Can't say I'm too sad to say goodbye to this February. It is not often that we can't find a single space in 2 weeks to communicate. Dr. Travis's death hit us hard, and the pummelling hasn't let up.
For instance, and in no particular order the days have ricocheting from a limply sick team kid . . three students with serious medical issues taking up hours of parent meetings and diagnosis and planning down at CSB . . a neighbour comes to say her young husband has taken in a second wife after their baby died, what grief . . thieves break in violently to another team's housing and we are heartsick for the aftermath of that trauma . . the US Embassy sends out terrorism warnings for a neighbouring country . . a zillion calls and emails and texts some of which we miss following up . . begging for help and finding it hard to come by . . the looming threat of coronavirus as it seeps across the globe with confusing and obscure implications for all of us, but particularly those living in places where intensive care will NOT be possible . . preparing for the arrival of new team mates which is good news but also a lot of responsibility . . pulling together the right people and documents for various meetings . . advocating for justice . . worrying and walking with anxious parents who are friends when their kids are sick . . buying life-saving meds when the hospital has run out . . meeting with counselors who will serve our mission in May/June to prepare them (slightly) for the realities of the complex sorrows of life on the edge . . pondering difficult cases on the ward . . trying to push through 76 patients while getting called to deal with other emergencies . . missing our own kids on their birthdays . . scrambling to have more beds, desks, chairs fabricated when 357 students flood into CSB on a wave of community positivity . . keeping up with Ebola news and making contingency plans . . struggling to advocate for people we have invested in to get jobs . . listening to some deep heartaches . . praying over distant friends with cancer, with unknown masses, with a child with serious head injury, with worrisome pregnancy issues, with previously undiagnosed fatal illness in a child, with a preemie, often trying to read or give advice when asked . . planning for half a dozen upcoming visitors . . anyway you get the picture. Doing a lot of good things but not doing them particularly well, because it's always too many issues for a day.
And then there is the bigger picture, always there just out of sight. The small tremors of our difficulties are only symptoms of a bigger truth. In this world you will have trouble, Jesus said. The global reality of brokenness.
Certainly the transatlantic slave trade that led to Black History Month must be right at the top of those world-trouble truths. And certainly the death of Jesus himself on the cross must be right at the center of how we grasp for meaning.
Which is why reading this book, this month, has been both challenging and encouraging:
"The cross is a paradoxical religious symbol because it inverts the world's value system with the news that hope comes by way of defeat, that suffering and death do not have the last word, that the last shall be first and the first last. . . the cross places God in the midst of crucified people, in the midst of people who are hung, shot, burned, and tortured. . The final word about black life is not death on a lynching tree but redemption in the cross--a miraculously transformed life found in the God of the gallows." (all quotes from chapter one, but the whole book is deeply worth reading).
The promise to the suffering is two-fold. One, God is with us. This path of the cross is the very path God walks. That is a great comfort, and hard to keep preaching to oneself let alone others, that success and fame and glory and comfort are not the normal measure of God-nearness in a world still groaning. Suffering is God's tabernacle. Until, promise two breaks in. Suffering has meaning, and that meaning is redemption. Our light and momentary afflictions are part of a bigger arc of God's story, a hidden, slow, yeasty transformation. God is in the process of making all things new, and the cross is that process.
And so this lent, we are called to a discipline of noticing redemption as we carry the cross. Bearing witness to the God-with-us in the darkness, to the reality of light growing. For my complaining and easily self-pitying heart, that means a mid-day re-set of looking for a praise. This is not a Pollyanna denial of the hard, but a searching eye for that little sprout of hope in the middle of it.
This week that has looked like two babies who were nearly dead at birth, given the breaths of life to pull them back into this world. That has been the heartening reminder that our little limited ecosystem sometimes gets supernatural infusions of grace, such as a counsellor getting on a plane to fly across the world to help. That has been dinner at 9 pm cheered by video chatting with our kids, and a rescue of generosity by our brother-in-law adopting a mother's too-wild but much-loved cat. That has been the young man with devastating mental illness who was nearly killed by the mob, and was disrobing and violent and threatening . . . returning from the national referral mental hospital in calm mind and spirit, such a wonderful transformation. That has been unexpected sweetness from team kids, and unexpected beauty in finding a quiet place to pray. Look for hope, because it lands like grace.
