CoffeePods
A series exploring Christian healing in a handy coffee-break sized podcast. Plug yourself in, pick up your mug of coffee, and let's go.
CoffeePods
Navigating the Landscape of Grief: Part 2
What happens when we expand our understanding of grief beyond death? In this deeply personal exploration, we discover that grief touches our lives in countless ways—sometimes daily. From losing jobs to watching children leave home, from community tragedies to environmental changes, grief emerges whenever something significant slips from our grasp.
The episode takes an intimate turn as Kris shares the story of his mentor, Coach Norman Lenneberg, whose recent passing has sparked reflection on how meaningful relationships leave permanent imprints on our hearts. Through touching anecdotes about this extraordinary man's life and impact, we witness how grief reflects the depth of our love and connection. Coach Norman's philosophy—"leave it better than you found it"—offers a powerful lens for processing loss while honoring legacies.
Most challenging is when different forms of grief layer upon each other, creating what Kris calls a "grief sandwich." Retirement might coincide with losing a parent while children move away—a confluence that can feel overwhelming. Yet even in these complex emotional landscapes, paths toward healing emerge through faith, community support, and honest expression.
Whether you're wrestling with bereavement or navigating life transitions, this episode offers both compassionate understanding and practical wisdom. The conversation emphasizes that healing takes time and requires grace for ourselves. Connect with Acorn's Digital Healing Hub for prayer support wherever you are—because no one should journey through grief alone. As we learn to process our losses while cherishing memories, we discover that hope remains present even in our darkest moments.
www.acornchristian.org
Follow us on Instagram!
Follow us on Facebook!
Coffee Pods, a podcast of the Acorn Christian Healing Foundation exploring what's happening in the world through the lens of Christian healing.
Speaker 2:Hey, chris, good to be back with you for another episode of Coffee Pods. How are you doing?
Speaker 1:I'm good. Are you ready for part two?
Speaker 2:I think, so I've been looking forward to this since we last recorded. I know you and I have both been thinking about more content to add to this one. I know that you're also going to share a bit of a story about somebody you knew as well, so looking forward to hearing more about Norman.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's been an interesting thing to spend time sort of mentally and spiritually preparing for this particular episode, because I think it has the potential to be personal, which means it has the potential, hopefully, to touch the listener in a slightly different way, because by being vulnerable and a little bit more personal, maybe the person who's hearing this will resonate with their own story, will resonate with their own story, their own grief, and in a way, it's like pricking someone's pricking the surface, so that maybe they begin to feel free to grieve, to embrace the loss and to find a new way of coping, instead of being sort of bottled up.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And so I thought maybe if I was vulnerable first, that that might be an encouragement for the person listening to kind of go there themselves.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, it's really helpful, and thank you also for using a personal story that is sort of real right now as well. But in part one we were looking at the different stages of grief, weren't we? If I can say the name right, kubler-ross?
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:The five stages of grief.
Speaker 1:Elizabeth, that's easier to remember.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it sounds like lowercase, doesn't it?
Speaker 1:Elizabeth's five points stages of grief right, my mastermind category will be elizabeth kubler-ross in the stages of grief and that was to think of being healing after a bereavement.
Speaker 2:Wasn't it that? That those stages? And then today we want to look at some of the sources of grief, what causes grief, and then circle back into the healing strategies, knowing that life is filled with grief.
Speaker 1:So maybe could we start with different types of grief yeah, because I think when you talk to people about grief and because I mentioned to someone I said we're doing a podcast on the stages of grief immediately their mind goes to death and the loss of life and the loss of a loved one.
Speaker 1:And I thought, well, maybe part two needs to begin with the idea that grief is quite broad, it's complex, but it's a lot bigger than we realize, which means that we deal with grief almost on a daily basis of some sort. And so, maybe, going through I made a list of a bunch of different kinds of grief as a way of helping to kind of explain what I mean when I say grief is broad and big, and so, dealing with the stages of grief and how we cope with grief and grow and become healthy, this is kind of the source where, where the, the explosion happens, whatever it is that causes the grief from which you need to find healing and and, uh, new direction. So, yeah, let's go through some of the, some of the things that let's talk about each one and why it causes grief that sounds good.
Speaker 2:So we're going to start with personal losses, which does seem sort of the most common, like you were just saying, when you think of grief or loss.
Speaker 1:So we've got here death of a parent. When you come to terms with the fact that your mom or your dad is no longer living, and that unreality of that moment is devastating, especially when you have a real strong bond. I know that losing my father was particularly tough. It was like an absolute gut punch. I remember I was in the hospital working when the phone call came into the hospital that my dad was basically dying in the hospital in another state. And I remember walking to my colleagues, the other chaplains, in our little cubby and I said I've got to go, can somebody cover my on-call shift? And they were like what's going on? And I began to tear up and I said my dad's dying. And it was so real. And then of course they hugged me and loved me. There was one particular lady that just threw her arms around me and and it was like she was being my mother in that moment. And then I drove. I jumped in my car and drove nonstop almost eight hours, literally, only stopping to get gasoline. Didn't have a bag, didn't have changed clothes, nothing. I went straight from one hospital ICU to another hospital ICU where I was able to be there when my father died. And so that's real.
Speaker 1:Losing a parent is definitely the biggest, you know, for me was a giant cause of personal grief.
