A Broken Hallelujah

I am joining with Prodigal Magazine and SheLoves Magazine to explore A Broken Hallelujah.
There's a big link-up so go and check it out for lots of different takes on the theme.

***

She apologises. She can't come because of the funeral, and I nod, that's fine. Please don't worry. I ask a little more and she tells me of a young boy's death. She whispers 'suicide' not wanting to tempt, by saying it aloud. Perhaps if the word is swallowed, unspoken, it will not have happened.

Family draw around as his mother bears and breaks. She bears as a mother should never have to. To imagine the loss of a son is not enough, but it is all, at this moment. To carry a little of the pinching, endless discomfort of walking in her shoes. The complexity, the mystery, of bearing one another's burdens.

I feel it too, with my friend as her shoulders shrug and fall. 'What can I do?', says her helpless, uncomfortable expression. We are so like animals, who retreat to tend their wounds, because we do not quite know how to be broken in company. We are reluctant to be a bother, but it's being broken together that makes us family. That bonds us indelibly.

Judas hung himself, you know. Matthew said so. And he did it after the men who paid him washed their hands of him. "That's your responsibility" they said and would not accept the bribe back. The temple door slammed in his face.

So utterly alone. Left with his own failure. Unbearable. And he could not contemplate asking another to help him carry it. This is despair. To be so separated from community that no one can reach you to help.

And the paradox of desolation is that, in the midst of the deepest need for community, the desolate one feels an ocean away from everyone. How do we reach them? And how do we recognise who is desolate? There is no simple answer for recognising risk and who is really despairing. Psychiatrists struggle to predict suicide risk, and despairing people do not want to cause us inconvenience, so they do not let us see their struggle.

Our sensibilities make some subjects harder to talk about and I think that despair and suicide are difficult topics to raise. I think we would learn more grace if we could allow more despair to be acknowledged. If we could listen to more struggle and allow our community to help us carry burdens. Sometimes soldiering on and covering up struggle teaches others that despair and brokenness are not acceptable.

There is one broken hallelujah we could look to. Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane, asks his friends to pray with him because he is sorrowing to the point of death. He does not hide his despair or withdraw from support. He is hungry for it in his time of need.

And I'm preaching this one to myself.

A faithful life

The funeral today was for a woman who has lived a faithful life. She has been having palliative treatment for cancer for six months and, four weeks ago, the funeral was for her husband. I can only imagine what it is like to see both your parents die within a month.

Her sister's husband looked stooped and worn today, his smile broad and sad-eyed. Her son's ex-wife will be more alone without her. She was praised by her doubting son for her faith in God and His love for her.

This family draws people from all through our community together. Gathered today, I saw the butcher who retired last year, the 'girls' from the chemist, people who've moved away from our church many years ago. They are well known for their extended family meals, their camping adventures and their loyalty. There's a prison officer who mows their lawn regularly because he remembers the years they let him live among their family.

The couple, who had been at our church for forty years, had loved many people, through youth groups and boys brigade, sporting teams and after school care, neighbourly love and inviting homeless young people into their family. They had seen the boom times and the broken times of our church and had served on, despite many people moving to bigger or newer churches.

They are well loved, because people had felt and seen the generosity of their love.

They were never celebrities and they lived a quiet life. They faced many hardships, losses and disappointments, particularly through chronic illness. But they didn't let those hard things shape them, they never became bitter or angry. Instead they continued to praise the God who loved them and to love people around them.

Sometimes I long to be recognised and for people to know the good I do. But that's not what a faithful life is about. I hesitate to start a heresy, but perhaps the most famous Christians are not necessarily the most faithful.

It may be faintly cliched to wonder what people will say at my funeral one day, but I do hope that however quiet it is, that people will say that I have lived faithfully.

Stories and Death

Image from here

I have a generous friend. She loves to give gifts and cherish those around her. She makes soap and needlepoint, collects old books and loves to watch movies. She has colourful flowers tattooed on her ankles, and wears eye-catching shoes.

