath are the everlasting arms. God does walk with us in our unbearable sorrow. And we can live out our lives being and doing what our dear departed ones wanted for us. If God is true, which is true, then our loved ones are in His presence and enjoying His presence and comfort and joy. Our mission is to comfort those left behind with the comfort He has given us. And that Comforter will never leave us or forsake us. I still do not understand why we lose those we love most, but there is peace at the end, and joy in our journey, under God’s loving gaze.
If we only "know" what we believe we know, how will we ever know what we don't know is how I address my humble search for answers to questions that appear to be unanswerable. Grief, sorrow, guilt are all emotions I've been dealing with for the five years since my beloved wife died of destructive breast cancer. I have concluded though that, "God Doesn't Demand Perpetual Grief," so I'm trying to "reinvent" myself in order to try to live again.
Thank you for the courage to leave this note here. Unanswerable questions. So uncomfortable. Not just because humans don’t love ambiguity. But also because it just hurts. And I guess, even if we had answers—if we knew—perhaps it would hurt just as much, or nearly as much. There’s just empty socks now and that hurts. I don’t want the socks. They’re worthless to me. What are they still doing here?
I’m so sorry about the loss of your precious person. It feels all wrong and it can’t be undone.
If God is love, He doesn’t want us to suffer forever, does He? I mean, love becomes sorrow. That is its end. At least until all things are made new.
And yet, there are pockets of joy and there is spring. Indulge. We must.
It was a pleasure to be there and to witness a slice of your “becoming”, venus faye.
A critical loss, like that of our person, topples our homes and leaves us desperate to rebuild. It’s more than rearranging the furniture, isn’t it?
When I was given the language “anticipatory grief”, I was able to at least begin practicing “becoming” through rearranging the furniture in those excruciating early days.
"A sock finds its purpose
only when paired with a foot.
That very sock
will long outlast
the foot for which it was made."
What remains
was never meant
to make sense
without what's gone.
That is the whole weight of it.
— AËLA
What an oddly comforting reflection, AELA. Thank you.
Penny—
Your piece brought me back to Ecclesiastes and Job almost immediately… those places in scripture where there is no avoidance, no polishing over reality, no premature redemption arc. Just wrestling. Just sitting with what it means to be human beneath the weight of impermanence and loss.
The line:
“If you know, you know. But if you don’t, you just… don’t.”
felt profoundly true to me.
Not dismissive… just honest. There are some things that cannot be understood intellectually. Grief initiates people into a kind of knowing that words alone cannot carry. No shame to those who have not walked that road. Honestly, I’m glad for them. But those who have recognize what you are saying immediately.
Your reflection on the sock outlasting the foot it was made for feels almost Ecclesiastes-like in its clarity. The ordinary object suddenly becomes unbearable because it reveals how fragile and temporary we are.
And yet somehow, pieces like this matter because they refuse to lie about the human condition. They tell the truth without trying to control the reader’s response or escape the tension too quickly.
“This is the way the world is sometimes.”
That honesty is sacred in its own way.
Thank you for sharing it.
"There are some things that cannot be understood intellectually."
~ Kevin David Kridner
And yet, I used to believe that understanding intellectually was all that really mattered. Maybe not exactly that. After all, I did know the Steve Wiggins song 18" Journey (https://open.spotify.com/track/5F8XHlQuZvkFnCLS3RsGb1?si=ffeef2e52ae44ea7).
Maybe my particular draw to Ecclesiastes and Job has been a passive resistance to a faith tradition that has tried to tie human experience up with tidy little bows.
what a great song! I have never heard it before. Thanks for sharing
Penny—
I resonate deeply with what you said here.
I think many of us were handed forms of faith that tried to explain mystery rather than accompany people through it. As though the goal was certainty instead of presence. And yet when you sit long enough with Ecclesiastes or Job, the tidy systems begin to fall apart. Those books refuse reduction.
Job’s friends are almost unbearable precisely because they cannot tolerate the tension. They need an explanation. They need suffering to make clean sense. But Job keeps telling the truth about his experience anyway.
Maybe that is part of why those books feel so alive to some of us. They grant permission to remain human in the presence of God instead of pretending to be above grief, confusion, impermanence, or longing.
And I think your piece does the same thing.
The older I get, the more I realize that some truths can only be carried… not solved. They become part of the body. Part of the soul. Not merely ideas we agree with intellectually.
Which is why something as ordinary as a sock can suddenly become a doorway into the ache of existence itself.
That is rare writing.
Thank you again for telling the truth the way you did.
Kevin,
So much about your comment is “another doorway into the ache of existence itself.”
Thank you for “getting it” enough to drop words like that.
“I think many of us were handed forms of faith that tried to explain mystery rather then accompany people through it. As though the goal was certainty instead of presence.”
~ Kevin David Kridner
(Mic drop. . . again)
Penny—
I think that may be why Ecclesiastes feels so strangely comforting to some of us despite how unsettling it is.
It doesn’t try to rescue us from being human.
It simply sits beside us in the tension and says: yes… this too is part of life.
The older I get, the less I trust voices that rush to certainty before they have learned how to sit quietly with grief, mystery, contradiction, or longing. Presence feels far more sacred to me now than explanation.
And honestly, I think people can feel the difference.
Your writing carries that kind of presence. Not performance. Not forced resolution. Just honesty willing to remain in the room.
That matters more than most people realize.
