There are crises in our family right now…In my immediate family and among the families of my siblings. In the Koine Greek the word for crisis literally means ‘remaking’. Somehow in our culture we think, I think, that crises are avoidable; just follow the rules, be a good parent, study hard, be honest, carry a little humility along the way, do one’s work well, and life is reasonably negotiable…that if we play our cards right we might avoid the conundrum of passing between Scylla and Charybdis, those proverbial devourers of sailors with whom Odysseus contended. It is not so.
Life is about change and transformation…. sacred crossings over from what passes away to what is new…death to life…and such crossing over, such transformation never occurs without pain…never…like the pangs of childbirth, not a coincidence…life forever modeling the truth of the universe which is a dance between death and birth….a conspiratorial mystery to say the least…Nature tells us so: the dry leaves scuttling across a cold and lifeless landscape driven by what seems an indifferent wind…but we know with foresight that the green shoots of Spring come yet again …just in time to spare our leaden wintry hearts….hearts betrodden by the cold of life…but to be sure, made ready for new life….opened up…battered perhaps…prepared.
At this Christmas tide this promise is but a flicker of light…a small, vulnerable, an at risk child, the tenuous metaphor….a child hustled back and forth from Egypt to Palestine for survival’s sake…There are times in the winters of our lives when we must just do what we can to survive….there is honor in that …and there is honor in recognizing when we are in such a winter…None of us are exempt, we have plenty of company, the blessed wintry of heart.
But there is good news to be sure…We have proof of it if we but pay attention to the rhythm of our lives: “When our hearts are wintry, grieving, or in pain, thy touch can call us back to life again, fields of our hearts that dead and bare have been: Love has come again like wheat that springeth green.” (Hymnal 1982 p. 204) Let us claim this holy hope that life comes again, this marvelous remaking… and maybe, just maybe, it comes on eagles’ wings.