Speaker 1:But then people lose children and I would argue that, having seen this happen so many times, the loss of a child in some ways is sort of a deeper crevasse of grief than is losing a parent. I've heard people say I'm not supposed to outlive my child. You know, it's a. So there's a real struggle when people have to come to terms with the fact that a child struggle when people have to come to terms with the fact that a child is gone. And then, of course, so many people in my work in the church are constantly dealing with widows and widowers and people who've lost the love of their life and dealing with coping with moving on in life without their partner and going through silly things like going through the chest of drawers and getting rid of the jumpers and the shirts and the underwear and stuff like that. It's just so hard and so all of that is grief causing. And you know, and people lose their brothers and sisters and things all of those things are certainly grief causing.
Speaker 2:Events in life which I think we're probably most familiar with this category so we were watching a program the other day and someone had lost their spouse, um, and oh goodness, maybe a year had passed since it had happened and the kids went into the house to help just sort of keep things tidy for the, for the um, for their mum, and she hadn't thrown anything out or donated anything or just sorted. She hadn't sorted through anything and they were saying how have you still got all his clothes here? How have you still got all his clothes here? How have you still got his shoes, stuff like that?
Speaker 2:But, it shows, doesn't it, that there might be an expectancy that at that point you would have done that, but this poor woman was still maybe holding on to things, or just couldn't do it, just didn't have the capacity.
Speaker 1:Oh, I've seen people create a shrine in the room of a child that they've lost, and even miscarriage and stillbirth, or you know where a husband and wife are excited about the impending birth of a child and then the child doesn't make it and they've got the nursery all set up and all the clothes laid out and the you know everything. And for a lot of people, you know, sometimes they just won't go in that room and so the room becomes a bit of a museum of a hope that's gone or at least is delayed. But again, profound sources of grief. All of these things rock us in different ways but they do rock us. You can't endure these things without coming to terms with the fact that you are grieving. But it's not just personal things. There are things that happen to us that also cause grief, that aren't necessarily the death of a loved one. I mean, I remember losing my dog. You know the death, and we had a little beautiful little dog when I was a little boy and it got attacked by some big dogs and it got killed and I remember how it's so sad. But it also, you know, it does kind of create grief in you Losing pets.
Speaker 1:You know, especially daughter Kia had a little dog who was a little chihuahua and we named him Patty little Paddington, and he was a nut.
Speaker 1:He ran in circles around the house but in the end of his life he used to come and I would sit in my chair and I would have my hand hanging down from the recliner and this little nose would come up under my hand and he was a tiny little guy and we would go for walks and I would zip him up in my coat when we would walk out on the beach and he was this little fella.
Speaker 1:And one day I came home and he was just curled up on the dog bed and he had died peacefully. You know, it's just just the way it happens, but it's still kind of. It just hits you when you come to terms with um, um, with the death of a dog or an animal or something, and some people have trouble with even eating meat because they think about the death of a chicken or a cow or a pig and, and so the idea of life stopping becomes quite debilitating for some people, and and uh, and so grief is a very strange thing. But, but not just pets, I mean, there are things that happen like um, you know, I've seen. Sorry, my dogs are here today, so great you might hear them yapping in the background.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the the um. You know you lose your favorite grocery store or your favorite restaurant, or a landmark gets wiped off the earth or a bridge gets washed away in a flood. I know there was a hurricane that went through my hometown a year ago and there was lots of environmental damage, and so you find yourself driving down a road and you say where is such and such? It got washed away.
Speaker 1:And so there's grief that comes from losing the familiar things that you know, the landmarks of life. So that's grief too. It's not just death. It's not just death of a pet. Losing things that are symbolic or important to you also can create grief. But it's not just about losing actual stuff that causes grief. There are other places where we can find ourselves grieving and you know I don't know if you've ever moved on from a job, you know changed job or changed a role. Certainly losing Wes.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:At Acorn to retirement, in having someone like me come in and follow someone like him, who is so good and so energetic and exciting, and he loved God so much and still does. But there is grief in change like that, and so we're kind of experiencing some grief, even as an organization, because people go oh wait a minute, what's going on? Why am I feeling the way I'm feeling? Well, it's grief.
Speaker 2:You're grieving the change, you're grieving the loss, you're asking god to heal the, the brokenness even in your, in your hopes and dreams for an organization you know, what's interesting is when you look at it, when you look at acorn and the changes it's gone through over the last um, seven years or so, um, there's been a lot of change and a lot of grief for people in terms of moving out from Whitehill Chase. That was a really big, huge for so many, including us on the staff. But, um, you go, yeah, you go from that and then you go into Covid, and then you go from Covid into where's retiring and I think actually that's almost like a a little example of some people's lives where you don't just experience one of these griefs that we're talking about in life and you mentioned at the start about us living with grief, like life is filled with grief and actually that I just think that's quite a good vision of it's this and this and this and this, but how do we live with it, which I know we're going to?
Speaker 1:look at shortly. I know people retire from jobs. Yeah, and sometimes they find the retirement really really hard. Yeah, because they grieve the routine, they grieve the going to work and the camaraderie. And the really strange thing is then somebody in the family dies or there's some other grief. You know, their first divorce tags in with their retirement, which also tags in with the fact that their kids have finally gone off to university.