I am a published author and poet under my birth name that I keep private for very personal reasons, one of which is I'm a retired intelligence officer who wants to remain "off grid." Yes, every poem I publish is mine. My latest book is to help me and others, if possible, live with the great loss of loved ones. My greatest guilt is similar to the PTSD some war zone veterans feel when their brother or sister warriors are killed leaving us behind. When my beloved wife died, I wanted to go with her. We even talked about how we could do that together. However, metaphysically, we both believe, suicide is a slap in the face of God. So here I am after five years trying to put one-foot-in-front-of-the-other, and live until my termination date. I believe her energy and mine will one day be rejoined in perfect harmony, or if Buddhists are correct, in NOTHINGNESS. (I DON'T KNOW WHAT HAPPENED TO MY ORIGINAL MESSAGE)
This is profound!
The way you describe grief here, especially the recognition that some forms of understanding only arrive through suffering itself, wow! “If you know, you know. But if you don’t, you just… don’t.” That line carries weight because it acknowledges the limits of abstraction.
Grief changes not only what we feel, but what we are capable of seeing. It exposes how fragile we are, how temporary the physical world is, and how much of life we move through assuming permanence where there is none. Ecclesiastes speaks that same language, not to drive us into despair, but to strip away illusion. The Teacher calls things “meaningless” not because love has no value, but because life “under the sun” cannot bear the weight of ultimate permanence on its own.
What shook me was your image of the sock outlasting the foot it was made for. It’s unsettling because it reveals the strange inversion grief confronts us with: the objects remain while the person does not, and yet, biblically, the body is not the final story of the person. Christianity does not deny impermanence; it places it inside a larger hope. Dust returns to dust, yes, but love, relationships, and personhood are not ultimately reduced to material decay.
That is why grief feels so disorienting; it is the collision between our awareness of mortality and our deep sense that human beings were made for more than disappearance.
I think your reflections are the beginning of wisdom in the Ecclesiastes sense: the painful but clarifying realization that what is temporary cannot be treated as ultimate, and yet what is eternal is often first revealed to us through loss.
Blessings,
Ze Selassie
Hi Ze,
I’ve sat with this response for days now, unable to respond because your words contain so much. So much wisdom. So much resonance.
Thank you for taking the time and courage. Thank you for cultivating this wisdom and insight.
All praise be to God! Amen.
“Her whisper drifts, a chill through midnight’s veil.
His trembling soul, still trapped in guilt’s embrace.
“You’re not to blame,” she sighs; her voice is so frail.
Yet shame’s cold grip holds fast his haunted face.
Her shadow dances, soft in starless gloom.
A fleeting warmth he aches to pull inside.
She speaks of love that death cannot consume.
But grief’s sharp thorns still tear him deep with pride.
He sees her eyes, once bright, now pale as mist.
Their gaze, a spark that burns his hollow core.
Her hand, unseen, reaches gently for his wrist.
But he recoils; his shame won’t let him soar.
No peace, no rest, her voice a fleeting call.
It stirs the ash where hope once dared to breathe.
He chokes on tears, entombed in sorrow’s thrall.
A ghost adrift, bound tight by chains of grief.”
This is deeply moving. Is this from your pen, Mr. V?
I’m curious about the shame and guilt you feel. You are welcome to share more about it here. But if that’s too vulnerable, I invite you to send me a DM.
Also, I definitely don’t need to invade your space, so please disregard altogether if that’s best for you.
I hope, in any case, our literary journeying together will lead to greater healing all around.
Everything I post to you is my clarity and truth.
And underneath are the everlasting arms. God does walk with us in our unbearable sorrow. And we can live out our lives being and doing what our dear departed ones wanted for us. If God is true, which is true, then our loved ones are in His presence and enjoying His presence and comfort and joy. Our mission is to comfort those left behind with the comfort He has given us. And that Comforter will never leave us or forsake us. I still do not understand why we lose those we love most, but there is peace at the end, and joy in our journey, under God’s loving gaze.
Jim Cox, everyone! Always pointing us home.
If we only "know" what we believe we know, how will we ever know what we don't know is how I address my humble search for answers to questions that appear to be unanswerable. Grief, sorrow, guilt are all emotions I've been dealing with for the five years since my beloved wife died of destructive breast cancer. I have concluded though that, "God Doesn't Demand Perpetual Grief," so I'm trying to "reinvent" myself in order to try to live again.
Mr. V,
Thank you for the courage to leave this note here. Unanswerable questions. So uncomfortable. Not just because humans don’t love ambiguity. But also because it just hurts. And I guess, even if we had answers—if we knew—perhaps it would hurt just as much, or nearly as much. There’s just empty socks now and that hurts. I don’t want the socks. They’re worthless to me. What are they still doing here?
I’m so sorry about the loss of your precious person. It feels all wrong and it can’t be undone.
If God is love, He doesn’t want us to suffer forever, does He? I mean, love becomes sorrow. That is its end. At least until all things are made new.
And yet, there are pockets of joy and there is spring. Indulge. We must.
Sending concern.
this is wonderful! i have been on such a similar journey! anticipatory grief was huge for me too! and thanks for joining my live session today! 💕
It was a pleasure to be there and to witness a slice of your “becoming”, venus faye.
A critical loss, like that of our person, topples our homes and leaves us desperate to rebuild. It’s more than rearranging the furniture, isn’t it?
When I was given the language “anticipatory grief”, I was able to at least begin practicing “becoming” through rearranging the furniture in those excruciating early days.