Greetings!

Up until yesterday, my interior vibrations were indicating something on which to share, that is distinctly different from that which I am feeling today. Here I am now therefore, being nudged towards reflecting not on a topic per se but on life and living: a theme that needs airing, in order to express thoughts and feelings that require as much honest conversation as they do deep pondering. Because God moves in mysterious ways, that which we consider our daily challenge, becomes our daily opportunity. When connected to God, we become attuned to His Immanuel movements and are enabled to walk by faith rather than sight. No outward failing, disappointment or pain, therefore, is able to disturb or take away, the joy God bestows, life’s manifold problems notwithstanding.

What are some of the problems being faced in this season of life? Wars and rumors surrounding them continue in the Middle East; tensions are increasing by the minute, fueled in no small way by verbal missiles, launched from both sides of the factious divide, impacting the lives and livelihood even of those on the fringes of the actual combat. The Covid-19 crisis continues to threaten our brothers and sisters in India, with the rest of the world seemingly caught in a vortex of anxiety, as debates continue over the availability, safety and effectiveness of [certain] vaccines. People are dying at an alarming rate, and not just from Covid-19. Problems bred by and related to racism, continue to escalate, but are dismissed by many among the sweetly saved and sanctified evangelical elite, who would have us believe that they are so close to, they can literally hear God speak and consequently, that which proceeds from their mouths [never mind the converse emanating from their lives] being His every word. When all this is put together –  added to which is the ongoing scourge and crisis here at home, surrounding Gender Based Violence – the fact that women and girls have become targets…objects by and on which men and boys work out their frustrations, lack of self-understanding and worth, in a continued, diabolic bid to convince themselves, that they are asserting [some misguided sense of] power and control – there is a sinking feeling that all is lost…there is nothing to live/hope for, except what can be grasped for oneself now…at any cost!

Over the weekend, I had a most refreshing and fulfilling retreat of sorts, in the company of two sisters, with whom I had begun a friendship back in the day, when as young theological students, we were being trained and formed for ordained ministry. Over the years we have grown, not only in our love for each other, we have grown to respect and embrace the fact that the bond we share transcends our physical beings…with their increasing limitations. In these afternoon years of our lives, we are learning to appreciate as divine gift, the ability to take pauses that facilitate refreshment of body, mind and spirit. We are learning to embrace the Imago Dei in each other…in every human being and as such, we are endeavoring to make every moment of our lives [on this side of eternity] count as a celebration of the goodness of God in and around us. This past weekend therefore, my sisters and I affirmed in being together, the fact that there is no time like the present – deadlines and overloaded agendas notwithstanding – to celebrate life.

As we talked, laughed, ate and…kept silence together, we got a glimpse of heaven right here on earth. We affirmed that because tomorrow is promised to none, celebrating the wonder-filled blessings that are ours in the today we call life, is an option we should embrace with all that we have and are. What was more important with respect to lessons we learnt, was that God does not cease to be God when we are in pain, frustrated, grieving or totally bewildered; in fact, as the old Gospel song declares…The God of the Mountain, is still God in the Valley or as Khalil Gibran put it so profoundly… “Joy is sorrow unmasked…the selfsame well from which laughter rises was oftentimes filled with tears…the deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain…for the cup that holds your wine is the very cup that was burned in the potter’s oven and the lute that soothes your spirit, the very wood that was hollowed with knives.”

With what am I wrestling today? I suppose it is how to express the profound and universal truth that when we truly accept the love of Almighty God and, guided by Holy Spirit, learn to love Him in return, every day with Jesus [despite its challenges] is sweeter than the day before. This is not happy clappy always smiling sentimentality being advocated here, but the kind of deeply rooted joy, gushing from a wellspring supplied by God [cf. John 4:10, 14], that enables us, in the midst of life’s arid seasons, to continue to trust and so affirm as Evangelist Billy Graham did, that having been told how the story will end…we have no need to fear!

This is a differently difficult time in which we are living. This life is all we know and as such, we do whatever we can to hold on to it and yet…hear Khalil Gibran again in a most profound response to the question regarding the reality of death and dying: “For what is it to die but to stand naked in the wind and to melt into the sun…and what is it to cease breathing, but to free the breath from its restless tides, that it may rise and expand and seek God, unencumbered”

It’s a difficult concept to articulate let alone embody this business of Life and Living but I truly believe that at the heart of our many and varied wrestling even now, is a yearning, not so much to be free from pain, hurt and disappointment but, as Pierre Teilhard de Chardin implied – divinity…God in us…seeking to live within the constraints of our humanity. We will only experience true liberation…true peace therefore, when we learn as Jesus did, to rest…truly rest…in God’s love.

Until next week, stay safe and well as you remain in His grip!

Grace+