lenten journal: blessed are those . . .

I spent the better part of the morning with some friends from church as a part of a Lenten Bible study. We are focusing on the Beatitudes. As I was preparing to lead the group, I was struck by the fact that Matthew takes just four chapters to move from Jesus’ genealogy to his birth to his baptism to the temptations to calling the disciples and then spends the next three chapters on one sermon. I’ve been reading through a couple of commentaries that talk about understanding the blessings of the beatitudes as Big Picture: an eschatological perspective of the realm of God, which is both now and not yet. I thought about the commentator’s word when I sat down this afternoon with Stephen Dunn again and his essay on “Poets, Poetry, and Spirituality.”

The classic spiritual journey is from travail to understanding to acceptance. (168)

That classic journey is the one on which I was raised. As the old gospel song says,

farther along we’ll know more about it
farther along we’ll understand why
cheer up my brother live in the sunshine
we’ll understand it all by and by

“Faith is the substance of things hoped for,” the writer of the Letter to the Hebrews proclaimed, “the evidence of things not seen.” Yes and I have come to see that life is more nuanced and more complicated that the stepping stones in the classic journey. Dunn offers another thought:

Spirituality in poetry. Here’s another attempt at a definition: A journey from travail toward an understanding that leads back to mystery.” (170)

Though Dunn is not writing from a Christian perspective, he informs mine because he asks good questions. I have found that I need the questions of those who are not insiders to my faith perspective to challenge me to see more than I can find on my own or within my community of insiders, particularly when it comes to dealing with pain and struggle. Take, for example, Tom Waits’ song, “Georgia Lee”:

cold was the night, hard was the ground
they found her in a small grove of trees
lonesome was the place where Georgia was found
she's too young to be out on the street.

why wasn't God watching?
why wasn't God listening?
why wasn't God there for Georgia Lee?

When I was in the deepest part of my depression and trying to figure out what was happening to me and how to begin to make meaning of it, most Christian writers were not much help because they had a hard time coming to terms with despair without offering how I let Jesus fix me. I didn’t need someone to fix me. I needed someone to listen, to resonate, to sit there in the dark with me and admit it was real and that I could survive. Dunn, again:

I know that despair often can be a ticket to an unchosen journey, and to survive it is to come back with glimpses of what was not available to us before. (160)

As Lent began this year, I observed – no, I celebrated two years that I have been off of my antidepressants. Life is lighter these last two years than the eight years before them and I am grateful. I worked hard to understand what depression was and how I could deal with the darkness and I don’t understand how or why it let up on me in many ways. I live now with the prospect that this is a season of relief, which may last a long time and which may not, and I must continue to let my faith and my life be informed by what I saw and felt and learned while riding the monster. I see what Dunn means by catching glimpses of “what was not available to us before,” just as I have a deeper appreciation for the prepositional phrases that complete each of the Beatitudes:

blessed are the poor in spirit FOR theirs is the kingdom of heaven
blessed are they that mourn FOR they shall be comforted
blessed are the meek FOR they shall inherit the earth
blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness FOR they shall be filled
blessed are the merciful FOR they shall receive mercy
blessed are the pure in heart FOR they shall see God
blessed are the peacemakers FOR they shall be called the children of God
blessed are those persecuted for righteousness FOR theirs is the kingdom of heaven

Jesus’ words feel like an invitation to the journey Dunn described: “from travail to toward an understanding that leads back to mystery.” To begin to grasp the blessing means to be first acquainted with grief, with loss, with suffering. To begin to understand the substance of things hoped for is to find resonance first with the pain that is the substance of human existence. Such is the paradox of blessing, the opening to the deeper mystery of God.

After eight years of depression, I know experientially more about emotional pain than I did before. I also know that love did not let go of me. I didn’t learn that because someone told me to trust Jesus or told me that love wouldn’t let go of me. I learned it because people who love me – Ginger being at the top of that list – didn’t let go. They didn’t try to fix me or correct me; what they did best was not leave. They incarnated love in a way that gave me room to trust that I would be comforted, that God was somewhere in the dark as well. As REM sings in one of my favorite hymns,

when your day is night alone
and you feel like letting go
when you think you’ve had too much of this life, well hang on
‘cause everybody hurts
take comfort in your friends
everybody hurts
don’t throw up your hands
don’t throw up your hands
if you feel like you’re alone
no, no, no – you’re not alone

Despair is the seedbed of hope. Hope is more profound than explanation or reprieve. Love never lets go.

