"I think he's hiding," she said

Isaiah 45:15a

You are a God who hides yourself.

I boarded the shuttle to work last Monday with a cloud over my head. A lot's been going on.

The bus was almost full. I sat in the second row behind the driver, next to a young woman whose laptop was open on her knees, its screen touching the back of the seat in front of her. I crammed my work backpack next to hers, under my feet. I made room for her elbow so that she could type, then lost myself in my phone's browser.

About 45 minutes into the ride, she began to rummage on the floor, as if surprised.

Did she lose something?

I looked down. To my astonishment, a Golden Lab was resting his head on my left foot. He was very quiet. He moved nothing but his big brown eyes, looking from one to the other of us as if to say, "You're not going to kick me out, are you?" Dogs aren't allowed on the corporate shuttle, and he knew it.

"I think he's hiding," the woman said.

He must have started out behind his owner's feet, fully hidden beneath the seat in front of us. Then little by little he stretched out as the ride went on, finally daring to lean his head against my foot.

When we neared our destination, he moved his head, and my foot felt cold. I hadn't even noticed that someone was keeping it warm.

Ex nihilo

Psalm 18:16-19

But me he caught—reached all the way
from sky to sea; he pulled me out
Of that ocean of hate, that enemy chaos,
the void in which I was drowning.
They hit me when I was down,
but God stuck by me.
He stood me up on a wide-open field;
I stood there saved—surprised to be loved!

In Addiction & Grace, Gerald May writes about how we often substitute one addiction for another. We are compelled to fill our life's emptiness: the void. When people are delivered from addiction, he writes, it's because grace enables them to tolerate spaciousness, at least to some degree. Grace transforms the void in which we were dying, and we find ourselves in a wide-open field.

A void and a wide-open field are both spacious, but in a very different sense. The void that meant loneliness is transformed into space that means freedom. A void lacks air and light and structure—it's a nothing—and in it we're aimless and can't find direction. A wide-open field, on the other hand, is a generative space in which new life and purpose can unfold. It's a riot of fresh air and little wild animals. We stand there saved, surprised to be loved!

For me, the surprise comes from being loved right there in the emptiness, in the place where I have nothing to comfort or distract me. I mean those times when nobody needs me and it's clear that the world would go on without me; those times when I understand that my task in life is not to fix everybody and know everything. It's plainness, mortality, and human limits. It's those times when being with God is like sitting in silence in an empty, lightless room, hearing and saying nothing.

I've spent many hours over the years gazing at the carving in this photo. Today I am struck by the spaces around Mary and Joseph, and the space between them—the dark emptiness into which Love was born. I tried to photograph it in a way that would capture what I mean.

The painful bright

Romans 13:11

The hour has come for you to wake up.

It is the first Sunday of Advent. We begin our vigil, waiting for the light.

Sometimes I feel ambivalent about the coming of the light. When the light comes, justice will come; when justice comes, I might be found on the wrong side of the equation. In what ways do I oppress others with hardly a conscious thought? In what ways do I need to wake up to my own subtle ways of using and injuring others?

Today I have a new thought about the coming of the light and another reason to feel ambivalent: Not all of us want to be in the light at all, and it's not because we purchase clothes made in sweat shops, or whatever else I was alluding to in the paragraph above. Much closer to home, in our emotional lives and our relationships and our everyday behavior, some of us don't want to wake up. We don't want to be conscious of painful realities.

There's a further complication: We help each other stay asleep. People in group X don't want to wake up, and people in group Y are desperately trying to help group X stay asleep at any cost. Meaning that the helpful assistants who make up group Y are also asleep.

The system breaks down with the coming of light, and it hurts like hell. Nobody, including me, a recovering member of group Y, wants that painful bright thing shining on everybody's private business.

But alas:

The night is nearly over; the day is almost here.
—Rom 13:12

Unenlightenment

Luke 1:35

... and the power of the Most High will overshadow you.

On the surface, fame; deeper down, obscurity. The angel has just told Mary that she will be famous, and she wonders how this will come about, given her empty state. The angel's answer? Among other things, Mary will be overshadowed.

Overshadowed. Light will be blocked. God's proximity will throw Mary into darkness.

In Isaiah 45:7, God says, "I cause light to shine. I also create darkness." The author comments in verse 15, "You are a God who hides yourself."

