From the Rector
Dear Friends in Christ,
I’m sure all of us, from time to time, look to various writings to find hope or to put grief in context. The news this week was blanketed with yet another school shooting.
Once again we are reminded of the horrors we tolerate being inflicted on our children.
Once again we come to the grim realization that something is profoundly broken in this culture.
Once again we watch the unimaginable play out in the most inhumanely routine way.
How do we even try to make any sense of this?
For some reason, as I watched this news roll in, a quote from Tolkien came to mind.
He writes, "In sorrow we must go, but not in despair. Behold! we are not bound for ever to the circles of the world, and beyond them is more than memory."
For those who know the books, this is from Appendix A in Lord of the Rings and are Aragorn’s last words to Arwen before he dies. Arwen will live on for she is an elf. Their love will endure. But his natural course was coming to an end.
That first line, “in sorrow we must go but not in despair,” feels to me like so much of the Christian life—or life in general.
So much happens over the course of our lives that lays one sorrow upon another. This accelerates as we age—as we say goodbye to beloved pets, watch children move away, lose parents, have friends gradually disappear (as we note how close in age we are to them)…. These sorrows and so many countless more are part of the tapestry that is life.
“In sorrow we must go but not in despair.”
These sorrows are the shadow side of deep and abiding joys. The losses hurt so muchbecause they are the end of a joy, a love, a beauty, or a peace we once thought so fixed but which proved too fleeting.
The great joys of life are always paired with some commensurate sorrow. It’s even hard to enjoy them sometimes because we know an end may soon come. There’s a kind of melancholic joy that can seep in as we share a laugh while knowing we’ll soon share a goodbye.
“In sorrow we must go…”
We go from day to day as news comes in of the world’s sorrows, too. Heartbreaking scenes pound as rhythmic as waves on the shores of our awareness. These sorrows erode. They break and roar. They pull at our spirit with an undertow of despair.
We take on the tears of the world as news pours in. Countless tragedies become ours as we, consumers of news, become consumed by it. Despair sets in. We think there’s nothing to be done. Nothing to be gained. Nothing that might yet change. We resign ourselves to the tide.
But those tragedies, those countless tears shed in the tide of grief, are not the end of the story.
We are not bound forever to the circles of the world. We are not trapped by its cycles nor captive to its tragedies.
We might sorrow but we needn’t despair.
The Gospel witness is not that there will be no Valley of the Shadow of Death. The gospel witness is that we go through it. Through and to the other side. With the rod and staff of the Lord holding back the too close dark. That shadow of death is cast by the light of life. The griefs are memory’s echo of the laughter.
We are not bound by the circles of the world. Beyond them is more than memory. The Christian hope is that the circles of binding that seem to hold us so fast are not as real as the liberating love of Christ. That love frees from fear, promises life, scatters dark, and brings glad tidings of the dawn again.
The echoes of joy are not memory alone but a fore-lightening. While so much of life may foreshadow a grief yet unknown, the echoes of joy tell us of love to be yet made whole. More than memory is promised to us for we will go from strength to strength, from love to love, from joy to joy.
All that breaks will be bound.
The memories are the reminder that stories unfinished will find their completion. Loves unspoken will hear of their promise. Journeys untaken, pledges unkept, fears unfaced, hands unheld, apologies unrendered, and so many more of life’s circles will find their completion in the coming bright hour.
The echoes of loss today fore-lighten joy yet unknown. There is little or no sense to be made of what has come. But there is, deep beneath the swells of grief, a firmer ground that holds all of the vastness of the human experience and more.
There is Christ crucified. There is Christ resurrected. It is the only sense to be made. We walk with a Lord who was broken. We worship a Savior who rose again. We weep with a Brother who promises us that death is not the end of the story.
This day’s losses are real. The sorrow is heavy. The grief unimaginable. But as Christians we walk through the valley in sorrow but not in despair for we are not bound by the circles of the world, and beyond them is more than memory.
Yours in Christian Hope,
—Fr Robert