Seven weeks ago her husband died and she is busying herself with sorting collected treasures. She is sharing stories of the objects she discovers, the boxes she delivers to the op shop, the friends who come and remember with her. She lays the story of his failing life out before me, too. As she talks, I see the strength in her. Telling is a balm. A millimetre of smoothed protection from the burn of loss.

We meet on Mondays and each one marks another week since he crept away from his worn, overwhelmed body. Today, she smiled just a bit easier, and the shoulder weight of his long illness is lifting. She asked about my baby, and we marvelled the passing time as I said, "He's two and a half."

It is easy to spectate in the story of death. To visit someone who is dying, and expectation makes the room into a mausoleum. To forget to participate in the mingled sad joy of still being alive. I imagine cancer-ridden friends seeing the speechless sorrow in my eyes as I meet their gaze. Am I sad because I do not know what to say? Am I that self-absorbed? The pain of others refracted in my lenses, filtered to become my own pain.

I listen as she shares the story they had hidden. He feared those sympathetic spectators so he made sure they never knew. He dreaded having to bear their distress as well as his failing health. Her story is unadorned, love-worn and hopeful. She carves out life without him - carefully but purpose-gripped. She tells, as he did not, because she must. He lives in her story.

Her story changes me. I vow not to spectate. Not to let my uncomfortable sadness darken the process of dying. In real life, death is not purely dour or hallowed. The howling sadness of death is born out of the shared enjoyment of love and friendship. The laughter and being understood are the absence we miss. It is because we live, that we seek these in the aftermath of loss.

Sharing with Emily at Imperfect Prose,

Hope born of disillusion



There's a competition running, and it's rumoured that the busiest person wins. I can subtly let you know all the things I'm working on or participating in. I can subtly let you know how important I am by a glimpse at my diary. But would it really impress you? Or would it just be another way to measure each other up, to find ourselves not good enough or not doing enough?

Sometimes I am busy because I have not taken the time to plan or choose priorities properly.
Sometimes I am busy because I want to feel indispensible.
Sometimes I am busy because I think that my plan is the best one and that I can change the world.

Sometimes I can be quite grandiose.
And then I am faced with reality. I can't maintain the pace. My plans are not as brilliant as I believed they were and I find the world curiously intractible.

This is where I need to be. Sometimes the bucket of cold water on my head makes me gasp, but I need the bracing cold to wake me up. To help me see how things really are.

I need to be over-reached, to be inadequate, to fall down, so I can look further for what is necessary. I need to get over myself. Because sometimes I get in the way of God working.

The fascination of my childish, flimsy plans is broken in the dawn light of God's artistry. The moment I will truly long for his power and his agenda is when I give up on my own. When I let my plans die, they will be the seed of God's work.

"Disillusionment births true hope in the same way that death is the context for resurrection. If our dreams don't die, then God-dreams won't be birthed." Leading with a Limp, Dan Allender, p.135.

I think this is a great book. So much to think about and I'm going to read it again. Slowly.

And this...(from the same book)

"The paradox of death leading to life requires that you disappoint many to please One."

This is the cross.

Broken and Wet

The past few weeks have been wet ones here in Australia. Rain has been falling on dry, hard earth. Rivers have been unable to carry the amount of water being delivered into them. There have been flash floods, 'inland' tsunamis, rivers rising inexorably. Evacuations and tense waits have been followed by mud-filled floors, stained walls, waterlogged houses. Some floods came so quickly that there are people still unaccounted for.

all these images are of the Queensland floods from smh.com.au

Thousands of homes have been damaged. The clean-up will take months, maybe longer for some. And as our news is filled with progress updates, stories also come of floods and landslides in Brazil. And we look for the stories of hope to calm our fear.

Tsunamis, earthquakes, floods and fear. "Is it the end of the world?", says a friend.

