Courage Letters

He who goes out weeping, bearing the seed for sowing, shall come home with shouts of joy, bringing his sheaves with him.

Bring Courage

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“We should do whatever we can to bring courage to those whose lives move near our own.”
—Fred Rogers

Finding courage on my own to live in the Shadows of the past is hard. But it is somehow made easier when I imagine there are other frightened people around me also living with their corpses, in their haunted homes, battling things of long ago that hold real or imaginary power over them. I know what this is like, and I want you to know I’m here, too. I have a little shiny sword called, Courage, that glitters, like Bilbo’s did when orcs came near, when the past comes into my kitchen to mock and taunt and gibe. It comes from another Place, and it carries with it in its swift blows, a song, a whistling hopeful sound from that Place. Look here! it says, you shall not last forever! Your present powers are on a timer, and every day you draw nearer to your final grave while I draw nearer to my Inheritance, imperishable and unfading.

Courage. I hope for you that you find courage today to sow imperishable things, things that look tiny and strange, like, “honor your father and mother”….and “love your enemies”….and “pray for those who hate you”. They look weak, but they have promises attached to them. I hope your courage brightens even through your tears.

“Although we are weeping, Lord, help us keep sowing the seeds of your kingdom.” —Bonhoeffer

Bearing

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bear: inf. verb: to bear /ber/

1: (of a person) carry. Bring, transport, move 2. endure (an ordeal or difficulty). stand, suffer, abide 3. give birth to (a child). produce, yield, carry

There is something about this world, as if it were pregnant. There is a pregnancy within us, a new life forming. There are hints of it, flutters of movement in the heart of longing for something never-before-seen and brand new. There is also a groaning, an aching, a looking out of the window at the perfect shape of the tips of the branches in Spring, waving, not by accident, yet so bleakly against a swirling gray sky, as if pointing through them with their about-to-burst fingers of hidden petals. Like fingers, tiny and never-yet-kissed, stroking the inside of a dark, watery womb, promising something more coming. This is the Mystery of new birth….alive, whole, precious within, but not yet arrived. We are weighed down with life, old life, pressing down into our joints, heavy to bear. But we are also weighed down with the new life that has been planted within, a never-yet-breathed life, tender, achingly sweet, promised. And we must bear this life, too. And it, too, presses down into us, heavier every day with the promise of Real Joys, revealed secrets; some preciously familiar, reflecting our own selves back to us in fresh, bright, new eyes.

This life is fading away into greyness. Yet it secretly bears something within it, as if in hidden- womb -places. It is in kindnesses of long-known friends, in hearthfire conversations, in late nights spent in laughter, in a promise kept for years until death, in children’s looking for themselves in their father’s eyes…in these there is a quickening. There is movement, there is life within the burden-bearing.

“There is a crack, there is a crack in everything…that’s how the light gets in.” —Leonard Cohen

And that’s how it gets out.

“And all these are but the beginnings of the birth pains.” —Matthew 24:8

Approaching Psalm 23

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Once my friend said to me, “And then the Worst Thing actually happened,” on her father dying. She said also, “When things get calm I feel like I’m always waiting for the other shoe to drop.” I think I finally understand her in this, because I think I’ve discovered that it is me, too. I’m beginning to see that I, too, have my fists still clenched in my lap, two years after the fall of our home business and our descent into years of “Famine.”

The violence with which Sin broke into our lives and shook us to our depths has left such a permanent wound that the current provisions of God in our lives —like a future salvation, home, a pretty Ok health, some friends here and there, and food whenever we want it—provisions like these feel wan and weak when compared to a childhood trapped on a lonely farm, forbidden love, searing loneliness, lost parents, and much-needed love and affirmation withheld from us and replaced with wanton criticism and anger as children. “I want it to be real,” she said. And I say, “I want it to be bigger, stronger, louder, and sweeter than my Past.”

Basically, having to live among the corpses, my own included, has challenged the fabric of my faith. It feels worn and thin and lacking delight now that it has been challenged by the monster shadows of my past I’m daily living in.

I started reading Dallas Willard’s book on Psalm 23, “Life Without Lack.” This part of the Introduction worries me: “I have more than my cup will hold. So much that I can be as generous as my shepherd without fear of ever running out.” I am NOT this way. I hold onto things. I worry. I wonder almost hourly if there will be enough. Enough for my kids, enough for our friends, enough for guests, enough for my soul, enough to make it through another church service without offending someone. I wonder if there’s enough grace for me to not return to suicidal tendencies by continuing to live here in these Shadowlands. I live in fear of what other drastic means for sanctification God will use against me next. I live in fear that He will take away my son or my daughter in order to teach me to better value the time I now have with them.

When I look around my house and my yard and hear the woodpeckers and sparrows and see the green buds peeking out, I think, “Does my cup run over?” And my heart answers, “No. this is not for you. It is not yours. The land is someone else’s. You must serve here forever and there is no hope of possessing it.” I feel exiled to another world, where I must serve in someone else’s home. Just like when I was a child. I lived in the house, but I wasn’t allowed to do anything to the land, the flower beds, the walls, the furniture. It was my dad’s. And we did it all his way, all his stuff, always….everything.

Why does the Trauma of the Past hold so tightly to us? How can one event or one season so permanently set a person’s heart to think a certain way? Cannot the gospel change my broken heart? How have I lived with it in my head so long and not felt its warmth? Why does my cup feel dangerously empty all the time? What drains it so?

I have often found myself reading promises in the scripture and felt myself say, “but that is not for you. That is for someone else.” I would never say to someone, “Today was great! God has crowned me with loving kindness and tender mercies and satisfied my mouth with good things.”

Well, then I turned a few more pages in the book, and I read these words: “People are obsessed with themselves. This is often caused by the wounds they have received. When you hit your thumb with a hammer, what happens in the following days? You are very mindful of your thumb. The same is true when we are hurt; we become conscious of ourselves to such an extent that we are imprisoned in that consciousness.” Herein I sense is a central and salvific truth for me. Dealing with wounds and pain is only half the story. It is necessary to attend the wound, to curate and asses one’s griefs, as John Piper once said, “Occasionally, weep deeply over the life that you hoped would be. Grieve the losses. Feel the pain. Then wash your face, trust God, and embrace the life that he’s given you.” Here on this blog you will find me weeping deeply over what I have lost. I naturally tend to curate my griefs through writing. But the washing of the face and trusting and embracing is hard. But I must do that here, too. It requires courage. This blog is to be my Courage Blog. To face fears, tend griefs and wounds, and then wash my face and courageously embrace what is my Today.