Good Friday

A year or so ago, Merry asked at bedtime: "How do you hear God if he's not even here? I can't see him." (Note: we still habitually call God "he" though we affirm that God is both male and female. Force of upbringing).

We affirmed her observation and her good question, and then we said, "God speaks in many ways--through our imaginations that he gave us, through the voices and faces of other people, through beautiful things in nature."

Merry daily evidences the paradoxical genius of children: wildly imaginative and stoically literal. "But I don't HEAR God," she said.

It was getting late. "Look," we said. "Ask God to talk to you tonight, and then tomorrow tell us what happened." She agreed.

The next day she said emphatically: "I listened and listened but God never said anything!"

What could we say to that?

Much of our faith is based on mystery. I believe many things without rational proof. God loves me. How do I feel sure of this? Besides the Bible and my parents telling me so, I know through my experiences. My experience cannot be invalidated, just as I cannot tell you, "Tosh! You never heard/saw/smelled that! What complete rubbish!" You saw what you saw, you tasted what you tasted. I've heard God's voice in many ways, through the lives of regular folks, the words of people, the writing in a book, wonderful music, an autumn tree glowing in a streetlight.

Rather than being suspicious of mystery, I affirm and delight in it. Nothing is fully knowable--no subject can be plumbed to its depths, no single cell is beyond creating surprise. No one is fully knowable--not my husband nor my children nor my parents. Do I believe, though I cannot fully and rationally know these people, that they love me? With all my heart.

And here's a crazy thing. Do I believe Jesus died and rose again? I do! Can I offer a rational explanation? Absolutely not. Strip away the miracles and the inexplicable things and what you've got left is boring mediocrity. I don't want to put all my heart into something that I can know fully. Frankly, that sort of thing is just not worth knowing. This doesn't mean I don't use my brain and my reason in a constant, often very uncomfortable journey. I often live in great tension. And what I anxiously pursue pulsates with the miraculous and mysterious: loving people, loving this world. Writing, reading, lovemaking, music, good food--who wants those things fully explained? Not I! Nor can they be explained. They can only be tasted, experienced, known in part. And loved.

Here's a Good Friday mystery:

Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.

What does Jesus mean?

Now, from the Good Friday Liturgy:
Almighty God,
as we stand at the foot of the cross of your Son,
may we know your love for us,
that in humility, love and joy
we may place at his feet
all that we have and all that we are;
through Jesus Christ our Saviour.

And finally, from When I Survey the Wondrous Cross:

Were the whole realm of nature mine,
that were an offering far too small;
love so amazing, so divine,
demands my soul, my life, my all.

And back to Jesus, who is the reason I call myself Christian:

Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.