On reading this I began to consider that pain has no unique signature, but is more like a spectrum much like that of visible light. And like the spectrum of visible light, is only a part of the whole: most of pain is invisible. Believe it or not, we need pain to be alive. There is no pain-free existance. Pain is one if the consequences of living - and of loving. The cross, that ultimate symbol of ultimate pain, is also the symbol of ultimate love. We cannot know until we are there, if death frees us from pain, but I prefer to endure? no, accept? no, embrace pain, because it is a part, but only a small part, of life. Grace is always with us, even in the darkest hours.
Thank you for wisdom from the trenches instead of the “platitudes from the pulpit” so often flung about which usually helps zero percent of the time!
Gemma, I’m with you in the pit though we don’t know each other…you are FUCKING BRAVE to speak out….I pray PEACE for you and for a moment or two of delight and silliness that help fill your courage tank to keep going. You are loved and you are precious!!!
Exactly the kind of wisdom you say you seldom want to hear yourself. Well, I'm glad I heard it this morning. I love your "in it with you" sign off. It brought tears to my eyes. You're simply the best. ☺️
I’m trying to quit social media because I’m finding it getting in the way of things that I think are more important to me and for me and for the others in my life . . . but here I am on it again. Oh well. But so long as I’m here again, may I just say that this is really good, probably about as good as it gets. And while I’m here, I’m praying for Gemma and for you and for all of us. Now I’m going to do an Advent devotional with my wife who has been sick with a cough and a flu for the past almost ten days or so even though we got our annual flu shots AND the COVID boosters, but oh well. I’m trying to thank God even in this, but sometimes things suck, but at least nobody is dropping bombs on us . . . not yet anyway. Merry Christmas . . . and I’m not trying to be ironic. Come, Lord Jesus! Come quickly, please, huh. Please pray for us too. I wrote that “Please pray for us” to you, Pastor Nadia, but I know that Jesus is praying for us too. So that’s a really good thing to remember too.
Oh Nadia, dear dear comfort-keeper of my jagged and bleeding heart and faith...I am up to the wee hours of this Solstice morning searching for solutions for my only-child leaving the nest next year with the terror of "being forced" to move out for college, threats of "I'll probably end up living on the streets". And, Woman of much, much Hurt Experience that I am, I am biting my tongue not to say something insensitive like "Jesus was born in exile...in a barn...homeless that night...etc" because that is the Christian mouth that HURTS not heals. But! If and when we find ourselves on the streets, down and out, checking to see if he left a mark the last time he hit you, scraping for pennies to throw gas in your car...We are REAL, we are being FIRED in that Greatest Kiln called Life. I COULD NOT AGREE WITH YOU MORE, MY DEAR. Amen and Merry Peaceful Decembering, Remembering that He Was Born and it wasn't all pretty 🦋💕🙏🏼🙏🏼🙏🏼🙏🏼😌😌😌
This is what I searched for last night but couldn't gather the words of consolation. I've worked at accepting the truth of the ordinariness of life, rather than railing against the unfairness. Realizing I need to let go of my refusal to be diverted by the good because I can't except that I have to co-exist with the bad. Learning to and be willing to co-exist with the bad while knowing so much of it cannot be undone or made right. It can feel like too much to give up when we give it all the weight. I began to see I was putting my thumb on the scale - life moved on but I was stuck at the scale not allowing the scale to balance. And I realized I could take my thumb off the scale only if there was some consolation. And Nadia you named the consolation that does not make all things right, but offers an alternative. It is indeed your hope that the "experience of being hurt sharpens your awareness of small kindnesses and little mercies, rather than obstructing them. I hope that love, when offered, feels all the more precious and worthy of cherishing because your heart has known it’s opposite." THIS is a muscle to develop for those of us for whom it doesn't came naturally, but it is the one thing that cannot be taken away.
I seem to remember being told that one of the key elements of humour is surprise. So this is to tell you that I laughed out like at …”or a closet organizer” because it was not what I was expecting from a “rhetorical three”. Bravo 👏🏽
It's always so great to read your posts. Always something to muddle and ponder and appreciate.
