Overwhelmed by Hope

Church was good today.

Maybe it's a sad statement on my point of view when this surprises me, but that attitude "is what it is".... I suppose it wasn't even 'church' in particular that was so good. In a lot of ways I 'abandoned' the true aspects of church in that I chatted with people, but wasn't trying to really connect. Mostly it's that what made church good for me today was a very internal thing & so I feel sort of 'selfish' in the sense that I wasn't really a full participating component of the 'church' as a community today. At the end of the day I was just too overwhelmed to have intelligent conversation that required more than small talk....

Part of it was the worship through song. For months (maybe years) I've been complaining that a lot of the songs in today's modern worship are not songs that I can sing; the words, the lyrics in them, are not the words that are on my heart. It's been hard to find any joy in being able to worship through singing when the songs that are sung are not 'my' songs, not the words that I want to speak to God. I've found it difficult to worship in 'truth' when the words that are sung seem so foreign to my heart's expression....

But today for whatever reason, I found resonance with the songs we sang. The words, songs, melodies, chords, all seemed to fit today - they gave words to the thoughts & feelings of my heart & expressed what I wanted to say. The music moved me, allowed my soul to fit between the notes & chords, echoed longings, spoke mysteries...It is amazing to me how much can be spoken in 'wandering piano' - those moments where someone just plays notes & chords on a piano & there are no words... somehow in this, so much is spoken that resonates with the groanings of your own heart.....

...I'm not sure what made the difference today. It may have had somewhat to do with the person leading - a humble friend, with a true heart full of love & light. I'm finding myself cagey around those who lead singing/worship in church. Some people I trust & some I don't - & I'm not sure why I'm this guarded around people.... it shouldn't be a big deal, but it somehow is. I trust this friend's heart & know that their worship is an expression of the hidden place & so it helps me lower my guard & maybe this opens me up more to finding resonance with the community of worshippers & the songs that are sung.....

...another part of it was just the 'journey' that went on while the music played. One of the earlier songs was mentioning a lot about "the Son" (talking about Jesus) & this somehow triggered me to think about the Son/Sun metaphors in the Bible & triggered me to start looking up verses about Jesus as 'Sun'.

This is where the events of the past day started kicking in & the whispers of things started making sense, coming together. It's one of those odd moments where you realize that random things that you've seen/heard somehow have a connection to them. There are these moments where you have the sense that maybe your life isn't as random as you figure. Maybe there is someone leading, someone directing the drama...

Yesterday I sat down to watch part of the movie "The Saint" with Val Kilmer & Elisabeth Shue. Older movie, but enjoying it. In one scene, Val Kilmer's character is snooping around Emma (Ms. Shue)'s appartment, trying to steal her notes on cold fusion (there's a blast from the past, eh?). On her computer he sees a quotation of Isaiah 9:2, "the people that walked in darkness have seen a great light"). For Emma's character, this means finding some source of limitless free energy that could bring power/energy/light to the whole world.

Later in the day, after driving a friend home, I was listening to a late night talk show interviewing this scientist who is writing all these books about the connection between light & God. He was talking about how that he figures he can prove scientifically that light has some of the primary characteristics of God - omnipresence (everywhere at once), omniscience (all knowing), omnipotence (all powerful) & consciousness. Parts of it sounded great, parts sounded loopy, but parts sounded reasonable....

So these things, these moments, brought me to thinking about the metaphor of God, Jesus, as light, the light, Sun & this led me on this progression through a bunch of verses:

