A Glimmer of Light…

“We get to the beauty through the brutal. Not over or around or under but straight through. We do not ignore each other’s pain - we help carry it.”

Glennon Doyle

I used to think that the best way to manage pain was to super-spiritualize it. Be hopeful! Be positive! Remind myself of all those sayings I have heard all my life about God and suffering. Then I studied the scriptures. The dissonance was shocking. It gave me the same feeling as an ice cream headache.

I read the laments - full on works of suffering, grief, mourning and loss. The writer was going THROUGH pain. He (I assume) even had the temerity to question God about his suffering - much like Job. What’s going on here, I thought? The few “friends'' who tried to correct Job’s theology ultimately received the harshest critique from God - not Job!

I’ve got a lot of unlearning to do. I’ve worn deep ruts around tough topics, suffering, and grief. I’ve tried to tippy toe around them and not get caught in their sticky web. I’ve tried to comfort the comfortless. Why? Was I simply trying to relieve my own anxiety? Was I parroting others, assuming they must be right about the nature of loss?

Straight through. Like the psalmists; on we march. God with us. That truth is amazing enough right there. We need no fancy stories or justifications or blaming to deal with suffering.

God with us.

God with us.

God with us.

There it is; there is the glimmer of light in darkness.

The Gifts of God-Light

In this blog series, I’ve made a bunch of suggestions; they went something like this:

* Faithful people welcome the God-light; this light helps us see what work needs doing; our gratitude and love of God fuels our willingness to do the work.

* The God-light illuminates truth and bears witness against delusion and lies. Our responsibility involves developing a set of values that are suitable for the light.

* God-light reveals our Yes. The Yeses our heart sings help us understand in quite specific ways the kinds of work that is ours to do - but it always involves love.

* God-light helps us decide the CENTRAL ISSUE in each situation and this helps us know what to do, think and feel. (Indeed, our actions, thoughts and feelings are not random neuron firings - they are informed by our values, our Yeses, our choices.)

On vacation, I daydream about a life of leisure, preferably on a lake. But it doesn’t pass my Yes test. It is not awesome or cool or cute when the God-light shines on it. Jesus did hang out by a lake at times, but he did lots of other things too. He worked. He taught his disciples in a fishing boat, he turned water into wine at a wedding, he drove out demons, he counseled a woman at a public well, he hosted a huge picnic, he had supper in homes with friends, acquaintances and even enemies. Sometimes Jesus went to temple or synagogue - but all of it was work. In John 5 Jesus says of God, “My Father is still working, and I also am working.”

During the U. S. Open this year, Billie Jean King was quoted as saying, “Pressure is a privilege.” It is a phrase used in her book Pressure is a Privilege: lessons I’ve Learned from Life and the Battle of the Sexes.

Work is a privilege. It brings with it pressure. But here’s the thing. It looks good in God’s light.

My daydreams long for leisure and no pandemics and peace on earth and goodwill to all men, women, children and pets. But this is not what God revealed with his light. He didn’t, as the song goes, “promise(d) you a rose garden.”

God-light reveals reality. Reality reveals disappointments, heartbreaks and despair. But it is worse, I think, if we prefer illusion, for there is no truth or God-light found there. Pressure is a privilege because it implies that we have responsibility. And that’s a good thing. As we continue 2020, how can we use our voices, our Yeses, our central issues, our energy and our work to be part of the solution that helps other people’s dreams come true?

Embracing God-Light

This is the perfect time to remember why God’s word can serve as a light to our dark path.

“This is the crisis we’re in: God-light streamed into the world, but men and women everywhere ran for the darkness. They went for the darkness because they were not really interested in pleasing God. Everyone who makes a practice of doing evil, addicted to denial and illusion, hates God-light and won’t come near it, fearing a painful exposure. But anyone working and living in truth and reality welcomes God-light so the work can be seen for the God-work it is.”

John 3:19-21 The Message

So often we miss-identify our crises. As dangerous and confounding as the Corona Virus has been, the bigger threat is choosing darkness over pleasing God. It is tempting to equate light with knowing stuff, certainty, orderliness, and conviction. That has not been my experience.

For me, light and God-work go hand-in-hand. Not certainty.

This is good news because it means that a pandemic and political unrest do not constitute darkness. They are simply two more opportunities for God-light. How might this God-light look? It depends. But in order for it to be light, it has to include humility, curiosity, kindness, gentleness, goodness, faithfulness, self-control. And more.

God-light is exposure - not of others, but of ourselves. God-light asks us to see ourselves as we are, not as we wish we were. Without shame or judgment. Now THAT is work. But it is the path we are called to.

For today, instead of thinking about someone else’s evil - ask yourself: how am I evil? Instead of shaking your head at your perception of someone else’s denial - ask yourself: where am I in denial about my own life? Instead of ranting about your delusional third cousin, ask yourself: where am I deluded? THESE ARE THE QUESTIONS! This is the path.

May God’s light reveal what it must in order for us to receive all that we need to be fully human, alive, vibrant, and true to him. May we love BIG.