More Soul Food

She had honey blond hair swept into a beehive hairdo and shellacked into submission with Aqua Net.  I knew her only as Punkin (hillbilly for “Pumpkin,” short for “punkin pie”).  She was glamour personified, grace in jar, and everything I wanted to be when I grew up.  Her ready smile and an open heart drew me in. It would be easy to mistake her cheerful disposition as the mark of an easy life.

“Things don’t matter,” she told me, “people matter.”  “Everything you own can be replaced, but people can’t be. When I was a newlywed my apartment building caught fire, and the only thing I made it out with was my daughter; I was pregnant with her at the time.  I lost everything, including my husband.  And I’ve been able to replace everything except him.  He’s the only thing I miss.  I do wish I had some pictures of him, but there’s nothing else I lost that really mattered.”

She didn’t shed a tear or look self-pitying.  She was sharing the wisdom she salvaged from the wreckage.  Her easy smile and warm demeanor were a result of knowing what really matters: the people you let into your heart, and the moments of connection we share. 

It would be easy, based on yesterday’s blog, to mistakenly assume I meant something along the lines of “God makes the darkness happen so we can see the light” or some such. First, let me be clear, I am not suggesting that God (or the mind of the Universe, or the Spirit of Life or whatever name you want to give it) is the architect of our suffering.  Sometimes shit just happens.  I am, however, suggesting that God redeems our suffering by helping us to rise again into the light. That arising—or resurrection, if you will—makes beauty out of what would otherwise be senseless tragedy.

 Had Punkin wallowed in self pity no one would have blamed her, but she would have added nothing to the richness of the world.  Punkin wasn’t being punished by losing her beloved in a fire; nor was she being taught a lesson.  But by learning a lesson anyway value was restored to the world.  She didn’t suffer those losses so that she could add beauty to my life by sharing her wisdom, and her husband surely didn’t die for my benefit.  But I know the story of his untimely death and the relative unimportance of worldly possessions has helped me to live a more meaningful life.

God does not cause the falling down, but the rising up. And in our willingness to rise again each time we fall, we participate in the holy.  We make it more likely others will also find a way back to wholeness even when they feel broken beyond repair. 

I leave you with this quote from St. Julian’s Showings (Long Text) (more on her later in the semester.  You can count on it!):

“Grace transforms our dreadful failing into plentiful and endless solace; and grace transforms our shameful falling into high and honourable rising; and grace transforms our sorrowful dying into holy, blessed life.” 

In peace,

Shelley