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.

Day 5: Comfort and Cheer

The fifth antiphon:

O Rising Sun, You are the splendour of eternal light and the sun of justice.

O Come and enlighten those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death.

O come, Thou Day-spring, come and cheer our spirits by Thine advent here;

disperse the gloomy clouds of night, and death’s dark shadows put to flight:

Rejoice! Rejoice! Immanuel shall come to thee, O Israel.

During stressful seasons it is natural to fall back into living by the law of scarcity. It will require a conscious effort on our part to remember that the cheer we might bring springs from the original source - God himself. We do not have to give away that which we do not have or will never possess. But we are given the opportunity to recognize the gifts of light God is providing for us day in and day out.

At night, it is hard to remember such things. Our anxiety creeps up on our quieting mind. Fears run rampant. It’s not just children who fear the monsters in their closet.

So in the daylight, we must run with some degree of haste to comfort and cheer those around us. No comfort and cheer in your heart? No worries! Practice it anyway. You were never the source!

Day 5: Comfort and Cheer

The fifth antiphon:

O Rising Sun, You are the splendour of eternal light and the sun of justice.

O Come and enlighten those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death.

O come, Thou Day-spring, come and cheer our spirits by Thine advent here;

disperse the gloomy clouds of night, and death’s dark shadows put to flight:

Rejoice! Rejoice! Immanuel shall come to thee, O Israel.

During stressful seasons it is natural to fall back into living by the law of scarcity. It will require a conscious effort on our part to remember that the cheer we might bring springs from the original source - God himself. We do not have to give away that which we do not have or will never possess. But we are given the opportunity to recognize the gifts of light God is providing for us day in and day out.

At night, it is hard to remember such things. Our anxiety creeps up on our quieting mind. Fears run rampant. It’s not just children who fear the monsters in their closet.

So in the daylight, we must run with some degree of haste to comfort and cheer those around us. No comfort and cheer in your heart? No worries! Practice it anyway. You were never the source!

Meditation Moment: Look for the Light

Your life is your life

don’t let it be clubbed into dank

submission.

Be on the watch.

There are ways out.

There is a light somewhere.

It may not be much light

but it beats the

Darkness.

Charles Bukowski, “the laughing heart”

You get to choose your life. Much you do not get to choose. But you choose your life within the frame of all that is beyond you. Quietly sit and ponder this truth. Ask God to draw you near and into his light.