Some are desperate to know, but I'm thankful that's not in my hands to decide.

I find myself, rather, seeing the flimsy fragility of our existence. We build, we gather things, we make homes. We rest our hearts, our hopes and our selves in the midst of things. In an instant they can be washed away or left destroyed and useless.

But on 24 hour coverage of floods, where people who have lost everything are interviewed, their words are fascinating. They speak of people who help, of others who've suffered more, or of determination to live on. They do not eulogise fancy lounge suites or wide screen TVs, or boxes of things. They courageously admit where their real hope lies - in relationships, or communities or in their own fierce-held survival. They are their own victory trophy over disaster.

We know what really matters, and sometimes disasters clarify our view to see it. The one thing we gloss over, though is God. Disasters are 'acts of God', and blame can lie heavy with him. We forget the fact that he is with us in the disaster, too. He sits in precarious places waiting for rescuers to arrive. He sifts through mounds of destruction and helps clean and rebuild. He cleans mud away, he delivers needed food, he listens to traumatic stories. He is present for the clean up and restoration.

Our lives, our achievements, our possessions are like grass, blown too easily away.

But God stands firm - with us, amongst us. His love in destruction brings impossible hope. That despite our transience and fragility, we will live on.

God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble.

Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea,

though its waters roar and foam and the mountains quake with their surging.

Psalm 46:1-3

Joining the One Word at a Time Blog Carnival - Broken

Don't forget

Death. A longed-for, gently-gestated, not-yet-born, peachy baby and a limb-weary, heart-faltering, broken-skinned beloved great grandfather. The prologue and the epilogue pass out of our ken. Fingers press at the glass, but the glaring reflection is blinding. Take it on trust.

Leaving arms that have held them, even but briefly, they enter a line. Names marked off next. Paying the ferryman to cross mythical rivers. Thrust again into life, someone new with vague memories of being someone old. We have searched, theorised, wondered and wished. How can we know if we cannot even look across the divide?

Not just death. Life. It tears us, too. I nod and I mmm as the life and the pain tumbles onto the table. I can't fix it or change it. Just listen and hear. Make recommendations for 'treatment' but that's band-aid stuff. The stories I'm told, replay in my head as I stare out the bus window. Walk ... Bus ... Train ... Walk. Home to the reach of size one arms - Pick me up.

Bad news is momentous, world-stopping, but the fractured beams of hope, of blessing can trick. Almost overlooked.

Don't forget to stop and count!

871.  picking up size one body to soak in the hug

872.  new hand-me-down bikes

873.  sharing the headphones

874.  constructions of cardboard and sticky-tape

875.  courageous words

876.  milo hot chocolate on a chilly night

877.  a bat colony at the creek

878.  afternoon tea with our mates

879.  just catching the train

880.  a baby who chuckles as he stands on the table ... again

881.  being rescued when the battery is flat

882.  egg and bacon rolls at the soccer

883.  a message from Gill that she was right near Frank Lampard when he didn't score (Well he did really)

884.  a friend told 3-6 months, 6 months ago, who is enjoying her children still

885.  a big brother taking care of a little soon-to-be-motherless brother

886.  Jesus knows what follows death

887.  Resurrection is coming

The Gratitude Community...

  

the bats hanging out

Yes... another day, another blogger design template. Like I've got a whole new wardrobe at my finger-tips...

ANZAC DAY

Jarrod McKenna posted some thoughts about Anzac Day and the following vimeo on Sojourners blog.

Many people have participated in a whole array of conflicts with deep conviction that they were fighting and serving to protect people, places and traditions which they loved. Many people who also loved the Lord. I don't want to disrespect those people or the acts of sacrifice in which they participated.

War, however, is ugly. No one who has been part of it or experienced its aftermath would deny its horror. Every war in the modern era has spawned its own traumatic effects - battle exhaustion (1800s), soldier's heart (American Civil War), shellshock (WWI), battle fatigue, combat neurosis (WWII), Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (Vietnam War), and Gulf War Syndrome, are some of the psychological descriptions. 

