For God alone my soul waits in silence: from him come my salvation. He alone is my rock and my salvation, my fortress; I shall never be shaken.
~Psalm 62: 1,2 NRSV
Within a moment when we are unprepared, a great hiatus comes into life and changes everything. Life ruptures, we are broken, lost, isolated, vulnerable, powerless, fearful, and scarred. The past disappears and the future seems cloudy. Do we move on toward hope and new life or live defeat.
Richard Rohr reminds us that "resurrection is not woundedness denied, forgotten, or even totally healed. It is always woundedness transformed. You still carry your scars forever, as both message and trophy." (p. 162) The crucified Christ is God standing in solidarity with us in our suffering and God's promise that it will not have the last word.
Amanda Gorman, the inaugural poet, demonstrated a movement toward new life through her own personal struggle. She was diagnosed with an auditory processing disorder in kindergarten and struggled with speech articulation up until a few years ago. Despite all her challenges with speech, she explained that she used writing to get her voice on the page. Writing poetry, practicing and reciting poetry became her speech therapy. Public speaking did not come naturally but with courage, determination and grit she persevered. She states, “When day comes, we step out of the shade aflame and unafraid. The new dawn blooms as we free it. For there is always light. If only we’re brave enough to see it. If only we’re brave enough to be it.”
Whether personal struggles, national or global injustices, perseverance with hope brings forth resilience and transformation. Joan Chittister explains that “If we are willing to persevere through the depths of struggle we can emerge with conversion, independence, faith, courage, surrender, self-acceptance, endurance, purity of heart, and a kind of personal growth that takes us beyond pain to understanding. Enduring struggle is the price to be paid for becoming everything we are meant to be in the world. What we see is the fullness of the self come to birth, the only way it really can: in labor and under trial.” (p.19).
Song: Within Our Darkest Night You Kindle A Fire that Never Dies Away, A Taizé chant of hope and light.
The Cure of Troy
Human beings suffer
They torture one another,
They get hurt and get hard.
No poem or play or song
Can fully right a wrong
Inflicted and endured.
The innocent in gaols
Beat on their bars together.
A hunger-striker’s father
Stands in the graveyard dumb.
The police widow in veils
Faints at the funeral home.
History says, Don’t hope
On this side of the grave…
But then, once in a lifetime
The longed-for tidal wave
Of justice can rise up,
And hope and history rhyme.
So hope for a great sea-change
On the far side of revenge.
Believe that a further shore
Is reachable from here.
Believe in miracles
And cures and healing wells.
Call miracle self-healing:
The utter, self-revealing
Double-take of feeling.
If there’s fire on the mountain
Or lightning and storm
And a god speaks from the sky
That means someone is hearing
The outcry and the birth-cry
Of new life at its term.
~Seamus Heaney
(below find a link to the recitation of this poem by Lin-Manuel Miranda)
Song: You Raise Me Up by Josh Gorban and Children’s Choir from Africa
Reflection:
Recall an experience of brokenness or struggle you encountered? How did you respond? As a result of this struggle did you notice any change or transformation that might not have happened if you had not had this experience?
In the midst of the pandemic, have you noticed any signs of growth, resilience or transformation?
The disease of systemic racism has permeated our country and world. What signs of resilience and transformation can you see in this terrible injustice?
-Chittister, J. (2003) Scarred by struggle, transformed by hope. Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company
-Gorman, A. (2020) “The Hill We Climb,” recited at the inauguration of President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, January 20, 2021
-Seamus, H. (1990). "The Cure of Troy" - recited by Lin-Manuel Miranda at the inauguration of President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, January 20, 2021
-Rohr, R (2013). Immortal diamond: The search for our true self. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass
Thank you so much Linda.
I am most drawn to Richard Rohr's words: "resurrection... is always woundedness transformed." Certainly that's the hope of Easter we can carry in our hearts as we journey through the wilderness of Lent.