λύπη
/ˈly.pɛː/ • (lu-pe)
In Koine Greek, λύπη is often translated as pain, grief, or distress. In this context, it is understood as a lens. A lens through which we observe reality.
"Via lupe -- by way of grief, observing reality through the lens of grief"
Grief is not merely a destination or an obstacle; it is a way of seeing. To look via lupe is to acknowledge that grief can sharpen or blur our perception of the world. It is to understand that grief informs observation and observations deserve to be remembered, saved, and shared.
Notes on λύπη
λύπη, “pain,” “sorrow”… The opposite is ἡδονή [joy, pleasure, delight]… Physically λύπη can denote any pain, though especially that caused by hunger or thirst, heat or cold, or by sickness… Spiritually λύπη is sorrow, pain or anxiety at misfortune or death, or anger at annoyances or hurts, especially insults and outrages…
Joy and sorrow in their alternation are part of human life. λύπη and ἡδονή are intermingled not merely in the dramas of poets but in the whole tragedy and comedy of life. It is understandable that there should be a desire to live without λύπη… But according to Plato’s Philebus, a life in mere self-forgetful ἡδονή would be the vegetating of an oyster. In fact there is no ἡδονή without λύπη. Things which seem to be joyous, like marriage and the blessing of children, bring λύπη. For joy, ἡδονή, is a way of discovering the world. It thus involves evaluation… It is seen that in every sorrow, λύπη, there is raised the question of its raison d’être, so that pain, too, unveils the world for being.
— Theological Dictionary of the New Testament (TDNT, 1983)