Someday we shall see face to face.

Peace,
Milton

advent journal: nothing new to say

When we came out of the restaurant, the air was raw – even people who know what real winter is would have shared my weather report. The wind was biting and we all braced ourselves as we walked to the car. We went out on a winter’s night because Reuben, my father-in-law, turned eighty today. We wanted to take him to Maggiano’s Little Italy because when we celebrated his seventieth we went to their restaurant in Boston, so we carried on the tradition, even in a different city.

But much has changed in ten years. And in the last two weeks.

Reuben’s Alzheimer’s appears to be picking up the pace of his disappearance, so these days of celebration and remembrance carry even greater significance. As we drove across town to the restaurant, he sang any number of songs that came to mind, beginning with his greatest hit, “Nothing Could Be Finer (Than To Be In Carolina),” and moving through much of Eddie Arnold’s catalog. When we got up from the pub table where they had us wait until our dinner table was ready, he took time to straighten all the chairs before he joined us. We asked questions about memories he can still find and he talked about growing up and going overseas in the Service. And then he effusively expressed his love for Rachel, his wife, and his eyes glistened and danced before they faded, once more, back into blankness. As we drove home, Ginger wished him happy birthday to remind him of why we were out in the cold and he began singing, “Happy birthday to me, happy birthday to me,” with great gusto.

My task before we left for dinner was to make a caramel cake, which has been rather elusive in the years before we moved to Durham. Around here, people actually know what that is. For those of you not from the South, let me say it will meet whatever sugar fix you have. I have tried several recipes over the years and Reuben has been gracious in eating them and enjoying them, but they were never the same as he remembered as a child. Today, thanks to whoever it is that writes Smitten Kitchen, I found a recipe that made the cake I have been looking for. We got home from our sojourn and finished the evening with a good shot of sugar infused with a lifetime of memories. He made it to eighty. We are all here together in Durham, along with the pups.

What we are living through doesn’t get fixed by following the Star.

Christmas will come, Christ will be born, and Reuben will still be disappearing. We will have to tell him it’s Christmas – more than once. And what it feels like for us to live through this year is not new ground. As many Christmases as there have been, there have been people living in pain, losing one another, wondering what difference it makes that unto us a Child is born – which is not as cynical or as hopeless as it sounds. Much of the hope is the resonance of woundedness: we are not the first. We stand in the lineage that begins with certain poor shepherds and winds its way through hospital halls and houses, down the days shared by friends and families who know life’s crushing load all too well.

And Mary brought forth a son who came to both redeem and resonate: God with us.

When I came up to write tonight, I had a song swirling inside me, which I subsequently found on Youtube and watched, cried, and sang along several times before I began typing. The song is Kathy Mattea’s “Where’ve You Been?” (written by Jon Venzer and Don Henry). It tells the story of a couple who were married sixty years before one began to disappear. The final verse says

claire soon lost her memory
forgot the names of family
she never spoke a word again
then one day they wheeled him in
he held her hand and stroked her hair
in a fragile voice she said
where've you been
I've looked for you forever and a day
where've you been
I'm just not myself when you're away

I get to this point in my posts and I think, “I’m saying the same things over and over.” I am pulled to repeat carols and Patty Griffin lyrics I have posted over and over, I come back to what it means to be community – together, and what it means that God climbed into our skin and joined the circle of woundedness and wonder. I find comfort in the repetition because it’s one of the ways I am drawn to resilience. I read T. S. Eliot’s “Journey of the Magi” and come to the lines where he says

All this was a long time ago, I remember,
And I would do it again, but set down
This set down
This:

And I can feel him banging those words on the desk, the repetition compelling me to pay attention and let the words make their indelible mark on my heart by tapping at it again and again.

One of the people with whom Reuben shares a birthday is Peter Buck of REM. They have also been victims of my repetition over the years because “Everybody Hurts” is a hymn, as far as I’m concerned.

when you think you've had too much
of this life well hang on
'cause everybody hurts
take comfort in your friends
everybody hurts
don't throw up your hands
oh no don't throw up your hands
if you feel like you're alone
no no no you are not alone

On this night when the dark and cold are deep inside, when the light in Reuben’s eyes flashed for a fading moment, and when all I know to do is to cling to those I love and words I know so that Christ will be born again in my time, I have nothing new to say. But what I have is enough.

Peace,
Milton