For instance, and in no particular order the days have ricocheting from a limply sick team kid . . three students with serious medical issues taking up hours of parent meetings and diagnosis and planning down at CSB . . a neighbour comes to say her young husband has taken in a second wife after their baby died, what grief . . thieves break in violently to another team's housing and we are heartsick for the aftermath of that trauma . . the US Embassy sends out terrorism warnings for a neighbouring country . . a zillion calls and emails and texts some of which we miss following up . . begging for help and finding it hard to come by . . the looming threat of coronavirus as it seeps across the globe with confusing and obscure implications for all of us, but particularly those living in places where intensive care will NOT be possible . . preparing for the arrival of new team mates which is good news but also a lot of responsibility . . pulling together the right people and documents for various meetings . . advocating for justice . . worrying and walking with anxious parents who are friends when their kids are sick . . buying life-saving meds when the hospital has run out . . meeting with counselors who will serve our mission in May/June to prepare them (slightly) for the realities of the complex sorrows of life on the edge . . pondering difficult cases on the ward . . trying to push through 76 patients while getting called to deal with other emergencies . . missing our own kids on their birthdays . . scrambling to have more beds, desks, chairs fabricated when 357 students flood into CSB on a wave of community positivity . . keeping up with Ebola news and making contingency plans . . struggling to advocate for people we have invested in to get jobs . . listening to some deep heartaches . . praying over distant friends with cancer, with unknown masses, with a child with serious head injury, with worrisome pregnancy issues, with previously undiagnosed fatal illness in a child, with a preemie, often trying to read or give advice when asked . . planning for half a dozen upcoming visitors . . anyway you get the picture. Doing a lot of good things but not doing them particularly well, because it's always too many issues for a day.
And then there is the bigger picture, always there just out of sight. The small tremors of our difficulties are only symptoms of a bigger truth. In this world you will have trouble, Jesus said. The global reality of brokenness.
Certainly the transatlantic slave trade that led to Black History Month must be right at the top of those world-trouble truths. And certainly the death of Jesus himself on the cross must be right at the center of how we grasp for meaning.
Which is why reading this book, this month, has been both challenging and encouraging:
The promise to the suffering is two-fold. One, God is with us. This path of the cross is the very path God walks. That is a great comfort, and hard to keep preaching to oneself let alone others, that success and fame and glory and comfort are not the normal measure of God-nearness in a world still groaning. Suffering is God's tabernacle. Until, promise two breaks in. Suffering has meaning, and that meaning is redemption. Our light and momentary afflictions are part of a bigger arc of God's story, a hidden, slow, yeasty transformation. God is in the process of making all things new, and the cross is that process.
And so this lent, we are called to a discipline of noticing redemption as we carry the cross. Bearing witness to the God-with-us in the darkness, to the reality of light growing. For my complaining and easily self-pitying heart, that means a mid-day re-set of looking for a praise. This is not a Pollyanna denial of the hard, but a searching eye for that little sprout of hope in the middle of it.
This week that has looked like two babies who were nearly dead at birth, given the breaths of life to pull them back into this world. That has been the heartening reminder that our little limited ecosystem sometimes gets supernatural infusions of grace, such as a counsellor getting on a plane to fly across the world to help. That has been dinner at 9 pm cheered by video chatting with our kids, and a rescue of generosity by our brother-in-law adopting a mother's too-wild but much-loved cat. That has been the young man with devastating mental illness who was nearly killed by the mob, and was disrobing and violent and threatening . . . returning from the national referral mental hospital in calm mind and spirit, such a wonderful transformation. That has been unexpected sweetness from team kids, and unexpected beauty in finding a quiet place to pray. Look for hope, because it lands like grace.
No comments:
Post a Comment