Christianity has at its core an act of letting go. Its primary symbol, the cross, is a symbol of letting go. In letting go of his life, Jesus teaches us to let go of our lives and of each other.

Jesus teaches us to experience loss with the raw honesty of our emotions. As Jesus faces death on the cross, he cries out to God expressing agonizing feelings of abandonment. Just as he asked, "My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?" we, too, can express our deepest emotions during times of loss.

Many of us fear our grief because we don't want to feel the pain associated with it. We have been socialized to think that pain of any type is to be avoided at all cost. Examine the plethora of pain medications in the drugstore aisle to get an inkling of our inner terror at the thought of feeling pain.

While resisting unnecessary pain may be a sign of a healthy ego, refusal to face the pain that accompanies life's crises and transitions is not healthy. In fact, it is detrimental to our physical, emotional, and spiritual well-being. Medical research, over the last 25 years, has linked certain physical illnesses with unresolved grief. We are learning that we are truly unified beings — body, mind, and spirit. Thanks to the field of psychoneuro-immunology (the study of emotions on the immune system), we are finally able to understand how the emotions affect the body.

When we do not allow ourselves to experience and express the pain associated with life's normal transitions or its tragic events, not only do we potentially do injury to our body, but we keep God at a distance, too. Refusing to feel our pain is a way of keeping God at the edge of our life so that we stay in control. It is as if we do not trust God to comfort us in our hurt or to pick us up when we fall — so we simply refuse to fall, acting as if everything is all right even when it is not. We forget it is really God who is in control of our lives and God who will give us what we need when we need it. Just as God did not abandon Jesus on the cross, neither will God abandon us in our letting go.

Doing our grief work — and it is work — helps us experience a deeper intimacy with our loving Creator. It is one of the most important tasks of the spiritual journey. The trouble comes when we are unaware there are tears to sow, or when we feel stuck and unable to move beyond our sadness, or when we think our way of expressing grief is not appropriate. What do we do then?

Using our creativity can help us activate healing at the deepest levels; it can move us from the place of tears to the place of joy. As we create, we release the things that get in the way of our relationship with God and with each other. In a process called "art from the soul" we can experience and express our feelings of grief in safe and healing ways.

Rather than drawing or painting outer landscapes, when making "art from the soul," we draw or paint inner landscapes, representing the feeling of our inner life. Unconcerned about the final product, we concentrate on the process of painting or drawing. We use colors that appeal to us, and we place them on the paper where we feel they belong. The object is not to produce a "pretty picture" but to express our inner life. In doing so, we find "art from the soul" moves us into the present moment, a place of insight, clarity, prayer, and healing. It teaches us to let go of that which we no longer need.

When we create from the soul, we learn the truth the psalmist proclaimed: "May those who sow in tears reap with shouts of joy. Those who go out weeping, bearing the seed for sowing, shall come home with shouts of joy, carrying their sheaves" (126:5-6, NRSV).

With paintbrushes or crayons in hand, may you sow your tears so that your heart will be filled with joy.

Karla M. Kincannon is a United Methodist pastor, artist, author, and spiritual director, specializing in the use of art as a tool to unlock the mysteries of the inner journey. She is currently on the staff of STILLPOINT, a school for spiritual direction/contemplative prayer in Nashville, Tennessee