When life is hard and you can’t see a way through for yourself, it is common to look for a miracle which will solve everything or, at least, rapidly lift you out of the pain or anxiety which is overtaking you. I suspect this happens, whether we are people of faith, or not, although possibly people of faith are more inclined to expect miraculous solutions. We look around us, hoping to receive a gift which will transform our life.
As a person who was grieving and feeling alone in many respects, I was asking my God for a day when I would wake up and all the pain and anxiety would be gone – as though a shining sun had taken away all the darker aspects of life. I felt it would be like going through Easter and finding a suffering Christ who had risen beyond all that betrayed or threatened.
On Easter Saturday, I was lying on my bed, feeling very low and I was given, not the gift which I kept asking for, but a profound insight into where I should be looking for healing and love. I wrote the following poem:
The wonder of risen life
I am buried in a place which seems cold and lonely,
even as I feel the embracing of the grave-clothes of care.
Grief and pain are as dense as the earth around me
and I cannot hear the music of hope.
I lie there, wondering if there could be risen life ahead,
or will this be my present and my future day.
I am looking for a bright light, like an unclouded sunrise,
a miraculous warming of everything
in the shining of a new dawn.
I am searching for a heart within me which leaps for joy
as it feels the renewal of all that I have lost.
It doesn’t come to me like that
and my life lies down again in sadness and deathliness.
Then I lift my eyes to the heavens
and see the tiny ray of light which I had not noticed.
It shines in fragility, but with steady truth.
I open my ears and hear a voice behind me calling my name,
a voice filled with gentleness and love
which I had missed within the sounds of my weeping.
I look ahead and there on the hard road
is a tiny flower blossoming in an unlikely place.
It has barely enough for its survival,
but there it is, rising in victory before me.
Christ is risen! Christ is risen indeed!
Divine life breaks free
of all that would betray it and destroy it.
It may not rise within us in ways which
transform all that is before us.
It sometimes lies as a tiny gift
which we hold in our hands.
It encircles us with love
as we see it in the faces of those around us,
and it shines in bright-lit sparks of hope,
if we will open our eyes to receive its endless promise.
Thanks be to God.
Often we fail to see what is really there for our care and support and renewal because we are closing our eyes and hearts to the small things which will lift our lives into a new day.
Even as a community and a nation, we could be inspired into holding the ground for justice and compassion by the little gifts around us each day – the smile on the face of a child, the little cat who is our friend, the grass growing in concrete, one sparkling star in the sky or the faithfulness of a friend … There is always something if we will look and be prepared to receive it, rather than asking for grandeur and immediate solutions.