This is a puzzling God, alright, whose love for me does not always involve enlightening me or saving me from the terrors of the night. God is not always driven to self-revelation. God is not afraid of darkness, is not anxious to make it go away as fast as possible, and in fact even creates it.

And God can stand close enough to make it impossible for us to see, even impossible for us to see God.

She saw in the dark

John 20:1
On Sunday morning while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb and saw that the stone had been rolled away from the entrance.

11–12
Mary Magdalene stood crying outside the tomb. She was still weeping when she stooped down and saw two angels inside.

14–15
[Mary] turned around and saw Jesus standing there. But she did not know who he was. Jesus asked her, "Why are you crying? Who are you looking for?"

18
Mary Magdalene then went and told the disciples that she had seen the Lord.

She saw. In the darkness of night, in the darkness of a tomb, and in the darkness of confusion and grief, she saw. How does that work?

—> I'm beckoned into the darkness —> I'm awakened to a sight —> perhaps, with grace, I'm led to a dim recognition of what it is I'm seeing (epiphany!) —>

—>I'm beckoned into the darkness —> I'm awakened to a sight —> perhaps, with grace, I'm led to a dim recognition of what it is I'm seeing (epiphany!) —>

I'm thinking maybe it goes on like this.

Looking for someone else

John 20:14

At this, she turned round and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not realize that it was Jesus.

Jesus, I don't want this to be you. I would guess that Mary saw only two options: Jesus was either dead, or he was alive. She had seen him die and knew he was dead. Then he came back to "life," and maybe she assumed that if Jesus was "alive" again, he would go back to being how he was before.

For me, it's easy to imagine these two options (and only these two options) for God: (1) God is dead, dead meaning DEAD, and therefore powerless and uncaring; or (2) God is alive, meaning active and powerful. This would be a never-fading, never-dying God who prevented suffering and death from happening in the first place.

But what have we got? In John 11:1–44, Jesus allows Lazarus to die, joins the sisters in their grief, cries with them, ... and then raises Lazarus from the dead. Jesus is not dead (powerless and uncaring), and he's not "alive" the way I would want him to be (preventing suffering before it occurs).

Jesus,
Like Mary, I'm having trouble recognizing you. What can I expect of you? I guess I can expect you to be present in my suffering and in the suffering of others, and I can expect an ultimate redemption—justice and relief. But I can't expect you always to ward off suffering before it happens.

The implication is that to follow you, I need to be present to suffering, willing to suffer alongside those who suffer, not necessarily ever able to take away the suffering altogether. I'm scared that I can't do this—I'm not sure I'm willing. Or able.

All the suffering on earth is like a forest, and you traverse the dark paths through the trees night and day, searching for and staying with those who are lost and in pain.

How can you stand it?

With your help, holding your hand, I've timidly touched the outermost trees. Give me the compassion and the courage to follow you wherever you want me to go, even if it's right into the darkness with you.

What can come out of the dark? -part 2-

John 20:11–12

...As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb and saw two angels in white, seated where Jesus' body had been...

What can come out of the dark?

John 20:11–14

The disciples then went back home
but Mary stood outside the tomb weeping.
As she wept, she knelt to look into the tomb
and saw two angels sitting there....

They said to her, "Woman, why do you weep?"

"They took my Master," she said,
"and I don't know where they put him."

After she said this, she turned away and saw Jesus standing there
but she didn't recognize him.

I did a little bit of artwork related to this passage, which you can see by clicking here. A warm thanks to Designs in Light for the photography.

Darkness

John 20:1

While it was still dark, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb.

Yesterday I painted some images while considering David Whyte's beautiful poem "Sweet Darkness." You are welcome to detour from wherever else you were headed and have a look at them.

A maddeningly long wait

Luke 12:32–40

It will be good for those servants whose master finds them ready, even if he comes in the middle of the night or toward daybreak. But understand this: If the owner of the house had known at what hour the thief was coming, he would not have let his house be broken into.

Okay, so...
Servant = me
My master = Jesus
House = the world
House's owner = whatever's calling the shots around here

What does it look like to be ready? What helps me stay ready, even if it's a maddeningly long wait?

It helps me that Jesus predicts a maddeningly long wait. Thank you, Jesus, for being realistic. It's not a surprise to you, I guess, that this world is a dark room in which people seem to be stumbling all over each other. But someday the door will open, and light will break in from the outside. That's how I picture it, anyway.