Perhaps it's been a while since "your life snapped at the stem," as Kate and Jessica write (p 69). Or maybe your wound is still fresh and raw.
Depending on where you are in the healing journey, I'm not sure how helpful this chapter will be to you, but I suspect, if it doesn't speak to you know, it will. Someday. I hope it at least gives you something to hope for in the future if it feels out of reach right now.
I know this isn't exactly the image of the tree she talks about, but I'm guessing it's pretty close:
This palm tree, as they write, "made a series of important choices" - "in a shocking act of hubris" it decides to grow sideways and then "rather impertinently, grew straight toward the sky" (pp 68-69).
In the aftermath of our life snapping, the best we can do is survive. "Try to sleep. Remember to eat. Keep breathing" (p 69).
And while it is SO. VERY. TEMPTING. to think we need to bounce back right away - even better than we were before life snapped! -- perhaps a better use for our time would be to linger in the moment, connecting with our humanity where it really is OK to be sad and afraid and tired and confused.
Not to stay there, for sure, but to linger there long enough to admit those things to ourselves and to God and maybe even to a friend. And to let God and a friend sit and linger with us in that place before we "move forward" (p 71).
Friends, these seem like especially important words for us to be reading right now -- the week that Naomi Judd died by suicide just a day before being inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame and the news of a third Division 1 female athlete's death (James Madison University's star catcher Lauren Bernett) by suicide.
"Please, please, please, hear me say to you: You are not ruined or broken or a failure. You are simply in pain. And God is with you. This is God's great magic act, in my opinion. The more we suffer, the more we can't get away from God's insistent love (p. 70)."
Again, maybe it's been a while since the trunk of your life snapped, or maybe the snap is still fresh and raw.
But I still think these words are for all of us:
"Blessed are you, starting to sense that maybe sunlight can reach you, even here. And you reach out, finding yourself in a fierce embrace. And God's voice saying: You are not the bad thing. You are not ruined. You are not broken, nor over, nor a failure, nor learning a lesson. You are my suffering one, and you are love, you are loved, you are loved" (p 72).
Pastor Allison
I'm curious:
I've been thinking a lot about the Henry David Thoreau quote Kate and Jessica include at the end of this reflection:
"Make the most of your regrets; never smother your sorrow, but tend and cherish it till it comes to have a separate and integral interest. To regret deeply is to live afresh."
I've always heard people rather proudly say they never have any regrets. Which I guess means they just accept what happens as what happens. If you are someone who regularly says this, how would you respond to the idea of "making the most of your regrets?"
How might cherishing our sorrows might lead to "life afresh?" Can you even wrap your mind around that, or is it just too far outside of your experience of life and loss so far?
2 comments:
How might cherishing our sorrows might lead to "life afresh?"
As I have found often in this series-that’s a tough one. Some sorrows came in my life when it seemed there was so much to do that there was no time to cherish them. And others when I had nothing but time, and maybe cherished the sorrows way too much. I guess do everything with moderation.
Moderation is a good place to start.
I appreciate Kate Bowler's continual theme of not looking away from the difficult and painful experiences of life. (It shows up in most of her books.)
The idea of "cherishing our sorrows" leading to "life afresh" came up in Sunday School yesterday - the theme of that conversation seemed to be that perspective and some distance from the sorrow are crucial. In the heat of the moment, we often can't see past the sorrow, but in the following days (or months or sometimes even years) we often can find meaning in the sorrow. And that meaning often - though maybe not always - can lead to life afresh.
At least, that's how we made sense of it that day!
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