Have you watched the show "The Good Place"? I REALLY liked it. Spoiler alert: the characters come to realize that a perfect heaven is a disaster. Nothing to solve, unending happiness without something meaningful to do....I'm actually pretty terrified of eternal perfection, although I admit I just might not understand the possibilities. On the other hand, I think I would strongly prefer us not having to live with the most of the inexplicable hard things. A few years ago, I was remodeling the bathroom of a retired professor of philosophy and feminist studies. She liked to sit on a stool outside the bathroom and ask me questions, especially after she learned that I'm a Christian. She asked, "If there's a good God, why is there evil?" I said, "I don't know. Also: since nobody knows, that's not the right question. The right question is: What am I going to do about it?" She actually gave me an "A"!
I say all that and I acknowledge that I'm a reasonably healthy, straight, white, cisgender man in America who grew up in an upper middle class family. It's comparatively easy for me to be philosophical. So I think I need to listen a lot and talk not very much.
I sometimes take a moment to save a portion of these well written words in my journal so I can spend some time pondering my own answers to the very difficult questions. I have spent the several years learning to lean into my hurt and pain. To try and understand why it’s here with me. No real answers there but just a little more acceptance to the facts. My life has been tough just as everyone else’s has and that makes me feel like somehow we are all in it together.
On reading this I began to consider that pain has no unique signature, but is more like a spectrum much like that of visible light. And like the spectrum of visible light, is only a part of the whole: most of pain is invisible. Believe it or not, we need pain to be alive. There is no pain-free existance. Pain is one if the consequences of living - and of loving. The cross, that ultimate symbol of ultimate pain, is also the symbol of ultimate love. We cannot know until we are there, if death frees us from pain, but I prefer to endure? no, accept? no, embrace pain, because it is a part, but only a small part, of life. Grace is always with us, even in the darkest hours.
Truth
Thank you for wisdom from the trenches instead of the “platitudes from the pulpit” so often flung about which usually helps zero percent of the time!
Gemma, I’m with you in the pit though we don’t know each other…you are FUCKING BRAVE to speak out….I pray PEACE for you and for a moment or two of delight and silliness that help fill your courage tank to keep going. You are loved and you are precious!!!
Exactly the kind of wisdom you say you seldom want to hear yourself. Well, I'm glad I heard it this morning. I love your "in it with you" sign off. It brought tears to my eyes. You're simply the best. ☺️
Citizen of Dark Times
by Kim Stafford
Agenda in a time of fear: Be not afraid.
When things go wrong, do right.
Set out by the half-light of the seeker,
for the well-lit problem begins to heal.
Learn tropism toward the difficult.
We have not arrived to explain, but to sing.
Young idealism ripens into an ethical life.
Prune back regret to let faith grow.
When you hit rock bottom, dig farther down.
Grief is the seed of singing, shame the seed of song.
Keep seeing what you are not saying.
Plunder your reticence.
Songbird guards a twig, its only weapon a song.
Dear Nadia,
again you hit it.
„My disappointment when someone doesn’t meet an unspoken expectation I have of them.
The betrayal I feel when I allow myself to be hurt by the same person over and over because I won’t accept who they are.“
Major fight with my partner.
Thank you for your lines.
💙
Pastor Nadia,
I’m trying to quit social media because I’m finding it getting in the way of things that I think are more important to me and for me and for the others in my life . . . but here I am on it again. Oh well. But so long as I’m here again, may I just say that this is really good, probably about as good as it gets. And while I’m here, I’m praying for Gemma and for you and for all of us. Now I’m going to do an Advent devotional with my wife who has been sick with a cough and a flu for the past almost ten days or so even though we got our annual flu shots AND the COVID boosters, but oh well. I’m trying to thank God even in this, but sometimes things suck, but at least nobody is dropping bombs on us . . . not yet anyway. Merry Christmas . . . and I’m not trying to be ironic. Come, Lord Jesus! Come quickly, please, huh. Please pray for us too. I wrote that “Please pray for us” to you, Pastor Nadia, but I know that Jesus is praying for us too. So that’s a really good thing to remember too.
