My husband and I have four kids, ages 5-13, and it feels to me like we’ve reached the golden age of family music appreciation. I can get nostalgic about the simpler days of Raffi and Lori songs—although no one is ever too old for Raffi and Lori songs—but these days it’s so fun to discover and listen to music together. We make playlists for sing-alongs in the car or kitchen—or groan-alongs when musical tastes conflict. We sit in church together while the organ postlude vibrates through our bodies and the space (and some of the kids groan along to this too).

I like watching my kids’s taste develop as they pick up songs from outside sources, although that has its challenges. Sometimes a new song doesn’t line up with my own idea of what makes good music. A wise sister-in-law said that when her kids are consuming media she doesn’t prefer, she tries to find out what they like about it. Maybe I don’t like the overuse of pitch correction in a pop hit my daughter likes or the heavy bass in my son’s latest earworm, but when it’s not a moral issue, I think of my sister-in-law and try to be curious rather than critical.

“Then Peter came to Him and said, “Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? Up to seven times?”

Jesus said to him, “I do not say to you, up to seven times, but up to seventy times seven.” (Matthew 18:21-22)

Forgiveness is a weighty topic. In reality it’s messy, often involving personal and painful situations. And it is clear that the Lord tells us we are supposed to forgive, not just occasionally or when it suits us, but up to seventy times seven. The breadth of this command can feel overwhelming, especially when we face it in the context of our own wounds. But it’s also clearly important that we wrestle with it. 

I generally find the idea and practice of forgiveness easier in personal relationships. Or rather I shouldn’t say easier, but simply a necessity. It is clear that I should work to move past hurts with my husband, sister, mother: there is a relationship at stake there. But it’s much harder to hold when it’s not so personal, when the hurt comes from those who are more distant, whether they are public figures or strangers whose actions affect me or those I love. What about those who commit atrocities in the news, like murderers or child abusers? Or acquaintances whose views or actions have hurt people or ideals dear to me?

There are lots of analogies to describe what grief is like. One that especially resonates with me is that grief is like a hole in the floor of our house. When the loss is fresh, it seems that we can’t escape the room that has the gaping hole in it. It looms large before us and we fear falling in and never being able to crawl back out. 

Eventually, we find that we are able to navigate carefully around the hole and maybe even venture to other rooms in our house. But sometimes, when we aren’t paying attention, we will suddenly find the hole right at our feet, threatening to pull us over the edge. This happens when unexpected things trigger our grief—a certain smell, a date on the calendar, coming across a memento, or just because it’s time—whether we like it or not—to feel the hard feelings again.

As more time passes, we wind up spending less and less time in the room with the hole in the floor. The hole is still there, of course. It doesn’t get smaller. But, if we let it, the house gets bigger. And herein lies the key to growing with grief. We can only extend this metaphorical house of ours if we allow the Lord to be the Architect. If we hand our lives over to the Him, including all of our joy and all of our sorrow, He will expand our dwelling into a veritable palace. He will enrich our lives by adding countless rooms full of experiences, memories, opportunities, and love. So much love. The new love in our lives doesn’t erase our loss, but it can soften the edges of it. 

I have been reading a very touching book by Rev. Geoffrey Childs called The Path: the Inner Life of Jesus Christ.  In the first chapter (page 22), in describing the Lord’s infancy on earth, Rev. Childs cites Arcana Caelestia 1438, which says that Jesus “attained to the celestial things of love.”  In explaining this statement, Rev. Childs writes, “The celestial things of love are the inmost keys to life.  Every infant is surrounded by celestial states of innocence and of love toward the Lord.  Infants live in a garden of love where the best things of life are implanted without knowledge being involved.  These are the innocent qualities called ‘remains.’  Feelings of love and peace ‘remain’ hidden within us our whole lives.  These ‘remains’ are protected, and are awakened in us by the angels at various times in our lives.  Remains enable us to be truly human and to shun evils as adults, and be saved” (page 23).  (According to my limited understanding, it’s possible to have remains implanted in us at other times in our lives, but the process of implanting remains is particularly notable in infancy.)  

I seem to remember encountering the idea that these strong and beautiful gifts deep inside us from the Lord are a kind of counterbalance to the hereditary inclinations to evil that we are all born with.  I find the whole idea of remains so reassuring and inspiring.