Speaker 1:So they've got three or four different triggers that are happening to create what is an overwhelming sense of grief, and they sit there and they go. I don't know why I feel so adrift grief, and they sit there and they go. I don't know why I feel so adrift and it's like because you, you have all of these different grief factors coming at you from all different directions.
Speaker 2:I don't think a lot of people realize when they retire that it's a humongous piece of grief. It must be. And also, if you think, a lot of those things you just mentioned we might not necessarily have a lot of control over. Um, so like I'm just thinking like retirement, I mean you, you can try and work as long as you can. Also, you might be made redundant and then you're living with that, or your kids wanting to go to uni or start a life with someone new somewhere else. All those different things are things that aren't completely within your control and I just wonder if that impacts the grief as well I think it must.
Speaker 1:I mean, I think, that sense of losing control. You know, it's just just like when you're in the hospital and the doctor says I'm really sorry, and you know exactly what that means. You know, I'm so sorry, we're so sorry, and you go. Oh, my goodness, that means they're gone, yes. And the same is true the day that you get that letter in the mail saying the divorce has been finalized. The same is true the day you walk out of work the last time with a little box that has your mug in it and your pencils and a couple of trinkets from your desk. The same is true the first time you walk into your kid's room after they've moved out and you see this empty guest room in your house that always had life and mess and clutter and underwear on the floor and you're just sitting there going. I don't have control over this. This is happening. I can't stop it from happening. So then you say, well, how do I cope with it? What do I do? Do I end up in a corner in the house in a heap, or do I find a way to constructively put my life together and reimagine myself? Reinvent myself?
Speaker 1:And I know a lady and her husband, um, who actually had a house fire. This has been probably three or four years ago, but they lost their. Their whole house didn't burn down, but the smoke was so bad and then the water from the firemen coming to put the fire out it meant that basically what they had was a shell called their house, their kitchen table, everything was just ruined from the water and the smoke. It took them, I don't know, a year and a half of living in a hotel and they, through insurance and other things, put their house back together. The toll on them has been significant because they're not young, they're older people, they're retired and it's just taken an absolute toll on them, the process of getting the house back.
Speaker 1:And I remember imagining what the grief must have been like the day they realized that all their photo albums and all their clothes, every one of their wardrobe, all their clothes had smoke and damage and water damage. They had to throw everything away, and so that's grief, I mean. I remember one of the comments was losing the family photo albums. You know this is long before the digital age, so if you had photos, they were in an album. There weren't any other photos, there were no digital copies of photos, and so you're really grieving the loss of the concrete photo, of the memory that ties you to the 1940s and 50s.
Speaker 1:And then at the same time, they started losing health. There was grief over their healthiness and suddenly they ended up having hospitalizations and other chronic problems related to the stress of going through this period. So I thought that's grief, it's a different kind of grief. And then what's weird again is then, next thing, you know they're talking about how hard it was to lose their mother and this is a person who's retired and they're grieving the loss of a child, the loss of a mother, the other losses in life, retirement, the loss of a mother, the other losses in life, retirement.
Speaker 1:You know, all of those things become like a stew, grief stew and you just sit there and you say, well, what are we going to do about it? How do we offer this up to the Lord so that you can have your life back? You know where do we go to help you to get through this grief, to a new tomorrow? You know the one. There was another thing there is that we have to mention, and that's the grief that comes from socially. People don't realize the grief that's caused by things like tragedies and big things that that happened. Um I first thing that came to mind was 9-11 the grief that we feel collectively from 9-11 or 7-7 in
Speaker 1:britain and there are other events that you could put on a timeline to say here are the most tragic grief you know events in in society and so these events kind of shake nations. People end up showing up in strange places placing flowers and tributes and because we all want to do something, but it is, it's a collective grief or a social grief, I guess you could call it um, where communities and nations share um, uh, the grief together. Yeah, I mean the um, the the wonderful thing about Memorial Day or I guess we would call it Armistice Day when you walk by the Cenotaph and when you see it on the BBC, you see the tributes and the dignity of expressing the grief of a nation of the fallen soldier who served in a time of war. There's something quite healing about doing that every year and ringing the bells and everyone being silent. But at the same time there are other things that happen in life that create the, the sense of of a collective grief or a social grief in society yeah, I remember when princess diana died.
Speaker 2:I mean, I was really young and I don't.
Speaker 1:I don't really remember her death you can't say how young you are, because that'll make me feel really old.
Speaker 1:It was 1997, was it when she died and I I remember where I was at St Stephen's House, kind of beginning seminary. Although I lived at St Stephen's House, I went to seminary at Wycliffe Hall which is, for those who don't know, it's like the most Anglo-Catholic seminary and the most evangelical seminary and I had one foot in both and I was sitting on the edge of my bed and I remember my wife telling me that Princess Di, princess di, had died in paris and and it shocked the, shocked the world, you know, just like michael jackson dying, I mean, for a lot of people, you know, I, I love the king of pop and he was a bit eccentric, to say the least, but his death was, it was a grief in me because I knew all the words to all the songs and I had the albums and and, uh, you know, and and I know um, I saw something a couple of days ago Robin Williams, uh, birthday um is coming up on the 21st of July. He would be 74 years old. I can't believe Robin Williams would be 74, but he died in 2014. And I still remember hearing about his death.
