a mourning hut at the outskirts

quote from www.stpetersrwc.org/sermons/Sermon_6_10_07.pdf

It was once a custom in Russian villages, at a time when many children did not survive infancy, to have a mourning hut at the outskirts of every town. All women who lost children were sent to live in that hut for a month of solitude and grief.

At the end of the month, the hut was set on fire. The woman inside had to decide whether to live or die. If she came out of the burning hut, she was prepared to live, and she then rebuilt the hut for the next mourner.

As harsh as the practice may sound to us, it provided a graphic picture of the necessity we confront to decide to move out of the despair we find ourselves in when we are dealing with grief. That’s what those who have gone on must want for us who are left behind. They must want us to pick up our lives and move on with the conviction that the God who loves us also loves them.

God is not the God of the dead, Jesus once noted, but of the living. That means that those we love are still living with God. If we believe that, we have no choice. We must move on toward God-filled living again.