You can find Part 1 here.
When I ask myself how I’ll choose to take the inevitability of this upcoming move or any other inevitability in life that feels hard, I think of Ammons’ lines about how his friend takes the illness that will in all likelihood take his life:
he is like a rock reversed, that is, the rock has a solid body and shakes only reflected in the water but he shakes in body only, his spirit a boulder of light
He is like a rock reversed, his spirit a boulder of light.
When I say that we can choose how we’ll take the things we do not choose, I don’t mean that we can seize them and wrestle them into something more palatable or organize them away or drown them in distraction.
It’s not a matter of what we’ll do with them, but rather what kind of posture we’ll take as we receive them. It’s a question of being more than doing.
And maybe the same goes for the inevitabilities themselves. Maybe they’re not so much seizing us and wrestling us into submission as they are taking our hand and leading us to that thin place where strength and weakness, joy and sorrow, work and rest, faith and doubt live side-by-side; the place where a reversal is possible, and the thing that feels diminishing can become the thing that enlarges us, where the thing that feels like death becomes the thing that generates new life.
Ammons’ lines remind me of these lines from 2 Corinthians 4:
Therefore we do not despair, but even if our physical body is wearing away, our inner person is being renewed day by day.
We shake in body only, our spirit a boulder of light.
Moving for me is difficult on many levels—it’s not only the sadness that comes with goodbyes or the overwhelming amount of work that goes into actually getting from Point A to Point B or how disorienting it can feel to be in a new place.
It’s also the fear of how my mind and body will take it—or rather, be taken by it.
The last three moves we’ve made have precipitated deep depressions for me. These are difficult to climb out of, especially in a new place, and so, much of the fear or anxiety I feel about moving comes from anticipating what I’ll be like on the other side.
You’d think that knowing depression is a possibility would some how make it easier to avoid, but that’s not how depression works—it really feels as though you’re being taken by it, pulled down into it. There are ways of managing depression, and I’m becoming more skilled at it, but it’s hard work and the work can be exhausting.
The unfolding grace of God, when I take the time to look for it, steadies my spirit—my body still trembles, my brain still struggles to keep up and hold it together, but my inward being is strengthened.
Even though on the outside it often looks like things are falling apart on us, on the inside, where God is making new life, not a day goes by without his unfolding grace.
Sometimes it feels like my physical body is working against me—my brain with all it’s hardwired neural pathways and misfiring neural receptors, my DNA that carries predispositions for mental illness*. I don’t look as though my outer self is wearing away, but it can feel like my mind is.
And this is where the unfolding grace of God steadies my spirit—my body still trembles, my brain still struggles to keep up and hold it together, but my inward being is strengthened.
These graces are often so small and ordinary that I miss them if I’m not paying attention—the feel of the sun on my cheek on warm winter day, Abby’s pleasure in making mud, the way Hannah’s whole face lights up when she talks about books, Andrew’s request to eat graham crackers and drink milk and look at family photos just the two of us, drinking a cup of strong black tea from a mug that fits perfectly in the curve of my hand.
It seems implausible on the face of it that these simple graces could be enough to bind up and steady my fractured mind, but they keep me firmly rooted to this moment, this body, this life. Another paradox—we often find strength by being present to our lives in the weakness and imperfection of our bodies, not in spite of them, because these are the only bodies we have and our lives can only be lived in them.
*These aren’t the only factors that lead to depression—we are whole people and so there are emotional, relational, environmental, spiritual, and intellectual factors to consider when treating depression. But a large part of treating my own has been tending to these biological elements. I finally started taking medication this summer and have experienced a marked improvement in my ability to manage the depression and grow in resiliency.
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