Speaker 1:And and Kobe Bryant, for for Phenom, who didn't go to college, he went straight to the pros was incredible, and for him and his daughter and their friends to die in a helicopter crash back in 2020. Can't believe it's been five years. It shocked everybody. I mean for a minute. These big deaths shock us. It's like the paddles in a heart attack situation and they run the current through the heart.
Speaker 1:In a heart attack situation and they run the current through the heart and it just jars the body in the hopes of you know, wake up to the heart for a heart attack. But in society these things just like are gut punches which, I would argue, re-center people into this place of what really matters. What is it in life that really matters? Because all this other stuff is just stuff watches and cars and fancy houses and fancy food and all of this. But when you see these matters of grief, it really re-centers you. It's the plumb line that makes you reassess everything you are and what you're about and what you think you know. How does the world? Is there a God? Is there not a God?
Speaker 1:All of these big, big questions spring forth from this, especially when people start saying why, why did this happen? And then somebody pops in and says, well, why did God do it? Well, did God do it? Does God do these things? Do these people we just named who died? Were they taken by God?
Speaker 1:Was it God's will that a helicopter fell out of the sky? I mean, suddenly you're like, wait a minute, do I believe in a God that would make a helicopter crash in order to teach lessons to people? I mean, that's a pretty bad view of God. I think I'm being kind of judgmental here because that theology doesn't work with me. I've seen too many children die in hospitals to believe that God would will it, that this would be God's will for this child to suffer and to die.
Speaker 1:So it's still grief and it's still something that has to be truly kind of worked on. And we're living in a time of war and, some would argue, a time of genocide, and so there are places in the world right now where there is real suffering and loss loss of a nation, loss of complex grief around the world. And I would argue that all the grief we've been talking about just kind of gets layered up in a grief sandwich. You have just layers upon layers upon layers of different kinds of grief and they all get activated. And so one moment you think, okay, I'm healthy now, I've sorted everything out. And then that flavor of the mustard layer of the grief sandwich comes up and you go oh wow, that's hot, that's quite pungent, and then you deal with that and then another layer.
Speaker 2:But I think life is never-ending dealing with the reality of grief yeah, and also I think that highlights why it's so important to receive support in whatever way is helpful, isn't it? And I know that we we will provide some uh signposting to where you can get support, but this is such a complex thing to be journeying through, and to do it on your own is going to be really, really difficult. But there's a few other types of grief that we're going to touch on, aren't there, like suicide loss, for example.
Speaker 1:That's a tough one. I mean, robin Williams died of suicide and I think the sad thing is that suicide often carries a stigma and I think because of that people tend to mourn silently. They, you know they don't want to talk about it. We don't talk about what happened because there's this stigma attached to someone taking their own life. So it increases the complexity of grief. Or the other one is when you have a family who have to say goodbye to a loved one for a period of incarceration. We don't think about saying goodbye to your dad or your husband who's going to be locked up for 20 years for a crime. And there's grief in that loss because no longer is dad able to be at the breakfast table, no longer is he engaged in your life on a regular basis, except through the prison system, and that creates also a lot of grief. And I mean, I remember being visiting someone on death row and his great concern was the fact that his daughter was struggling with losing her dad, you know, and he's on death row. He was waiting to be executed, thankfully got a new trial, ended up getting off death row, but he's in prison for the rest of his life and he'll have a relationship with his daughter, but from prison. So it's a new. It's a new reality for them, filled with grief that she has to come to terms with and, uh, you know so. So I think you know it.
Speaker 1:It's grief is really really varied in its complex, immune. We all have to come to terms with the fact that we live in a world and a time filled with grief. So I guess the reason we're doing part two is because I don't think that people think about the presence of grief and grieving enough. I think that we experience triggers of our own grief when we encounter the grief of others. I know in hospital work a lot of times you're very aware that what's going on inside of you when you're faced with a situation in front of you that may be a room full of total strangers, you're there as a hospital chaplain and they're grieving and telling stories about their dad and their dad is dying and you're standing there and your inner dialogue is all about your own relationship with your own father.
Speaker 1:It's really a strange thing because it doesn't come out of your mouth. You don't say, well, some chaplains do and they're probably not very good at their job, you know. Let me tell you about what my dad did. But you're standing in that room listening to them collectively express their grief and inside of you you're having this incredible dialogue about your own stories, your own life, your own sense of what it was like when your dad took his last breath, and all these things that go on, because you're human. And then you say, okay, lord, help me to kind of push this to a corner so that I can really be fully present to these people who are writing their story right now. And what can we do to bring comfort to them, to help them to understand that this is not the end, but this is a new beginning. And that's a tough job, but each of us with a great deal of hope and faith can be the truth tellers to a world that's grieving and needs to hear voices of hope on a regular basis.