Families of veterans have experienced death of loved ones, along with the results of trauma in those who return - depression, anxiety, rage, substance abuse, violence to name a few. Children have grown up fatherless or in orphanages as a result of conflicts all over the world. In some countries, those children have become the army when there are not enough adults to fight.

Being Christian is not synonymous with being a pacifist. People of faith can find justification to participate in conflict. History is proof of that.

While I would not want to take part in war (and have always called myself a pacifist), what would I do if my home or family were threatened? If I lived in a place like Rwanda, Sudan or the former Yugoslavia? Am I just blessed to have never had to answer the question for real?


Gallipoli or Calvary from The Work Of The People on Vimeo.

The challenge for me here, is how will I respond to conversation about Anzac Day this weekend? Will I let the platitudes slide by? How will I respond if human sacrifice in the depravity and brokenness of battle is equated with the innocent, life-giving, relationship-renewing sacrifice of Jesus?

McKenna quotes Bonhoeffer in a challenge that we are too inclined to be inoffensive. That I would rather let an insult to Jesus and his ministry go than risk offending my mates. I have to plead guilty to that charge, all too often. I am a coward when it comes to controversy. Here goes for trying to be offensive 'for the right reasons'.

Then I need to consider the deep need many people have to identify with this ANZAC sacrifice story. Our local Dawn Service has been growing in attendance over the last few years with many young people and families.

People have a longing for the humble hero. A connection with the someone just like them, who has participated in the transcending narrative, been part of history. Anzac Day is safe, circumscribed and does not demand response, other than respect and admiration - a raising of  the glass to the heroes.

The sacrifice of Jesus, however demands the ultimate paricipation as he calls us to take up our crosses, too.

May people long to participate rather than just admire and raise a glass this Anzac Day.

Unexpected Death

A sad day at work, today, as I discovered that one of the doctors I work with died suddenly and unexpectedly yesterday. His wife is expecting their third child later this year and my heart aches for what this little family faces over the next while.

Both he and his wife have worked for a number of years in their busy hospital department and are well liked. A memorial service is being planned and I am sure it will be packed.

Instinctively, I imagine what it would be like if my husband died like this. Somehow, I need to personalise the pain to make it more real. In shock, I find myself drawing on connections to establish a sense of reality. Is it not enough that the pain exists? Somehow it needs to touch me, to be close. I do not like the tinge of voyeurism that comes with another's grief, but it speaks of our need to know and be known.

Losing a dear someone brings so much attention, especially when it is in tragic or sudden circumstances. Attention that can be initially overwhelming but fades all too soon as the world moves on. Moving on, as the people whose lives have been blown apart are left reeling and lost.

This broken, broken world where families are bereft, children fatherless, death uncontrollable. We desperately need someone to bring hope and healing. I cannot fix things. We cannot fix things. Despite our competencies, our professionalism, and our independence, our self- reliance is, in fact, baseless in the deep and lasting matters of existence and purpose. Part of my grief is desperation that we are so powerless, in the end, when it really matters.

The message of Easter is that I am powerless, but God is not. Jesus chose to come in innocence and die. God raised him from death to sit beside him in heaven. Relying on God's power and work to rescue us is based on truth. His power to defeat death has passed the burden of proof. He has already done it.

My grief gestates an urge to trust God more.

Then, when our dying bodies have been transformed into bodies that will never die, this Scripture will be fulfilled:

“Death is swallowed up in victory.

O death, where is your victory?

O death, where is your sting?”

For sin is the sting that results in death, and the law gives sin its power.

But thank God! He gives us victory over sin and death through our Lord Jesus Christ.

1 Corinthians 15:54-57.

Please pray that this family will know God's love, comfort and power, now and in the years to come.