Malachi 4:2 - But unto you that fear my name shall the Sun of righteousness arise with healing in his wings; and ye shall go forth, and grow up as calves of the stall.
Luke 1:76-79 - And thou, child, shalt be called the prophet of the Highest: for thou shalt go before the face of the Lord to prepare his ways; To give knowledge of salvation unto his people by the remission of their sins, Through the tender mercy of our God; whereby the dayspring from on high hath visited us, To give light to them that sit in darkness and [in] the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.
Luke 2: 29-32, 34&35 - Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, according to thy word: For mine eyes have seen thy salvation, Which thou hast prepared before the face of all people; A light to lighten the Gentiles, and the glory of thy people Israel. Behold, this [child] is set for the fall and rising again of many in Israel; and for a sign which shall be spoken against; (Yea, a sword shall pierce through thy own soul also,) that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed.
2 Peter 1:19 - We have also a more sure word of prophecy; whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day star arise in your hearts:
Numbers 24:17 - I shall see him, but not now: I shall behold him, but not nigh: there shall come a Star out of Jacob, and a Sceptre shall rise out of Israel, and shall smite the corners of Moab, and destroy all the children of Sheth.
Isaiah 42: 6&7 - I the LORD have called thee in righteousness, and will hold thine hand, and will keep thee, and give thee for a covenant of the people, for a light of the Gentiles; To open the blind eyes, to bring out the prisoners from the prison, [and] them that sit in darkness out of the prison house.
Isaiah 49:6 - And he said, It is a light thing that thou shouldest be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob, and to restore the preserved of Israel: I will also give thee for a light to the Gentiles, that thou mayest be my salvation unto the end of the earth.
Isaiah 60:1-3 - Arise, shine; for thy light is come, and the glory of the LORD is risen upon thee. For, behold, the darkness shall cover the earth, and gross darkness the people: but the LORD shall arise upon thee, and his glory shall be seen upon thee. And the Gentiles shall come to thy light, and kings to the brightness of thy rising.
Revelation 22:16 - I Jesus have sent mine angel to testify unto you these things in the churches. I am the root and the offspring of David, [and] the bright and morning star.

And in all of this, I thought about these ancient words, some as late as 90 AD, some spoken hundreds of years in the past. All of these words though speak to the great primal awareness of darkness & light. For men like Simeon, or Zacharias (John the Baptist's dad) or Isaiah, these are men who lived through great darkness - the destruction & imprisonment of their nation, the moral & social decay of a people. They've lived watching their people descend into chaos & depravity & then finally end up under an oppressive rule where their culture was spit on by the occupying nations.... For them, the message of the light, of a dawn, of a daystar, dayspring - this message meant something....

...recently I commented to a friend that their birthday heralds (actually & metaphorically) the dawn of brighter days & this imagery has stuck with me, both for the friends & for all of us as Christians, as light bearers....

... Thinking about it today, I came into church tired. Had been up later in the evening talking with a new friend who was discussing their time in Sri Lanka & the pending civil war there. On the way into church I caught some radio show interviewing a palestinian man about the problems in Gaza & the west bank. I came into worship today expecting it to be a time of intercession, a place where my heart could reach out through the world & feel the pain, the struggle, the desperation of these far off places & plead with God about it all... This is something I find happens often to me - my heart ends up 'journeying' to other places, following either some real connection between us as humans or just through the imagined connections that come from hearing stories... Anyhow, worship started with this, with a grieving over dying lands, failed states, people's whose lives are torn (thoughts of the movie "Blood Diamond" & the chaos in Africa were in there, too)... & this is where the prayer started - little places where I could feel & share the pain of the world around me....

...but in the middle of reading about the light, reading about Jesus as 'the dawn', I felt, in a deep tangible sense, not just the pain of the world, but the way that the Dawn Bringer comes in each moment. Statistically you can look at the world & say, ah, every 8 minutes a woman is raped. Every 30 seconds someone suffers domestic or sexual abuse. Every few minutes someone will die through violence, or blinking out of existence through starvation & lack of care. Statistically you can say things like this & at times you can feel them - feel the great sum of humanity groaning under the sufferings of this world.... The revelation today for me was the reality that the opposite statistics are true, too. Sitting there, I could feel it: Over here, light has dawned in someone's life. Hope that has been long dead has been rekindled. Over here in this moment, someone makes a choice to leave abuse & head for freedom. In this moment, a nation gets another chance to do the right thing. In this moment a child is born. In this moment someone chooses Jesus, embraces life for the first time....

...and in this 'new' statistics in my life, I found myself suddenly (& still) overwhelmed by hope. It is one of the most beautiful things I've seen with my heart & it left me in tears & breathless (hence the lack of ability to communicate with others - wanted to, but my heart was so empty/full that I just really couldn't).

For me, this is where faith happens. Because I'm made to feel, because I share what others go through, I often embrace the dark sides of life & this sometimes makes me less trusting of God 'cause I know how bad life gets. This makes it hard to trust 'cause I'm always wondering what God is doing in the middle of the suffering.... Today I saw afresh the reality of His presence. I saw the other side of the equation, that the people who sat in darkness have seen a great light.... and I sit entranced & overwhelmed by the beauty of this one the Dawn Bringer....

P.S. I think it's going to be a good year....