Speaker 2:And I think also, it takes an amazing amount of faith and trust in God to put yourself aside in those moments, because when you suddenly, when you feel it bubbling up for yourself, it's you know. You just want to get it out or share your version of you know your story and um, it makes me think sometimes of our listening training that we do that. We say, you know we don't give our story in response to theirs, but we talked about um, the was it in proverbs we were looking at when we recorded last, saying to put our trust in in god. Um, and I imagine when you were doing your chaplaincy as well as lots of other ministerial roles, you probably had to put your trust in god a lot so that your story doesn't become their story.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so I remember we used to train new chaplains coming in and they a lot of the, and they get younger and younger by the, by the, by the year, obviously. But they would often look at you and they'd say tell us a time of you know where you were a great chaplain, you know, give me an example of being a great chaplain. And I always would go to someone who suffered a horrible bereavement, the death of his wife in childbirth, and they said, well, what did you do? What'd you say? You know, did you have the right scripture? I said, we, we sat for two hours in the dark in the room and, uh, he refused to go see his newly born baby and his wife had died and he didn't want to go see her either.
Speaker 1:So we sat in this dark room and I said I didn't say a word, and I sat in the corner and prayed and I sat with him and, uh, after about two hours, he finally looked over at me and said, chaplain, let's go see my son. And uh, you know I, I thought, um, I sat in hell with a person. You know, when someone says I don't believe in hell, I said I, I've sat in it. Yeah, that that room that night was as close to the abyss as I've ever been and I just sat there quietly and it took everything for this verbal I've. You know, sometimes I just can't stop talking and I just in, in that moment I was just like surely there's something I can say, Surely there's some encouragement I can get. You know, lord, and every time it was like God was saying just shut up, shut up and just sit there, shut up and sit there. And so you know, and that that's a.
Speaker 1:That story goes on. It's a. It's a wonderful event of God's grace, but it just shows you that grief and the response to grief and the things that you think you understand, the timing of things. It's actually much more complicated than we could ever dream. And I got a call this week. And I got a call this week I found out that a dear, dear, longtime friend had died in Virginia and so I'd ask you, I'd say maybe I could share a little bit about this guy, maybe just for my own good, it's my way of getting it out of me and sharing it with the world how much I love this guy. And this platform seems as good as any, and there's nothing wrong with bearing witness to the goodness of a man who lived a good life it'd be lovely to hear more about him his name is Norman Lenneberg, and coach was 89 years old when he died last week and he started teaching school at a little school called Andrew Lewis in Salem, virginia.
Speaker 1:So it's kind of right on the edge of the Blue Ridge Mountains as you're going to southwestern Virginia toward North Carolina and Tennessee for people that don't know the geography and so it's somewhat not really high mountains but beautiful rolling hills of southern southwestern Virginia. You know what is the? There's the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia. There's the old song from the, something of the. Every time I say Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia when I'm covering in a church the older ladies start singing.
Speaker 1:Oh, do they, yeah, because it's an old song and I say, well, I'm just south of there because I grew up in North Carolina and Virginia is the next state north, and so he started teaching and coaching in 1959. So a long time ago and I remember him telling me all these stories about how he got his first job and they're hilarious, so wonderful stories and and and then he went in 1960, he went to William Byrd, which is another big high school, wonderful school with great history, in near Roanoke, virginia, and and he met Joanne who, joanne, was just an amazing pillar behind this guy, joanne Lineberg. She was a schoolteacher, wasn't but about that big around, but was probably the strongest woman you'll ever meet in your life. She knew more about football than most of the men that came to the games because she would always come to me and she would have like halftime. She would say stuff to me about sort of coaching points and ideas and why aren't we blocking on this? And so she was something. They were married for 59 years. I think next week they would have been married 60 years and she died last year and it broke him. I mean, he loved her more than anything and I, you know, I remember him saying you know, I just don't know how I can live without Joanne, and she was the love of his life. I went to see them years ago and she was having a bad time and we prayed together and Coach had asked me to come and pray with her and she started singing hymns. She was having a real hard time at that point and we started singing hymns together and I looked over over and Coach had tears in his eyes. It was beautiful.
Speaker 1:But fast forward five years and in 1970, coach showed up at Radford High School to be the coach of the Bobcats, and so this is where his kind of legend goes. He was the coach there for 38 years, from 70 to 2007. And I was blessed to work with him and be his friend from 2000. I actually put in my contract as priest of Grace Episcopal Church in Radford, virginia. They added a clause in my contract that required me to be at football practice every afternoon during football season, because I said to them when I went. I said I don't want anybody to think that I'm not doing my job, that all I do is spend my time on the football field, and I said I want it to be known that coaching football is part of my job and so all those years I was the priest of this church and I also coached football and really loved it.
Speaker 1:And here I am with the guy who's probably the most the winningest coach in virginia high school football history. Um, he had won two state championships and four state championships in track, which a lot of people think about his football coaching, but he was actually pretty amazing. He was the athletic director at the school and he's in the hall of fame. So he's, he's an amazing guy and, uh, you know I and hardly ever about football.
Speaker 1:You know, he was sort of this father figure for so many young men and you hear testimonies and stories from people that got to know Coach over the years. There's just a sea of people whose lives were impacted by his goodness and he loved talking to me about God. We'd talk about religion while we're walking around the practice field with him holding his little clipboard with his practice schedule and while we had five minutes before the team came out. You know he would ask me about miracles or he would ask me about a verse of scripture that he had found that he was struggling with, and then we talked about things like marriage and raising children. And you know, and I was a young married man with four children and he was so helpful to me to talk to him about. You know how to be a good dad, and, uh, he was very proud of the fact that he served in the army.
Speaker 1:Um, you know, I can, you know, I can hear him always prefacing his response.
