Here's another one from C S Lewis, via the admirable Marijke Hoek. "I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else." I suppose I might say, "I believe in Jesus...."
I think this is how the reading for today begins, and it always sends a tingle down my spine. "Now on the first day of the week Mary Magdalene came to the tomb early, while it was still dark, and saw that the stone had been taken away from the tomb." Although it was dark, He had risen. Although she did not recognise Him, He called her by name. As Dick Douglas said in his sermon on Sunday, He meets each of us in our pain, to transform it.
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"Let nothing so fill you with sorrow that you forget the joy of the resurrection."
My inimitable friend who was always filled with courageousjoy, died very suddenly last week and I am floundering. It feels like the lights have gone out and I cannot see or feel the joy.
I still expect to see and hear her when I go down to the ground floor of our sheltered wing.
She would have had strong words for me I know and laughed with me but I am still stunned. I know it's not the same but I wonder if that's how the Apostles felt at first? There was no warning of my friend's death. One day she was there and the next day she wasn't. The worst part is she had b een on her own, on the floor, all night, without being able to call for help. Part of me feels guilty.
This is irrelevant I suppose, but how do I stop being filled with sorrow?
Dear Leafyschroder
Our wise old priest, Dick Douglas, was saying exactly what you've expressed in your comment about Mary Magdalene's grief. I know it doesn't help knowing others have been in similar darkness of grief and guilt before. But it is, as I'm sure you're aware, the cost of having loved much.
The answer to your question, I suppose, is not to seek for the sorrow to end, even though it hurts. It is a part of your love. But one day dawn will break, and like Mary you'll be surprised by joy again, and you'll hear your name called and know beyond doubt that love has not been extinguished. Until then it's matter of weeping and waiting.
God bless you.
Thank-you for your wise and empathetic encouragement. I have copied your words to read again in the coming days.
I was invited to write something about my friend for her service of thanksgiving today. This is just a part of what I said if it makes sense. I found it consoling.
"The day after Sylvie died I read this verse from a Poem called “Thirteen Ways of Looking At A Black Bird” by Wallace Stevens
“ When the blackbird flew out of sight
It marked the edge
Of one of many circles”
This is what the Commentator said
"The blackbird has gone out of sight, but the person watching it is left with a vivid sense of the circle it had made in its flight. A presence in absence, in the empty air there is an invisible edge. The awareness of it being one of many circles in the air which were there and are still there."
That was Sylvia. She will always be an unforgettable presence in her absence.
This is the way my husband Ian described Sylvia
“small in stature but huge in personality.”
Thank-you so much Sylvia for all that you gave to all of us . May you be blessed and enfolded in God’s love forever".
Have you heard of this book by Ruth Burrows "Before The Living God"? In it she says "one long searching look into my past and I see, there in its depths, the face of Christ gazing back at me"
May He sustain all of us in whatever pain and suffering we experience and I humbly acknowledge that mine is nothing compared to the heroism demonstrated by yourself and others.Thank-you again.
Do you mind my sharing this with you? It was in my email box this morning and I think it's beautiful.
"In meditation, we develop our capacity to turn our whole being towards the other. We learn to let our neighbour be, just as we learn to let God be.(JOHN MAIN) "
Thank you. SO important.
By the way, Leafys., I love that quotation from Wallace Stevens, and having looked up Ruth Burrows whom I didn't know it looks as though she has to go on my reading list! One reviewer says about "Before the Living God": "Her other books demonstrate the way God used even her worst experiences in the convent for her (and other's) spiritual benefit. It seems one purpose of the book might have been to encourage the reader to realize that God will take the most traumatic, or unfair circumstances if we turn to Him and transform it into one of our greatest blessings that brings spiritual peace and personal intimacy with God." As I think of some my friends' traumatic and unfair lives at the moment, it seems hard to hold on to.
The other Ruth Burrows one to look up is "Love Unknown" which Rowan Williams asked her to write when he was Archbishop of Canterbury.
Ruth Burrows also writes beautiful poetry. You can find some of it in postcard form here
http://www.ionabooks.com/component/option,com_rwcards/Itemid,0/category_id,6/controller,rwcardslistonecategory/lang,en/reWritetoSender,/sessionId,/view,rwcards/
"As I think of some my friends' traumatic and unfair lives at the moment, it seems hard to hold on to. "
Agreed.
It seems many of us are 'limping in the way'
I'm glad you liked the qoutation/commentary about Wallace Stevens poem.
I read it the day after my friend died and found it a HUGE comfort.
This is part of a commentary I read about Ruth Burrows book.
"She has been trying to pray as a nun for 65 years. And what has she to show for it? Darkness, by her own account, and the feeling that God does not exist. As a young woman, when she prayed, nothing "happened", and she soon realised it would always be like this. "It is impossible to understand my life unless it is seen all the time against the background of black depression," she wrote 36 years ago, in one of the great autobiographies of the twentieth century, Before the Living God.
Her depression did not stem from any "Dark Night of the Soul". It came not from her vocation as a nun, but happened to be something that she brought to it with her, as part of her disposition. Those who have met her find her a sharp, intelligent, amusing interlocutor, but things are no easier for her in her spiritual life today. The difference is that now she is "happy to be poor". This attitude of poverty is the underlying, human theme of Love Unknown. The two themes go together: the objective reality of a loving God, and on the other side a radical human poverty on the part of the Christian loved by him.
In this lies the answer to the person who finds that he or she is "not getting anywhere" with prayer. Ruth Burrows challenges any such judgement based on subjective experience. Since it is God who prays in us, what would we expect to see and feel? Only by focusing on what is revealed by the risen Christ can we be sure that our God is real and not just a projection. We can only know the true, living God through his incarnate image."
http://beauty-and-goodness.com/?p=231
Do have a look at this link. It is simply inspirational to watch theYou Tube link and see how perfet strangers are sharing joy with one another.
That is a wonderful clip, thank you, Leafyschroder. I love the girl standing transfixed as the music unfolds - and the little boy up the lamppost conducting. I also came across this from a new hospital wing in Jerusalem. Not as inspirational, but therapeutic, I'm sure! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tzwWskM4hN8
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