This Beautiful, Terrible Darkness
(Are you OK?)
Are you OK? It seems like things are really dark for you right now.
It has been a dark time, AND I’m also OK... sort of. Not really. I’m healing.
I’ve had this same conversation (or one like it) several times in the last month. I have many wonderful family and friends checking in on me and tending well to me in my recent struggles. Just today I talked with a dear friend. We live a few thousand miles apart, so he hasn’t been particularly aware of all that’s been happening. Still, he called with the sole agenda of telling me I was on his mind. He felt the need to say to me that the work we’ve done together and the time we spent together continue to hold daily significance to him. It does to me too. Our brief conversation and his affirmation reminded me once again of the significance of relationships. Loving one another well is the heart of everything I want my life to be about. Our conversation didn’t erase the difficulty of what the last month(s) has been, but it did remind me of the ever-present goodness of God. It reminded me of Christ who is made known in and through our relationship with one another.
So, while I wish life would ease up a little bit.While I wish the sun would shine for more than a few hours at a time in Fort Wayne. While I wish I was free from anxiety and panic attacks. While I wish the same for my kids. While I wish Michelle’s job wasn’t so hard all the time. While I wish I would never have to baptize another dead child. While I wish senseless violence would stop. While I wish people in wheeled metal boxes traveling 70 miles an hour faster than humans were meant to move would stop running into other humans traveling in wheeled metal boxes. While I wish cancer would stop being a thing. While I wish we were all free from struggle and suffering and pain, I remain thankful. I’m not thankful for any of those things or countless other things that contribute to the darkness of this world. I remain thankful that God feels present in this space in time. Or maybe my awareness is peaked since all that I wish for is beyond my control and reach.
Richard Rohr says,
“There has to be something that you, by yourself, cannot understand, fix, control, change, or even begin to address. It is the raw experience of ‘I cannot do this.’ All you can do at this point is wait and ask and trust… This is the darkness of faith, and now you can trust that this darkness is a much better teacher than supposed certainty or rightness.”
Darkness has certainly proven to be a good teacher to me.
Are you OK?
No. But I AM healing. I am healing in this beautiful, terrible darkness.