Speaker 1:Whenever they were going to be kind of intentional, he would say but I'm just a you know, I'm just a simple man, I I'm, you know, and.
Speaker 1:And then he would give you the nuggets of wisdom that you would cling to for weeks and weeks and weeks. But we hardly ever really talked about football strategy and we rode the bus to all the away games and we would talk about all sorts of stuff on the bus and just built a relationship that then would continue in the off season, when it wasn't football season, we would make excuses to find reasons to go see each other. And he was a runner, even as an older man. He would run and he would run by my house and run by the church and stop and say hello, and then that would turn into an hour conversation and uh, um, you know, I said the only, the only time we ever really talked football was on fourth down, uh, which, for those who know about how football works, fourth down. A lot of times you have to make a decision whether you're going to kick the football, punt the football, kick a field goal or go for it.
Speaker 1:And the only time we really talked football was when it was forced down. He would turn and look at me and he would say, can we make this kick? And he honestly would just sort of look at me. He goes can we do this, can we do this? You know, and and uh, we had one season I think it was 2003 or 4, um where there's a guy named Trey Mitchell who kicked the most field goals in Virginia high school football history. It's still in the record books today and it was that year. He would turn to me and say, can we make this? Yeah, and Trey kick a field goal, and Trey's like a professional rugby player in Thailand right now or something.
Speaker 1:But he was an amazing football player and kicker and but that was kind of the extent of our football strategizing. Our relationship was based on mutual love and life and and being good men and good people and, and you know, I think the boys put in their dad's obituary you know, coach Blennerberg loved life, he loved everybody. He I didn't, um, you know I, I didn't know him to ever disparage anyone. In fact, there was a. We had a practice one day, this true story, um, we had a game, it was a tough game and when coach was on the sideline he was a competitor.
Speaker 2:And.
Speaker 1:I mean, you did what he wanted you to do and you did it right, and he, you know, zero tolerance. He wanted to win. He was a, he was a champion for a reason, and we had this one game and, um, we, he called a play. He knew it would work, and the receiver ran the wrong route, wrong route. If he had run the right route, it would have been a touchdown. Coach knew it was going to be a touchdown because the player was out of position. He was really smart at the game of football, and so we didn't complete the third down, so we ended up having to kick the ball and so the receiver's running off the the uh, the field, off the pitch, and coach kind of slammed his uh clipboard, and he carried this clipboard that was 50 years old, and he slammed it on the ground and he looked at the player as he was going by and he said some words that were not nice. They were not not nice, and you know, we then console the player and it's just like he had basically disparaged him, and game goes on.
Speaker 1:We win the game, so Monday comes and it's time for practice for the next week's game. So Monday comes, we're all on the field and this one player wasn't there. And coach looks around and he's one of our best receivers. And coach looked around and said where is he? And one of the captains said he quit, he's home. He went home and coach said what? He's our best receiver, why would he quit? And he goes.
Speaker 1:Well, he told us that you called him a name on Friday night and it really upset him. And he looked and he goes. I didn't call him a name. What are you talking about? I would never do that. I love everybody. I, you know I would never do that. And he turned to me and he said did I do that? And I said, yeah, coach, you did.
Speaker 1:In the heat of the moment, in the heat of the moment. I still remember he literally walked off the field, went and got in his truck and went to that kid's house because he felt like he needed to apologize, because that was the kind of man he was. He was just decent. Nothing mattered more than the relationship with that kid. And, sure enough, they came back to the practice that day and he walked out on the field with that kid, circled up the whole team and then he apologized to that boy in front of the whole team. He said this was the right thing to do. It united us in so many ways because we realized that decency is masculine, that so many people who think that you've got to be tough and unyielding and hard and never give up and never admit mistakes.
Speaker 1:No, the true masculine position for Norman was to own it. When you mess up, you own it and you live your life with that scriptural mandate in your heart to love your neighbor as yourself. And you know, he did love his players, I mean, and he loved people that weren't his players. My goodness, there was a kid in our town who always used to stop at our house. I won't name him, but he had special needs and he would come by our house for a Coke almost every day. And I came to find out that Coach had looked after him for years and years, washed his clothes and would give him food at school and simple things like that. That these stories will be told for years and years about this decent, good guy who touched so many of us. And he loved his kids. I mean, don't get me wrong, he loved Robert and Mark and Paul and Wayne, and you'll be amazed to see the stuff that those boys are doing. They have achieved greatness in their own right. They're just the epitome of good men, even though they've made their own mistakes. But they live good lives and they try each day to be good men and they have a legacy from their dad and he kind of treated the rest of us like we were sons too. You know, I think the way, you know, we hugged when I was leaving Radford to move on in ministry. You know, I felt a real grief from leaving this guy who had become such an important mentor in my life. And then when I heard that we had lost him, you know, I thought, gosh, there's this giant hole of grief in the hearts of his boys, of his seven grandchildren, and then he had a new great-granddaughter and they all called him Paps and I imagine that that was the proudest word that he could ever hear was hearing those little kids calling paps. But I guess, all this to say, we all have people who've inspired our journey and when they die, just like Coach Lindenberg, it leaves this huge void, it leaves a vacuum, and it's undeniable. And so it's so important that we really think carefully about how we're going to move forward in grief and not denying how hard it is to come to terms with our loss with somebody so significant.
