Sometimes I just get overwhelmed with the grief and suffering in this world. I think about the huge range of emotional turmoil I've been through at various stages of my life and then I think about other people in the world who have had it SO much worse than me. One time I was feeling this way while driving out of our neighborhood. Someone had one of those signs on the back of their car that said "Life is good." And it just made me so angry (irrational, maybe, but that's how I felt). It just makes me so bothered when I know that so many people are skipping through life, putting "life is good" stickers on their car, and not giving much thought to the fact that there are people for whom life is just not so good. And I get bothered that I somehow lost the cosmic lottery because I just can't NOT care about people out there who are suffering greatly while you drive along in your Jeep spouting off how life is so grand.
I'm struggling to explain this well so try to bear with me. If you've read Lois Lowry's dystopian novel, "The Giver," it might help to explain what I mean. I'll give you the wikipedia explanation because it does a better job summarizing than I would:
"The novel follows a boy named Jonas through the twelfth year of his life. The society has eliminated pain and strife by converting to "Sameness," a plan that has also eradicated emotional depth from their lives. Jonas is selected to inherit the position of "Receiver of Memory," the person who stores all the past memories of the time before "Sameness." The people in his community are happy because they don't know of a better life, but the knowledge of what they are missing out on could create major chaos. He faces a dilemma: Should he stay with the community, his family living a shallow life without love, color, choices, and knowledge, or should he run away to where he can live a full life?"
I relate to Jonas in a lot of ways. I just can't turn away from suffering and it came sometimes be debilitating. I get overwhelmed by the fact that there is so much suffering in this world and I'm nearly powerless to help it. Sometimes the only peace I get is in my attempt to hand it over to God. But not in a super, I'm-so-spiritual kind of way, but more in a "You made this mess fest, its your problem to fix, not mine." (This attitude goes over great at small groups and Bible studies, let me tell ya!)
And back to my original point about being so glad sometimes that not everyone is on the same page as me. Because, I need people in my community to bring me clarity amidst this messy thinking and feeling. And sometimes it's people in my extended community--like the musicians and artists and writers that I follow that can bring some healing balm to the whole thing.
Chuck introduced me to a band called "Brave Saint Saturn" when we first met (almost!) ten years ago. (It's a sort of spin-off side project of Five Iron Frenzy if you know them). And at first it definitely wasn't my kind of thing. The guys voice wasn't my favorite and some of the lyrics were dripping with so much emotion and tension that I often skipped their songs when they came up. (Hmm, gives some insight into why some people respond to me the way they do!) But over time they really grew on me and I'm glad.
Because lately I've been listening to their song, "These Frail Hands". Here's the song and lyrics:
In this broken place where I was born
It seems there is no peace,
And the very soil that we walk upon
Is filled with tears that never cease,
And you can trace the scars of hopelessness
Like sweat upon the backs
Of all the outcast downtrodden,
Water slipped through cracks
Hold on,
Hold tight
And I am overwhelmed
With grief to see such suffering,
For those who lack the voice to speak
For those of us left stuttering
Pain does not prevail,
Dear Lord,
Your love will never fail
And these frail hands,
They tremble as they pen perhaps their last
And these weak words,
Can never say what cannot be surpassed
When the concrete of the world
Becomes too cumbersome to lift,
And the cataracts of fear and doubt
Cloak truth beyond what we can sift
And darkness, darkness breeds its way,
When crippling anguish clouds our sight,
The ghosts of dusk have bared their teeth,
Set their claws to bring the night
Hold on,
Hold tight
Darkness can’t perceive the light
Though lightlessness has chilled us numb,
And though its wings may cloud the skies,
The dark shall never overcome
Light of the world,
Your love
Has never failed
And these frail hands,
They tremble as they pen perhaps their last
And these weak words,
Can never say what cannot be surpassed
I need your love,
And most of all I want to feel your peace,
I need your love,
Let everything that you are not decrease,
(Your love,
Your mercy,
Your light unending.
Your hope,
Your peace,
Your strength my heart is mending.)
(Daylight,
Save me)
This song is a reminder that there are people out there who feel this way too. Not everyone is going through life with their head in the sand and "life is good" stickers on their rear. And it's exactly because I can tell the writer has felt this way that I can receive hope from the song. Any idiot can tell me to put on a happy face. But when someone who's been there before says to hold on, hold tight. Well, it just holds a different weight.
P.S. There's nothing wrong with "Life is Good" stickers. Or the mentality that leads a person to use such stickers. Life IS good. It's also harrowing. And I'm truly thankful that others can carry the hope for me when I can't.
