The Redemption Project - Darkness (and Light)

Last weekend the skies cleared after over a week of rain. The sun shone, warming the earth and drying up the yards and puddles. People, extra-cooped-up from the stay-at-home ordinances, came out to walk the sidewalks, play in yards, draw on sidewalks.

After doing some overdue yard work, I sat down on the porch in the afternoon sun with a book and some coffee to read and let the light from our ancient star warm my skin. It was what I needed. It's what my body's been longing for as the dawn brought day after day of gray.

Yet, at one point, I tucked a finger into my book, looked up, and wondered if this was wrong. How could the sun be shining, the sky a clear blue, children playing down the street when so many were in so much pain?

In the Gospel accounts, in the hours that Jesus hangs upon the cross, darkness falls. The bright spring day turns to gloom. The world, perhaps the universe realizes the weight of the moment. Love Incarnate is dying, and it responds by blotting out the noonday sun.

Doesn't the world realize what's happening now?

It's been almost thirty years since my grandmother passed suddenly. Yet, I can still remember something my mother said the evening of her funeral. As we rode to and from the cemetery, she saw the traffic running like any other day, the world continuing on as if nothing had happened. Didn't they know, she thought, what had happened? Shouldn't the bird's song stop, and the sun dull its glow? Shouldn't the world stop its mad rush, stand on the sidewalks, and realize the grief that's passing them on this day?

Maybe her question was really, didn't God know?

The grief and suffering filling our world right now is so great it seems like it, alone, should darken the skies. And even so, shouldn't God's heart be broken? Shouldn't the grief of the Holy One dull the colors of our world?

In the twelfth chapter of Romans, Paul instructs us as to what it means to always act with love. Laugh, he says, with those who laugh. Cry with those who cry. Mourn with all those who mourn. He doesn't say it, but he knew that sometimes we will do so on the same day, within the same hour.

Sitting on the porch, the late-March breeze stirring the wind chimes to song, causing flags to flutter I found I could only pray: for the sick, the dying, the grieving, and those working so hard to tend to them. I asked Christ to be with them, knowing he already was, and is.

Then I smiled at my love as she came out to sit beside me in the fading afternoon. My heart still feeling sadness, but also holding joy. Not understanding but knowing God's heart, greater than mine, is doing the same.

And seeing that the sky can darken, yet still hold light.

Second Sunday after Pentecost

Psalm 30


Over the past two weeks I've been to two graduations. Long commencement speakers aside, I really do enjoy the pomp and ceremony of these rituals. Like any rite, they are moments of transformation. Those receiving their bachelor's degree enter with tassels on the right and leave with them on the left. Robed men and women reemerge with colorful hoods draping down their backs. A chapter is closed and a new one begun in the space of a sunny afternoon.


Graduations mean something to friends and family just as they do to the person receiving their diploma, since they are the ones who know the story behind the day. In a way, it's a shame that there isn't enough space to give a brief history of the person walking across the stage. Perhaps they excelled in their studies and have finished in three-and-a-half years. Maybe they've been working hard through a decade of nights and weekends, balancing work and children and personal tragedies, all to reach this momentous day.


Watching the students receive their diplomas this morning, I couldn't help thinking about the oft-quoted line from one of the Psalms for today. "In the evening, weeping will spend the night and in the morning: a cry of jubilation." Too often, I think, we can be too glib with these powerful words. We say them as if to promise some sort of brevity to our own or, worse, another's suffering. But that isn't how the Psalmist uses them at all. Though it seemed in the good times that he would not be shaken for a long, long time, this didn't mean that the times of dis-ease felt any less endless. The time when sorrow would finally pass must have seemed as distant as morning during a restless night.


As spouses and parents and loved ones let out joyful cries this morning, I wondered how many of the graduates had once thought their long night of sadness would never end. The student who lost a father in her first year of studies, who saw her grades plummet and her life fall apart, had she ever wondered if day would come? The young man who had, halfway through his studies, realized that what he'd always dreamed of being was not what he was meant to be, had he ever questioned if the sun would rise? And did any, in the midst of papers or exams, ever doubt that they would wake up at this dawning?


We who are resting in the seemingly eternal untroubled period cannot promise when the new day will begin. Those who are awake while everyone else rests cannot be certain that this night is without a dawn. All we can do is sit and wait. And, if we listen together, we may be surprised to hear a stone beginning to sing as it moves to let something completely new come forth.


God of new beginnings, help us to weep with those in the night and rejoice with all who have seen the first light of morning.