Speaker 1:This week I've been just filled with remembering stories, remembering happy memories of all those years, thinking carefully about that relationship. I've got an old game ball from one of the most important games of his career. And he gave it to me and signed it and I made him put an inscription on the top of it. I said I don't want your autograph, I want. And put an inscription on the top of it. I said I don't want your autograph, I want give me some wisdom on the ball. So I've got this game ball.
Speaker 1:And you know, I said, the echoes of a life well lived rings in the hearts of those who carry on. It's so true. Maybe I can share a couple of happier memories instead of shedding tears over stuff, because I thought about this podcast and I said, maybe, what would the two, two stories maybe that I might share? That would be fun, since I'm not going to be able to go to to the funeral in the first week of August. I'm preaching in North London and can't go and I thought well, the two memories that jumped out first for me was the last game he ever coached and the last game he ever coached early in the first quarter the scoreboard broke, which was a great blessing, because coach would never, ever run up the score on an opponent but, because the scoreboard was broke.
Speaker 1:He never knew what the score was throughout the game so he carried on just being himself and and playing the game.
Speaker 1:He had a tradition every time he came onto a field um, there are golds in American football, kind of like rugby and he would come onto the field, go to the goalpost and he would sort of punch the goalpost. I asked him about it one time and he's just like it was kind of his mark that this is my field tonight. Okay, he would just kind of punch the the goalpost and then he would take the field and then at the end of the game he did the same thing in reverse and, after shaking hands and doing everything, he would go back toward the locker room. He would always leave from the same end zone and he would go to the same place and he would punch the goalpost again as he walked off the field. And it was kind of this mark of I'm going to leave it all on the field. You know what happened, I'm going to leave it on the field. Well, it's the last game we win big. He runs all these great plays. His clipboard was filled with all his favorite plays and he was trying to run through the whole list in his last game and it seemed like everything he called would score a touchdown, because they were all fantastic plays. The game's over and all the players immediately swamped him and they put him up on their shoulders and they decided they were going to carry him off the field. And so many former players also were there on the pitch with the other players. So you have eras of Bobcat players all there and coaches up on the shoulders of players being carried off.
Speaker 1:And he's such a humble guy he part of him, I'm sure hated it. It's like don't lift me up here. You know why are y'all looking at me? That's just who he was. And, um, they carried him to the end zone. And when he got to the end zone, I thought what's he gonna do? He always punches the goal post. Yeah, he's up on their shoulders and he, he looked down at the kids and he said boys, lift me up, lift me up. And they held him up in at the end zone and he punched the crossbar instead of punching the goalpost. He punched the crossbar and he looked down at the players and he said bobcat, pride, forever bobcat.
Speaker 1:Well, of course, everybody resonated with the joy that you know that, in a way that that was his tapping out in that moment, and the other story was right after that, because we ended up going up to the locker room that night and I thought, gosh, it's over and I knew that I was moving on. So I was going to stop coaching and I was moving to Northern Virginia and so many of us. It was like this was a closing of a chapter and we're all piled into this little locker room and coach's boys also came. His sons were there, there were all sorts of other people there. We were just piled into this little locker room and, um, it was happy and it was sad and coach was trying to be profound which was always kind of funny because he'd trip over his words and there were lots of thank yous and coach always his posture was kind of standing with his arms on a couple of boys' shoulder pads who were kneeling down beside him. It was sort of this.
Speaker 2:It was like his office.
Speaker 1:And finally, when he got to the point where he just couldn't think of anything else to say, he turned to Joanne, who was a former cheerleader. And he turned to her and he said, honey, you know why don't you lead us in one of those old cheers and for some of the older folks in the room we had heard it before. I had heard it because joanne taught me um early on in our relationship, because I thought it was just the coolest cheer ever yeah and uh.
Speaker 1:And then all of a sudden she piped up and and she said how do you like your onions raw, raw, raw. And how do you like your cabbage slaw, slaw slaw. And how do you like your cabbage Slaw, slaw slaw. And how do you like your sugar Sweet, sweet, sweet. And how do you like east Beat, beat, beat. And the whole team did the responses. There really wasn't a dry eye in the locker room, it was just. It was like worship. It was almost like going to a Pentecostal service and someone says can somebody say amen, you know, give me a witness. And we were responding. It was call and response, call and response.
Speaker 1:And so these stories remind me that grief is real, the fact that they I feel it in my heart. Some days we hunger to turn the clocks back. I think, gosh, can't it just be 2003 again and we're getting ready for the Glenver game? Part of me just wants to be in that moment, but but we don't have the luxury of that. So how do we live? How do we move forward?
Speaker 1:You know, we we've talked in these two episodes, we've talked about how our journey through grief towards healing and hold us. You know how it shapes and what do we do to to keep moving and not to quit and not to stop, and so sharing all this stuff about somebody who no one who's listening to the podcast in the UK will even know who this guy is. But still you can relate to a person in your life who has touched you deeply, who has exemplified kindness and care and character. They didn't have to be a scientist at Oxford or a genius, but a simple person with a generous heart and a well full of love who has touched your life and you know. So that's my story of Coach.
