We often ask "why" in the midst of the storms of life. Sometimes we are overcome by the clouds and cry out in despair. Family and friends have cancer, infertility, unbearable chronic pain, a debilitating disease, depression, and Alzheimer's.
Kyrie eleison, kyrie eleison - Lord, have mercy.
While suffering, gratitude for the little things that we take for granted can bring healing and wholeness. The trees and flowering plants show us their awesome Autumn colors. The migrating birds bring music to our ears. The starry skies and harvest moon warm our hearts. Such beauty is beyond comprehension and brings great joy!
Gloria in excelsis deo, Gloria in excelsis - Glory to God in the Highest
Mark Nepo states that, "the great challenge of our time is how to let in both the beauty and devastation that meet us every day without wasting our life energy running from one to the other. The real work is in opening our heart wide enough and deep enough to receive both, so we can draw strength from the miracle of life to repair the tragedy of life".
While our experiences in the storms of our lives can be overwhelming, our challenge is to not make them our only reality. Macrina Wiederkehr reminds us that: “Joy and sorrow are sisters. They live in the same house." and each helps the other. Sorrow softens joy to think beyond herself, to have more compassion for others. And joy brings balance to the pain and heartaches that could overcome us. Nepo refers to this balance as the "broken hallelujah" or living "between the pain and the song of life". God's love is constant in the midst of both realities.
The great blue heron,
beloved in our neighborhood,
symbol of all that is elegant and divine,
mysterious in migration, and in movement
contemplative, patient and wise,
stands regally by the pond
with a frog caught by one leg.
It will not go well for the frog.
Beauty has its price.
Why ask,
why this frog and not another?
(This one, loved of every slimy spot
and raspy evening song,
its placid grin, its humorous fingers, this one,
deeply adored even all the way down.)
Don't ask for why.
God doesn't choose the food for the bird.
But God loves them both,
and all the other frogs, and birds,
and struck onlookers.
Why do two get sick, and one recovers,
and one dies?
Why does the tree fall on one house and not another?
There is no why.
There is only this mystery,
that to predator and prey alike,
to both sufferer and bystander
God gives exactly the same grace.
Even to the perpetrator of the gravest injustice
and also to his victim
God gives equally infinite forgiveness.
Which is more confounding:
the unfairness of life,
or the constancy of God's love?
~Steve-Garnaas-Holmes
Reflection:
How have you been shaped by the "broken hallelujah": holding the joys and sorrows, the pain and the song in your inner home at the same time?
Lyrics: Canticle of the feathered ones
Hymn of the hermit thrush
A song in the holy hush
A lake in the wake of sun
Vireos in the vestibule
Warblers wait in the wings
A finch begins to sing
The water, a sparkling jewel
Kyrie eleison, kyrie eleison
Canticle of the mourning dove
Angels in pine and spruce
The fox and the bear and the moose
Listen to the choir above
Gloria in excelsis deo, Gloria in excelsis
Gloria in excelsis deo, Gloria in excelsis
Heron delivers the homily
Incense fills the air
Cedar boughs in prayer
And I am lost in reverie
Sanctus, sanctus
Sanctus, sanctus
Canticle of the feathered ones
Candlelight of the moon
Litany of lark and loon
As the dark of the evening comes
Benedictus, benedictus
Benedictus, benedictus
Benedictus, benedictus
Benedictus
© 2014 Sara Thomsenwww.sarathomsen.com
Resources:
Nepo, M. (2022). Surviving Storms: find the strength to meet adversity. New York: St. Martin's Publishing Group.
Rupp, J. (October 2023). News from Joyce Rupp. Reflection.