Oh Nadia, dear dear comfort-keeper of my jagged and bleeding heart and faith...I am up to the wee hours of this Solstice morning searching for solutions for my only-child leaving the nest next year with the terror of "being forced" to move out for college, threats of "I'll probably end up living on the streets". And, Woman of much, much Hurt Experience that I am, I am biting my tongue not to say something insensitive like "Jesus was born in exile...in a barn...homeless that night...etc" because that is the Christian mouth that HURTS not heals. But! If and when we find ourselves on the streets, down and out, checking to see if he left a mark the last time he hit you, scraping for pennies to throw gas in your car...We are REAL, we are being FIRED in that Greatest Kiln called Life. I COULD NOT AGREE WITH YOU MORE, MY DEAR. Amen and Merry Peaceful Decembering, Remembering that He Was Born and it wasn't all pretty 🦋💕🙏🏼🙏🏼🙏🏼🙏🏼😌😌😌
"It wasn't all pretty". Brilliant wisdom. Thank you.
You have a gift of words!
This is what I searched for last night but couldn't gather the words of consolation. I've worked at accepting the truth of the ordinariness of life, rather than railing against the unfairness. Realizing I need to let go of my refusal to be diverted by the good because I can't except that I have to co-exist with the bad. Learning to and be willing to co-exist with the bad while knowing so much of it cannot be undone or made right. It can feel like too much to give up when we give it all the weight. I began to see I was putting my thumb on the scale - life moved on but I was stuck at the scale not allowing the scale to balance. And I realized I could take my thumb off the scale only if there was some consolation. And Nadia you named the consolation that does not make all things right, but offers an alternative. It is indeed your hope that the "experience of being hurt sharpens your awareness of small kindnesses and little mercies, rather than obstructing them. I hope that love, when offered, feels all the more precious and worthy of cherishing because your heart has known it’s opposite." THIS is a muscle to develop for those of us for whom it doesn't came naturally, but it is the one thing that cannot be taken away.
And weirdly, I wouldn’t trade it. I would not trade having less pain in the past for less acuity today.
A slightly different take which I found helpful this morning. I will have to print it and leave it on top of my dresser.
NBW, even by your standards, this is fucking awesome.
Truth.
I seem to remember being told that one of the key elements of humour is surprise. So this is to tell you that I laughed out like at …”or a closet organizer” because it was not what I was expecting from a “rhetorical three”. Bravo 👏🏽
It's always so great to read your posts. Always something to muddle and ponder and appreciate.
Have you watched the show "The Good Place"? I REALLY liked it. Spoiler alert: the characters come to realize that a perfect heaven is a disaster. Nothing to solve, unending happiness without something meaningful to do....I'm actually pretty terrified of eternal perfection, although I admit I just might not understand the possibilities. On the other hand, I think I would strongly prefer us not having to live with the most of the inexplicable hard things. A few years ago, I was remodeling the bathroom of a retired professor of philosophy and feminist studies. She liked to sit on a stool outside the bathroom and ask me questions, especially after she learned that I'm a Christian. She asked, "If there's a good God, why is there evil?" I said, "I don't know. Also: since nobody knows, that's not the right question. The right question is: What am I going to do about it?" She actually gave me an "A"!
I say all that and I acknowledge that I'm a reasonably healthy, straight, white, cisgender man in America who grew up in an upper middle class family. It's comparatively easy for me to be philosophical. So I think I need to listen a lot and talk not very much.
I sometimes take a moment to save a portion of these well written words in my journal so I can spend some time pondering my own answers to the very difficult questions. I have spent the several years learning to lean into my hurt and pain. To try and understand why it’s here with me. No real answers there but just a little more acceptance to the facts. My life has been tough just as everyone else’s has and that makes me feel like somehow we are all in it together.
Very much appreciated
Exactly what I needed to hear, thank you.