Some days the words just will not come. They are dried up
under our scorching sadness, they are snatched away by the shock of tragedy,
disjointed by the world in which we feel like strangers, or simply fatigued by
deep lamenting through the dark night. Some days our words are just not sufficient,
a paltry vocabulary to try and name the vast Mysteries.
This weekend the sadness of many precious lives lost,
overwhelmed me. The responses of tongues wagging and fingers pointing
(including my own) exhausted me. The anger over our collective
unwillingness to build peace, burned through me. And now I have nothing left, no
words, only sadness and fatigue and the ever-encroaching desire to forget, to simplify,
to move on.
This week AMP will look at ways in which we Hold the Mystery. A theme originally
chosen (at least for my part) with an eye toward the Divine mysteries of the season,
the wonder, the amazement, the parts of our story that are just beyond us. But, today, in light of the tragic events of
this weekend, I must confess that I am having trouble accessing that kind of
mystery.
That sense of benevolent mystery, that other-worldly peace of
the starry darkness, the wonder of God incarnate in a baby: those are not what
I am feeling today. I find, instead,
that I am stuck on more immediate mysteries. There is so much about this world
that I do not understand: suffering and apathy, brokenness, violence and our
human need to hold on to these things so tightly, cutting ourselves every which
way but loose from their grasp on us.
We cannot escape the realization that part of the
mystery of this season is painful. Because between the evening news and the
candlelight Christmas Eve service, between the reality of the world and
the hope of God making the world new,
there is a crushing sense that things should not, and cannot, be this way. Between these counter points there is a void,
a space where we cannot fully understand, cannot even fully name our dual
reality; a space of sighs, it empties us, again and again, as we wait there for
the advent of our hope realized.
There are moments in this space where the mystery, the un-knowing,
the incomprehensibility are greater than our words, there are moments in which
music and melodies move us powerfully, as words cannot; and moments beyond even
our musical expression, moments in which all we may do is fall silent.
And so we do fall silent today. I chose today’s video
because there is no sound. I invite you to give yourself to the silence for a
few moments today, trusting it to help us hold
the mysteries. May we find something solid about silence, something stable,
restful. May it be a place of realigning ourselves, a place where that which is
within us may rise to the surface and find release. May the silence lead us to
dwell with the heavy questions, the deep despair, the neediness of creation; even
as we dwell with the mysteries of Advent, of God moving in creation, breathing
in the deep silences, slowly, steadily, in time with our heartbeat, as together
we wait.
Thou, who breathed in the womb
who dwelt in the tomb
mercy, have mercy
on us who wait.*
-Lindsey
*prayer by Jan Richardson
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