heavy, essence, Way
Lovely this morning, but WOW! quite a violent thunderstorm last evening, wasn't it, a furious, threatening electrical display as if to say "dare you to come out and shake your fist at me?" It was 2018, now four years since Joseph was struck by lightning, and I cannot ever again feel the same about Creation, never again feel comfortable and easy that Nature is on our side. In 2018, Father Nature drew a line in the sand and warned me not to step over, a fence, and a sign Posted! No Trespassing!
Huge, deep, dark, flashing, rumbling black clouds rolling in from the north and out over StAndrews Bay in front of us, a new experience every Time, the essence of ominous. Moses' I AM from the Burning Bush, "You! Yes, You! You in my yard: take off yo shoes"
A seething bully threatening and hoping you will take his dare.
Recess, and Calvin sees Moe coming his way.
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But everything in mind isn't light and joy this morning. Yes, we have our six-monthly eight o'clock appointment to get our octogenarian ears vacuumed out (may you also have long years), then a stop by Publix and downtown post office. But Sean of the South is very heavy indeed this morning, responding, from Sean's own life, to a letter from an eleven year old:
DEAR SEAN:
My dad committed suicide last night.
I just need to tell someone.
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it's about as heavy and permanent as life can come down on a child: that one whom you count on most of all didn't love you enough to put up with whatever pain life brings just to be in life with you and keep you safe and show you how much he loves you no matter what.
That he didn't love you more than he hated his own pain.
And Sean knows just how the child feels, because Sean's father did the same to him, and the pain of it never leaves him. Some of us know, love and read Frederick Buechner: Buechner's father did the same thing to him.
As a priest, I've been with the loved ones of children who committed suicide, buried their sons for them (because it was always a male child). But I've never had to look in the eyes of a child whose parent committed suicide, and I hope I never will, although I HAVE counseled, warned, several parents who were standing at that cliff, told them what it would do to the child they claimed to love more than anything: it'll prove you'd didn't really love them all that much after all; and as they grow older and face their own problems in life, it'll tell them that suicide is an good way out, and they'll likely do it too, and you will have your child's blood on your soul for all eternity.
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Doing everything, putting up with anything, no matter what, for the sake of someone you love more than you love yourself, is the essence of the Cross that we are called to carry.
If you've read him, you know it's the essence of Bonhoeffer's gospel. Our Cross is not laid on us, our Cross is chosen. The Cross is not life's difficulties and pain that you can do nothing about. The Cross is the Way you choose into and through your pain because it's the most loving Way, regardless of how much you yourself hurt.
A prayer in our marriage liturgy reminds us that "the way of the cross is the way of life". To me, it's the most meaningful phrase in the entire Book of Common Prayer.
RSF&PTL
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