This is the ending of the first session of my Grief Lectionary curriculum, tested today with a group of clergy. It is based both on the psychological ideas of flooding, as an emotional state that leads to a fight/freeze/flight response, and the biblical images of flooding from the Noah story and baptismal imagery.

When the waters of grief rise around you

And you fear death and drowning:

May God’s hands hold you like an ark.

When you are flooded by the loss inside and around you:
May God remind you with a rainbow,

a sign that under God’s watch no destruction is total.

And on those days where you are in over your head:
May you know that your baptism into new life was first a drowning,

And that the One who has called you by name will be with you.

You are precious in Their sight.