Speaker 1:I will certainly be praying for him and for his family and for the whole community, for the state of the Commonwealth of Virginia, that the man touched lives far and wide and I guess maybe the greatest gift that we could give to honor him would be to live the lives worthy of the calling that we have in Jesus Christ, right out of the scriptures, to find a way to truly be people who make the world a better place. He always used to say leave it better than you found it, leave it better than you found it, and he also had a philosophy at practice that, um, anybody that ever spent time with him he would say no grumps, no grumps well, that was his phrase and basically don't, don't live a life being grumpy, you know, find a way to bring joy into into every day. And and no grumps. And and I told I texted one of his sons and I said I said no grumps, not even, not even today.
Speaker 1:And that's that's true, it's hard. It's real hard because some days you just you know I said to you in the other episode of this podcast, there's times when you shake your fist, you know.
Speaker 2:God why.
Speaker 1:And then another part of you says thank you. Thank you lord, thank you for the, the memories, thank you for that chapter, because, boy, that chapter was precious and uh, and I'll pull out that old football and I'll put it somewhere and maybe put a candle beside it and think about him that'd be a really lovely thing to do.
Speaker 2:I was just thinking, as you're sharing, how you're saying no thank you, is that you have had someone so special and meaningful impact your life, and that is definitely something to give thanks to god for, isn't it?
Speaker 2:Even though it is a hurt, a hurting time as well, and there'll be lots of people maybe listening to this who are feeling the same as you now about someone different, um, and so it'd be really good to just maybe go through some really quick tips for those who are going through a moment of grief and loss, and I think one thing we would always say here at acorn is to lean into your faith and you know most people listening to this will probably be of a christian faith, and we encourage is to lean into your faith and, um, you know most people listening to this would probably be of a christian faith, and we encourage you to lean into it by praying often, and that can be hard when you're grieving content to to find a moment to pray and meditate on scripture, but we are told in isaiah 41.
Speaker 2:It says so do not fear, I am with you, do not be dismayed, for I am your God, and even if you just take that bit by bit and meditate on it. That will be good for your soul, I think, won't it?
Speaker 1:Absolutely, absolutely. And 2 Corinthians 1 says to the God of all comfort. God, to the God of the God of all comfort, comfort us in our troubles so that we can comfort those in trouble. The idea that we find our comfort and our sustenance and our strength in the Lord and in the relationship with God is so important because when we feel weak, we can find our strength in Him.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, absolutely, and I think you know having people around you that you trust and you can share your feelings with. You know we do it with God in prayer, but we, most of us, have people around us that we can do that with too, even if it's just one trusted friend or a couple of trusted friends or leaders in your community or your church. You can speak to whoever your church leader is, whether they're a priest, a vicar, um, always welcome to come to a healing hub and share. Uh, you know our volunteers will spend time to listen to you and that they can also offer prayer. And and something we've spoken about, chris, before, is that healing takes time, doesn't it? We need to have grace for ourselves. I imagine that's something you're going to be journeying through a little bit.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, and it's worth remembering. We have a digital healing hub, which is a really cool thing. You don't have to live in Lincolnshire or Portsmouth. You can actually go online and you can make an appointment and there are people who will pray with you where you are online at an agreed time. And I think that's one of the coolest things that we have a team of Digital Hub people who will pray with you wherever you are in the world, wherever you're listening to this podcast, you can go to our website, you can click on the Digital Healing Hub and you can make a prayer request or you can actually request an appointment, and that's huge.
Speaker 1:What a gift that is to say this organization is actually offering love to anybody that wants to. You know, come to the well and take a ladle and dip some water and drink it in, because that's the most wonderful thing. I think about our healing hubs and our vision as an organization that we seek to bring prayer and healing to people who are hurting and who are broken and who are grieving.
Speaker 2:Yeah, definitely. Thank you for sharing that. And the other thing is just to highlight that you are encouraged to seek professional help If depression becomes overwhelming, if grief is persisting with you. There's absolutely no shame in reaching out the number of people I speak to in life and they say I haven't spoken to anyone because they just feel that's a weakness. It's definitely not, um, so we do encourage that. But, chris, could you just sign us off with a little bit of hope, because you are a person of hope and I know that you'll encourage us I think the best way to end this talk is to remind us all, remind myself, that God is present in every stage of our grief.
Speaker 1:God is present in all of our grief. God receives our tears, god listens to our questions, he lets us rant. God catches that anger and holds it close. He understands our frustration, he offers us hope. He offers us everlasting hope which will take us beyond whatever temporal pain that we might feel from the grief that we are journeying with in our hearts. And so that's my little closing uh piece and uh, and, and I should say um, in honor of coach.
Speaker 1:You know the the best way to live one's life is to have a cheer in your heart, and every Bobcat football player, um, knows how we used to finish every game, whether you won or lost, you would gather in the locker room, and there was a one particular coach who always used to lead the cheer. And so I thought, for those Bobcats who might be listening to this crazy podcast, maybe this is the best way to finish. This is like worship, because it was like worship in the locker room. But but you would say heidi, heidi, heidi ho, twiddly, widdly, waddly, whoa, raise your hands up to the sky. Radford bobcat passing by. I don't know, but I've been told radford bobcats made a goal better, better than the rest. Radford bobcats are the best. Go radford. And that's how we ended every game and I thank God for it. I really do. Thank you so much, chris, and thank you for listening, and we'll catch you in the next episode.
