The Light Will Come
O send out your light and your truth; let them lead me; let them bring me to your holy hill and to your dwelling.
Psalm 43:3
One of my favorite theologians is the Old Testament scholar Walter Brueggemann. My attention was recently caught by a brief summary in one of his publications about understanding of the life of faith. He believes the life of the Christian consists of a pattern of “being securely oriented, being painfully disoriented, and being surprisingly reoriented.”[1] While Brueggemann outlined that pattern as he saw it in the Psalms, we can see this throughout the Biblical witness, especially the pattern of exile, survival, adjustment and eventual return. This three-fold pattern reflects a spiritual concept of which I have often spoken and taught, the “paschal mystery,” that movement in the life of Christ of suffering, dying and rising to new life. This pattern is reflected throughout our own lives in the challenges we face, the small “dyings” and the amazing new life that seems to break forth when things may seem so dark.
Whether you use Brueggemann’s descriptive language or that of the paschal mystery, it seems that we are to navigate the ups and downs of life, knowing that God is not going to abandon us in the “disorientation” stage or in the dark tomb. And we’re not travelling those waters alone. Our sisters and brothers in Christ live these same realities under similar or even very different circumstances. Whether this takes place in our individual lives or our corporate lives, new life emerges; reorientation eventually takes place.
A friend recently sent me a video of a discussion panel in which she participated. The subject matter was mental health and “COVID exhaustion.” Mental health experts were sharing about the struggles and darkness their patients have been bringing into their offices over this long year and a half of COVID tide. When will it be over? When will life go back to normal?
The waiting is difficult, remaining faithful to our faithful God while plodding forward into the unknown. The naysayers continue to exploit the societal disorientation we experience, sowing fear and doubt. God will not abandon any of God’s creation, including the human creatures that inhabit “this fragile earth, our island home.”[2]
Call forth the Light, and let it lead you. Rely on the truth that faith in God is not wasted. It will come to fruition in new life in the here and now, and later in the life beyond this life.
[1] Walter Brueggemann, Praying the Psalms (Winona, MN: Saint Mary’s Press, 1993), 14.
[2] The Book of Common Prayer, Rite II Eucharistic Prayer C (New York: Church Publishing Inc., 1979), 370.
