Life is never just one thing at a time.
Perhaps this is an obvious thing to say. But it struck me, recently.
It was a week or so ago, a Tuesday, a day which I regularly schedule as a sabbath day. Genuinely fruitful rest is hard fought and won in February, I find. My usual outdoor diversions seem so much less inviting in the wet and cold of deep winter. ( Truly, I have yet to apprehend the allure of ice fishing. ) In any case, it was a Tuesday, and set aside for rest. But this day - as many do - came with complications. I had just the day before had a conversation with a friend who was suffering a setback in an ongoing and longtime struggle, with potentially costly implications. My heart was heavy with the sadness of this news and burdened with concern for my friend. I felt powerless. I felt as if my own intentionality and care in this friendship were in some way under indictment in light of this fresh emergence of pain and fear. Hope, it seemed, was flagging. A cloud hung over the day ahead.
How does one endeavor to rest under the weight of sadness? An exhausting burden to bear, it is not easily put down at will.
Abel runs up to me: asking for a snack, narrating his play, or offering stream-of-consciousness observations on the world around him in the manner that only a two year-old can. Children at this age prize nothing more than the ability to lay claim to your attention. Whatever it is that comes to my son’s mind to say, he will repeat it, over and over (and over), until whomever he has in his sights sees fit to repeat his words back to him. He will not stop, until they assure him that they have indeed heard, and understood, what it is he is attempting to convey. He is constantly probing, inspecting, testing his physical and relational world. Conversation, for a two year-old, is linguistic experimentation as well as a means of purchasing eye contact. His pleasure at becoming the point of focus is palpable. In pursuit of this singular joy, this precious and life-giving attention, he is relentless. It is maddening. And of course, it is also beautiful.
My sabbath day is spent with him. In this season of our life together, it is a shared discipline. In fact sabbath, for me, has come to mean a day spent at Abel’s short-legged pace. A day, given to sharing in the sheer, joyful, exploratory openness of my son. We linger, together; frequenting coffee shops, taking walks, discussing the world around us as seen through his eyes and captured by his words. For me, it is a forced slowing, an opportunity for deliberate steps; deep and measured breath. For Abel, sabbath is the day wherein no competition presents itself for my undivided attention. For both, it is a gift.
It is a Tuesday: our day. It is a day for exploration and conversation, and Abel will not make allowances for the burden of sadness I feel bearing down upon my heart. The hours are too precious, the possibilities too abundant to make room for melancholy. He greets the day at a run; talkative, wide-eyed and eager. Tugging on my sleeve, he rousts me from the warm depression my body has pressed into the couch cushions: and, we’re off.
We spend the day as we do, slowly and playfully. It is a sabbath, and it is good. There is joy, here. Joy, and life and beauty; beauty enough in this scampering, hyperkinetic boy before me to induce in my smiling eyes quietly restrained tears. In the midst of this joy and beauty and play, this shared and sacred space, my friend comes to mind, again, and the question strikes me: Am I sad today, or joyful? Burdened with concern, or at rest? What AM I, and what IS this day? A day for mourning, or laughter; for fear, or hope? Which of these stories or circumstances inspires my tears? And in that moment it is clear to me that it is, of course, both. This day, equally and simultaneously painful and beautiful. Broken, and blessed.
Isn’t it funny, how life is never just one thing at once? A single day, and my single heart, baptized into a world of both pain and possibility, each emotionally poignant enough to bring me to tears, and neither can displace the other. In this age between Christ’s resurrection and our own, joy and sorrow coexist inescapably alongside and commingled with one another. Awake and fully present to both, as tears of sadness and joy well up together in solution behind my eyelids, I find the colors of my world deepen and grow richer for them. The economy of eternity presses in to invest itself in this moment. A voice speaks and a window opens; for an instant the dark, liquid hues heaven itself flash before my eyes. A spirit of Peace descends, catching up my heart and all its burdens. Not to remove them FROM me, it seems, but to carry them WITH me.
I take a breath, exhaling these prayers of sorrow and gratitude. Abel reaches up to take my hand; tugging and insistent, purchasing again my undivided attention. Victory. And again, we’re off; running, wide-eyed and expectant, arms open to receive all that the world yet will and will not be, this day. Never just one thing, it will be everything, often all at once. In the midst it is ours only to fix our eyes upon Jesus himself; ever and always, our horizon and help and hope.
Thanks be to God.