Staring difficulties in the eye

Back in the mid 1990’s singer, songwriter Alanis Morissette had a hit song titled Thank U. It’s a ballad in which she thanks the difficult situations and moments of life.  She sings:

thank you india

thank you terror

thank you disillusionment

thank you frailty

thank you consequene

thank you, thank you silence

I have been thinking of that song lately as I have walked alongside parishioners, friends and family members who are facing situations that range from deeply disappointing to downright terrifying.  I think you know what I mean.  Maybe you are out of work with no idea where your next job will come from, or in the midst of a health crisis that is ravaging your body, mind or spirit or that of someone you love.  Maybe something you have always enjoyed doing, that gave your life meaning, is suddenly feeling hollow, or a relationship you thought was for life has ended.  Maybe your children have grown up and moved on into their own lives and you have to retool your definition of parenting. Maybe someone you loved has died.  The variety of changes and chances of life are infinite, but we all go through them along our path.

My kneejerk reaction as a pastor is to try to sooth and comfort those in the midst of these changes and chances.  But lately my own personal changes and chances have led me to think comfort is not all that is needed.  Having someone to comfort us in the hard times is good, but not enough - having someone to stand with us while we stare the difficulties of life in the eye – that it seems to me is grace embodied.

Writer Ekhardt Tolle has said, “What we embrace we can move beyond; what we fight we are stuck with.” That is what I hear Alanis Morissette doing in her song – embracing the difficult and thanking it for the new life it possesses inside it.  Of course she is doing this from hindsight – and it’s often easier to say thank you to the difficult when looking back than when we find ourselves in the midst of it.   In the midst of it we need community standing with us surrounding us as we take the time to get our bearings so we can move forward again.  I have witnessed that is the sort of community we find in our Lower Merrimack Episcopal Churches.

In the second part of the chorus to her song, Alanis Morissette affirms the paradoxical power inherent in the process of facing, accepting and thanking the difficult:

The moment I let go of it was the moment

I got more than I could handle

The moment I jumped off of it

Was the moment I touched down

As he faced the difficult final days of his life, Jesus stared the difficult in the eye, and with bloody sweat was able to discern God’s purpose in it. This allowed him to embrace it and move through it so that the abundant new life of God’s full reign could be unleashed in the world.  As this story enfolds us again may we find strength and courage for our own struggles, and plenty left to share with the person in the pew next to us.

Blessings,

Martha Hubbard+