I AM THE BREAD OF LIFE

Even in the midst of great pain, Lord,
I praise you for that which is.
I will not refuse this grief
or close myself to this anguish.
Let shallow ones praise for ease,
'Comfort us, shield us from sorrow'
I pray for whatever you send me.
And I ask to receive it as your gift.
You have put a joy in my heart
greater than all the world's riches.
I lie down trusting the darkness,
For I know that even now you are here.
-Psalm 4, Stephen Mitchell

The acceptance of suffering is a journey into death. Facing deep pain, allowing it to be, taking your attention into it, is to enter death consciously. When you have died this death, you realize that there is no death – and there is nothing to fear. Only the ego dies. Imagine a ray of sunlight that has forgotten it is an inseparable part of the sun and deludes itself into believing it has to fight for survival and create and cling to an identity other than the sun. Would the death of this delusion not be incredibly liberating?
Eckhart Tolle

Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune without the words,
And never stops at all.

And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.

I've heard it in the chillest land,
And on the strangest sea;
Yet, never, in extremity,
I asked a crumb of me.
Emily Dickinson

Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand; and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God.

And not only that, but we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God;s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.
-Romans 5:1-5

Sometimes there isn't a lot to be said. Perhaps most or even all of us have had those times when there was nothing left to do, or even to hope for. In some important way what we needed, perhaps not for ourselves at all, but for someone we loved or some cause we had given everything we had to, or some community we loved which now seemed defeated and ended beyond anything we could do.

So what do we do in those situations in which there is nothing left to do? Sometimes the only honest answer is, I don't know, I really don't know.

As I heard and assimilated and took in this latest news from Starr church, I was in that situation. I started to look for some passages, hopefully from scripture, but from anywhere really, that could give me some clue about what to think, even what to feel.

I knew that meditation held the only real source of insight and support. But I wanted to find some insight, some way to enter into it – some symbol of my and our intention to surrender to God's presence and action.

The passages we read this afternoon were what I could find. Stephen Mitchell's beautiful paraphrase of Psalm 4 seems to be the central help and insight. Even in the midst of great pain, Lord,I praise you for that which is. I will not refuse this grief, or close myself to this anguish. I pray for whatever you send me. And I ask to receive it as your gift. You have put a joy in my heart, greater than all the world's riches. I lie down trusting the darkness,For I know that even now you are here.

Grief or anguish seem like strange gifts. I think the psalmist is not suggesting that somehow everything that happens is somehow God's detailed and micromanaged plan just for us, but something much more interesting and important. It is that to the extent that we can allow ourselves to inhabit, taste, open ourselves to whatever happens, we will grow and change and learnthrough the experience.

We seldom know beforehand what the learning will be. And God doesn't send the tragedy or misfortune, no matter what it is, just so we can learn from it. Richard Rohr has said that we grow and learn in two ways, through suffering and love.

We are asked, as the psalmist says, to receive it as a gift. And we can lie down in the darkness, no matter what the darkness is or how the darkness manifests to us, knowing that even here and now, God's Spirit is also here and now, even more present than the darkness, whether or not we are able to feel good about it, understand it, or experience it.

That's the real meaning of the dark passage from Eckhart Tolle. The deaths we fear and would avoid, not matter what they are, are not the end – they are the beginning. For they open up the possibility of actually living and being who we are, in the reality that does not know death, that is eternal. We can remember, know, that we are sun stuff, essentially part of the sun, not separate and alone, afraid of the death of ourselves as separate and alone from the while.

It's easy to say, difficult to live, seemingly impossible sometimes, but it is the truth, the real truth about ourselves and who we are.

And that brings us to Emily Dickinson's wonderful little poem comparing hope to a bird, or perhaps the Holy Spirit as a dove, that perches in the soul – that is always there, and no matter how tough things get, and even when things get the toughest, does not leave, but only becomes more present. Hope keeps singing sings below whatever words we may use. Hope never stops. It is the sweetest when the storm ir worst, and can keep us warm now matter how severe the storm. And then she ends with the remarkable words – hope doesn't ask anything of us. It doesn't demand that we think or feel a certain way, or believe in something – it's just there, singing for us.

An finally, that's brings us to the passage from Ephesians in the Pauline tradition. It think it's alright to admit that Paul had some issues in his life, some personality problems, if you will. He seems to have been a man of immense pride and will. And in his life over and over again he meets the defeat of his ambitions, his belief system, heartbreaking failure and conflict in the churches he founded, His life is threatened over and over again.

So how does he deal with all of this defeat, frustration, threat and failure? He takes his iron will and turns it on its head. He will boast – only Paul uses that word so much in the New Testament – he will boast – not of his will, his great intellect, his pride – but he will boast of his weakness, and above all, of his dependence on Christ. He will boast in Christ alone. Phil 3:3.

Like the psalmist in Mitchell's rendering, he receives the suffering as a gift, knowing that deep within it is hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.
That's it – that's the beginning and the end of this drama of suffering – let us trust in that assurance in our meditation this afternoon.

Even in the midst of great pain, Lord,
I praise you for that which is.
I will not refuse this grief
or close myself to this anguish.
Let shallow ones praise for ease,
'Comfort us, shield us from sorrow'
I pray for whatever you send me.
And I ask to receive it as your gift.
You have put a joy in my heart
greater than all the world's riches.
I lie down trusting the darkness,
For I know that even now you are here.
-Psalm 4, Stephen Mitchell

The acceptance of suffering is a journey into death. Facing deep pain, allowing it to be, taking your attention into it, is to enter death consciously. When you have died this death, you realize that there is no death – and there is nothing to fear. Only the ego dies. Imagine a ray of sunlight that has forgotten it is an inseparable part of the sun and deludes itself into believing it has to fight for survival and create and cling to an identity other than the sun. Would the death of this delusion not be incredibly liberating?
Eckhart Tolle

Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune without the words,
And never stops at all.

And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.

I've heard it in the chillest land,
And on the strangest sea;
Yet, never, in extremity,
I asked a crumb of me.
Emily Dickinson

Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand; and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God.

And not only that, but we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God;s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.
-Romans 5:1-5