I had a few insights this Easter, from the beginning of Lent until now.
- It's easy, in a marriage that is for the most part free of big issues anymore, to begin to settle into a familiarity that starts taking the other for granted, that becomes polite but not passionate. Bill and I had that discussion during Lent and then, when I went to church the following Sunday, it dawned on me that that's true of one's faith as well. When the season of questing and wrestling is more settled, the ardor settles as well, and the sense of the presence of God starts to fade. It isn't as 'real' (even though it IS real) and not as fun...just like the marriage. So finding ways to regain connection takes effort in marriage (and with God). Paths that sometimes lead to intimacy and knowing can, at other times, become stale, and new paths need to be cut.
- There's a period of time between when hope is lost and resurrection occurs. I thought of this on Holy Saturday and photoblogged about it a little. In my life, I can think of several times (two of lifechanging significance) when I saw my dream die. Really truly die. It was over. And I lived in that place, bereft. But hope was around the corner. I couldn't see it. I think you sometimes have to completely lose something (it has to be beaten and crucified, and taken down, and laid to rest, and mourned) before you are ready to find it resurrected in a better form than imaginable before. If you try to shortchange the loss by continually protecting yourself from such a profound loss, you'll never experience the resurrection. No one in their right mind seeks the loss (wants their marriage to end, wants their child to die, wants to be homeless or jobless or diseased, wants to lose their faith) -- but it seems that often it is in retrospect that one can say, despite the bitter loneliness of Holy Saturday, they found resurrection and hope and life and goodness on Easter, and they wouldn't go back. Whether Holy Saturday lasts for them 2 hours or 20 years...they wouldn't go back and change it.
- Without hunger, food doesn't taste as good. When I stay sated, I tend less to be focused on hunger and what positive effect hunger can have in driving me to the thing I most need. Fasting has a way of burning away and cutting to the heart of things. I don't practice it enough, or well. But when I do, I'm instructed by it. It ties in with the other points, too. It is one of those ways to experience bereftness in order to experience joy; it's a path toward learning not to take something for granted.
This was a selection from Gustav Mahler's Finale to the Resurrection Symphony (translated) sung during mass today. I really like it.
Oh believe, my heart, oh believe:
You will lose nothing!
What you wanted, you will have.
What you loved and fought for, you will have.
Oh believe:
You were not born in vain!
You did not live and Suffer in vain!
What was born must die!
What passed away must rise again!
Stop your quaking!
Prepare yourself for living!
Oh pain! You, the all-penetrating!
From you I have escaped.
Oh death! You, the all-compelling!
Now you must yourself submit!
With wings that I have won for myself
In my ardent quest for love,
I will soar up
To the light, to which no eye has beheld!
Die I must, in order to live.
Rise again, yes, rise again you will.
My heart, in one moment!
That which beat you
To God will it carry you.
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3 comments:
I once heard something similar to your second point refered to as the "death of a vision." The loss of expectations, hopes, and plans. It can involve your life's work, your marriage, your health, your relationships, or your children. I think we all come to some point where we say, "This isn't how I planned it." And then we either fight it or we surrender to the death. Or we fight it until we are too exhausted to keep going, then we surrender. Your analogy was appropriate ...crucifying the vision, burying it, and mourning it. A complete death. Maybe there is resurrection, or maybe there's simply peace at the end of the struggle, which is a kind of new birth, too.
Beautiful, meaningful post, Beth. Your second point is the whole premise of Larry Crab's, "Shattered Dreams". He says that God allows our dreams to be shattered so that He can replace them with dreams better than we could have imagined.
Loved your meditations, Beth. I can relate to all of them.
Susan
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