Life: that’s what we all hunger for, wait for always,
whether we keep coming back to places like church to find it or whether we avoid places like church like the plague as the last places on earth to find it:
both delivered in part and derelict in part, immigrants and mongrels all of us.
It’s life as we’ve never really known it but only dreamed it that we wait for.
Life with each other, Life for each other.
Life with the darkness gone.
Frederick Buechner, Secrets in the Dark: A Life in Sermons, “Delay”
Jesus, you said
I am the Light of the world I am the way, the truth, and the life I came that they might have life abundantly My joy I give to you
May your words prevail this day in my life and in our world
Light shining in the darkness, the darkness not prevailing
If I did not believe in God I think I would be bound in conscience to become an anarchist. Yet, if I did not believe in God, I wonder if I could have the consolation of being bound in conscience to do anything.
Conscience is the soul of freedom, it eyes, its energy, its life. Without conscience, freedom never knows what to do with itself. And a rational being who does not know what to do with [their self] finds the tedium of life unbearable. [They are] literally bored to death.
Thomas Merton, No Man is an Island, “Conscience, Freedom, and Prayer”
I’ve been stuck Trying to find my voice To hear it in the clamor of the others Droning on about scandalous politics Whining about the downfall of society What people stoop to to pick up a buck A pile of which will make them free Free from something I don’t know what Not free from puzzling out How to spend the next minute
I’ve been stuck not wanting to say all that Or just that Because there is more to say I know there is If I can just listen for that voice Still and small Telling me to speak and act Freely and truly
Faith is a way of waiting – never quite knowing, never quite hearing or seeing, because in the darkness we are all but a little lost.
There is doubt hard on the heels of every belief, fear hard on the heels of every hope, and many holy things lie in ruins because the world has ruined them and we have ruined them.
But faith waits even so, delivered at least from that final despair which gives up waiting altogether because it sees nothing left worth waiting for.
Faith waits – for the opening of a door, the sound of footsteps in the hall, that beloved voice delayed, delayed so long that there are times when you all but give up hope of ever hearing it.
And when at moments you think you do hear it (if only faintly, from far away) the question is:
Can it possibly be, impossibly be, that one voice of all voices?
Frederick Buechner, Secrets in the Dark: A Life in Sermons, “Delay”
False choices The next following hard on the heels of the last Made by a desperate imposter self Desperate for anything to distract From its emptiness, its nakedness
False choices Exchanging dopamine poofs For the overwhelming reality There is a real soul in there Dying to be known and loved
Dying to hear the One Voice Calling softly, tenderly Come home, come home I’m waiting for you I will wait
We too easily assume that we are our real selves, and that our choices are really the ones we want to make…
Our choices are too often dictated by our false selves.
Hence I do not find in myself the power to be happy merely by doing what I like.
On the contrary, if I do nothing except what pleases my own fancy I will be miserable almost all the time.
Thomas Merton, No Man is an Island, “Conscience, Freedom, and Prayer”
I don’t know enough about brain chemistry to say anything much about it. But I understand that we can easily become like trapped rats poking whatever button we can find that results in a little dopamine poof. And then another. And then another, bigger poof. Each poof producing in our brains what we associate with pleasure. Followed by a lack of pleasure. Followed by looking for that button again. And, can we poke it a little harder and get a little bigger poof this time?
I have been that trapped rat. I have family members who were those trapped rats who I hope and pray found mercy and relief when they left the earth that had become to them a maze with no way out and all the buttons no longer sufficient.
We have thriving industries that depend on our false selves making the choices for us. Until we no longer have any power to choose anything but what we have become addicted to, perfect consumers.
God in heaven, be merciful to us, guide us to our true selves, to choices that don’t go poof.
Jesus, you came that we might have joy, abundantly, not dependent on dopamine and the pleasure pulses it gives. Inclusive of pleasure, yes; thank you. Requiring pleasure, no; thank you. Joy no one can take from us, not ‘like the world gives’. Thank you.
I think it is hope that lies at our hearts and hope that finally brings us all here.
Hope that in spite of all the devastating evidence to the contrary, the ground we stand on is holy ground because Christ walked here and walks here still.
Hope that we are known, each one of us, by name, and that out of the burning moments of our lives he will call us by our names to the lives he would have us live and the selves he would have us become.
Hope that into the secret grief and pain and bewilderment of each of us and of our world he will come at last to heal and to save.
Frederick Buechner, Secrets in the Dark: A Life in Sermons, “Hope”
Hope that we can become who we were meant to be – is there a higher hope?
The God of the universe offers it – is any hope more sure?
Grace and peace to you…
dw
Photo by dw
If you want to read more about hope and this blog, check these out:
becoming flame 