Amanda Held Opelt - A Hole in the World: Finding Hope in Rituals of Grief and Healing

I t is high noon on Ash Wednesday and I am lost in the church basement.

I had shown up fashionably late to the midday service. I frantically navigated my car to one of the few remaining spaces and ran across the parking lot, the echo of my heels bouncing off the brick walls of the church. I made my way toward the first door I happened to see on the west side of the building. Incidentally, this was the door to the basement, not the sanctuary, so while the rest of the penitents at St. Lukes Episcopal Church in downtown Boone, North Carolina, were bathed in stained glassfiltered sunlight, I was stuck halfway underground, deciphering my way through dark, flannelgraph-lined hallways, a musty-smelling rec center, and mazes of makeshift offices.

Considering the year Id had, the metaphor is not lost on me. Fortunately, I hear the clinking of a teacup and find a woman in a small kitchenshe may have been on staff or a volunteer. I explain that this isnt my home church, that I am lost, and that I need help getting to the sanctuary. She points past a foosball table to a heavy wooden door that leads to a staircase that leads to a foyer that leads to the sanctuary. I rush up the stairs full speed ahead, my heavy, water-resistant winter coat swooshing with every hurried step.

Inconveniently, the sanctuary is arranged in such a way that the main doors enter at the front by the altar. Clearly the buildings architect had never been late to church. Breathing heavily as I approach the entrance, I am faced with a decision. Do I give up the whole endeavor, trudge back to my car, and resolve to be more prompt in the future? Or do I burst through the doors in the midst of the silent reflection, a spectacle of irreverence?

Fortunately, I am not alone in my tardiness. A young, bearded Boone hipster, clad in a large trench coat, appears with the same quickened breath and panicked look on his face. We make eye contact, shrug at each other, and proceed toward the door. Grabbing a copy of the liturgy, I wait for him to enter first. I figure if I can draft behind him, maybe his broad trench coat will conceal me. No one will see me. I will make myself small. I will not be exposed.

We tiptoe in, dodging the priests stares, and make our way to the back rows. There I sit, in the last pew, wondering if Ive remembered to turn off my cell phone, but too scared to reach over to check it on account of my swooshing coat. I should have worn my fleece pullover. I am as still as a statue. The room is utterly silent save for the occasional creaking of the wooden beams above us.

Be still, Amanda. Be still.

The liturgy starts:

Return to the L ORD , your God,

for he is gracious and merciful,

slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love,

and relents from punishing.

Who knows whether he will not turn and relent,

and leave a blessing behind him. (Joel 2:1314 NRSVA )

Bless. Blessing. Blessed. A word that endeavors to hold the mystery of the goodness of God, now reduced to a hashtag highlighting our veneers of happiness: the Pinterest-worthy house, the Instagrammable vacation, the picture-perfect marriage.

The priest continues:

And, to make a right beginning of repentance, and as a mark of our mortal nature, let us now kneel before the Lord, our Maker and Redeemer.

I take a deep breath. Ash Wednesday was an important day for my sister. That is the reason I am here at Saint Lukes, observing this holy day and participating in this unfamiliar ritual. She and I grew up in a loving Christian home with parents who modeled a faith infused with grace and inquisitiveness. Because we lived in the South, we were immersed in the evangelical subculture of the Bible Belt, and in her early twenties, my sister began to question many of the theological aspects of that subculture. Through the fear and disorientation of that experience, she found an anchor in the ancient liturgy of the High Church. The time-honored recitations grounded her and calmed her doubts. They provided a next right step when she didnt know how to move forward. Shed become Episcopalian in recent years, but she belonged to many faith traditions. Evangelicals, Orthodox, Catholics, and atheists alike embraced her story of faithful wrestling with the truth and stubborn insistence that all are welcome at the table of Christ.

It was this tumultuous journey of faith that led her to begin writing a blog almost fifteen years ago, which quickly gained a worldwide following. Spiritual sojourners and the religiously marginalized flocked to her website and speaking engagements, finding companionship in her thoughtful reflections, wry sense of humor, curious engagement with Scripture, and compassionate embrace of the broken and wounded in the world. She went on to write five books, several of which made it on the