Is He Who created the heavens and the earth not able to create the like of human beings? Of course – for He is the Creator, the All Knowing. When he intends something, His only command is to say to it: “Be,” and it is. So glory be to Him in Whose hand is dominion over all things; and to Him you will be returned. Surah 36:81-82
As a priest, I often sit with friends and neighbors and parishioners who are worried, concerned, even frightened. They do not know what to do next. I get a call out of the blue, from a college roommate, who wants to talk about her daughter’s anorexia. A parishioner comes by the office to return a book, and we end up talking about his sister’s drug addiction. A mother calls wondering if I can help with her oil bill; she can’t keep her babies warm. A stranger at a party confides in me that he was abused as a young boy and wonders if he will ever trust again.
Calls come – about terrible diagnoses, impending law suits, loss of a job, house fires, arrests with possible prison time, and suicidal despair.
These stories are the stories of life, universal in their scope and unique in their details, and sometimes, if not often, they end in grief. Especially if the call involves death, especially if the death comes unannounced, and especially if it involves a young person in the hands of an accident, suicide, overdose, murder, or illness.
In the midst of this grief, questions are asked that are wider than any map, “How can I find my way through this?” “If God has dominion over all things, which I believe He does, then why is God letting this happen?” “How do I continue to pray when I feel so abandoned?”
I honor the grief as best I can. A grief beyond limits. A grief that knows no container, no boundaries, a grief that…
… leaves you spinning into the universe un-moored, tethered only to pain, loss, and confusion. Where you feel your very own self, bones and flesh, disbanding; like watching a tablet dissolve into water, you know you are disappearing. You can’t sleep at night; you long to forget your pain, yet even when you forget for a few glorious minutes, the reality comes crashing back, and you feel worse than from before…. which you had assumed could not get worse. So even momentarily relief becomes a deeper anguish.
Stories that priests hear, stories we all might hear, either through our own experience or from our friends and neighbors and colleagues or through the news… children starving, mass bombings, school shootings, and rape. Unspeakable things and yet they are in our midst, a part of our lives.
What can we do?
~ ~ ~ ~
One day, as a hospital chaplain, I came into a room, and the patient I was supposed to see wasn’t there. Over at the next bed, the attendees were taking a man to surgery. The gurney was there, and the two men were calling off the numbers from the patient’s wrist and ankle bands, to make sure they had the right person. He wasn’t my patient, but I thought, “why not,” and I put my hand on his chest and said a short prayer for the success of his upcoming surgery, and then he was placed on the gurney and wheeled away.
A few days later, I returned to see my patient, who again wasn’t there, but the man whom I had prayed for was in his bed, surrounded by his family.
“There she is, the one I’ve been telling you about. Come here, please come here.”
I moved toward him, a bit hesitantly, not knowing what to make of his call.
He took my hands and said, “Let me kiss your hands, you, an angel from God, saved me. I was sure that they were taking me away, as they called out my name, checked my number, as they secured me in their hands. I was terrified. Then you broke into my fear, into my memories, into the horror and reminded me with your prayer, with your hand placed on my chest, that I was in good hands… off to surgery, not evil hands… off to death.”
And then he showed me his tattooed numbers on his left arm.
“I had given up on God; He abandoned all of us to those monsters. And in it all, I became a monster, as well. A broken man, bereft of my faith. Alone. And yet, here I am, believing, actually knowing, that you were sent as an angel of God, sent to give me comfort and peace. How can that be? I can’t make any sense of it, but please sit down; I want to be with you and experience in this moment God’s consoling presence. It’s a precious moment.”
As I sat down, he said to me, “Something is being redeemed.”
We feel God as absent; we feel God as present; with a chasm in-between. Evil exists. We wish we could make it go away, but we can’t. What do we make of it? How do we describe God, understand God’s “intentions”? How do we strengthen our relationship with God who is transcendent and concealed, yet as close to us as our jugular, knowing our innermost self-whispers?
I always begin in the pain, asking God to help me feel the presence of the Divine. I wait, and remind myself that the strength of my faith, our faith, will not vanquish the horrors of evil.
Yet, in the midst of our lives, especially in the midst of suffering, we are connected at a very deep level to each other and to the Hand that holds us, the Ground of Our Very Being, and like a salve, we can give and receive comfort and support. This is no small thing.
In protecting and caring for each other, in standing up to make a difference, in really seeing each other, we are providing a sacred sanctuary where the nobility of our souls dwell. We are not alone. And in this dwelling, we are reminded that there exists another dwelling, provided by the One to whom we will be returned.
Day 23: Reflection
How have you experienced a sacred sanctuary where the nobility of souls dwell?
