I read that Carl Sagan’s wife has interpreted the story of Eden lost as a triumph of human freedom.
Ironic considering she surely sees it as a mythical tale.
Ironic considering that we have chosen holocaust, genocide, neglect, and violence as the measures of our freedom.
And there is this as well–when you see ultimate love and beauty as a confinement, one might rightly ask–
what do you know of love?
The day I found out my adopted son was a pedophile was a rough day.
It remains with me with the grim clarity of a plane crash.
As I moved past simple shock and devastation I sought advice from Jesus.
How do I do this?
His advice was simple–the truth will set you free.
We all have the right to tell the truth, and yet there is such an extreme pressure from other humans to hide it.
We are afraid to acknowledge our monsters. As though they will befriend us if we just pretend they are not real?
There is a dark side to adoption. Not only are we adopting parents sometimes a rum bunch, we also are trusted with children who have been profoundly changed by their own biographies.
And the result can be quite difficult to parse.
“Normal” people may not get it.
But Jesus has never been normal, so he does.
The injunction to let the truth set us free can be terrifying and lonely.
But truth is the seminal condition of heaven.
And what is heaven if not the cure? The safe haven? A place where hiding things will be impossible and unnecessary forever.
Four years it’s been since I knew I had an invisible arrow lodged in my ribcage–what comes of adopting “damaged” children.
We are all damaged somehow. Who can repair us?
I knew the answer–arrow or no. I knew the power of my salvific God.
But the arrow remained.
Sometimes it would hurt me less. Sometimes more–the ache rising with the deep regret of the past or knowledge of our frailty.
And then I began to wakeboard.
I learned that having this thing I could throw myself at would keep down the ache of the wound. I had let my children down. I had lived with a costly illusion for years.
Who else would he harmed before he was done? And who can fix such a broken soul?
The arrow remained
Lodged in my chest.
Last week I fell wrong off a kicker. I confronted the fear that had kept my mind off the arrow, and landed in a fast tumble.
Panicked, my son said, but I knew it was just speed and my characteristic lack of control.
No one tells you how much it hurts to hit water fast.
I think it is a cartilage injury to my left chest cavity. It makes some things harder.
But the arrow in my chest
Joined by a real wound now
Seems less intractable
Less lonely
With each small, survivable ache
I remember
The spear lodged in His chest
Eternal wound/God of resurrection.
I read an article this morning about a little boy in Massachusetts who was gone for months before he was reported missing.
His body was found this week.
Stories about five year old murder victims whose whole lives were defined by abuse, neglect, and pain do not go with our Sunday best, our Easter celebration. These are hell stories.
These would remain hell stories without Jesus.
What Jesus does with the stories of lost children is what matters.
He takes the pain of broken lives.
He restores the impossible–life for death, peace for pain, love for hate.
The cost too high to calculate: he pays it.
So it doesn’t have to feel like Easter to me. I can face the loneliness of my own story–
Fostering the broken
Adopting the rebellious
Taking on the identity of the crimes committed against those I love.
No easy answers.
Just Jesus, alive, for me.
Jesus gave them plenty of warning–he said he was going to die. He warned of betrayal and grief. He told them things they did not want to hear.
Even so, the space between the last supper and the resurrection was almost unbearable.
Almost because he took the unbearable part.
Just short of unbearable.
That is the promise of Christian life–it might get pretty awful, but it will never be as awful as the atonement.
The grief of the disciples seems so dark. So painful. And their brokenness was pretty broken.
But
It is finished
And Sunday is one Son-rise away.
You were the one
To tell me all the others did it too
With a percentage
A statistic
Because it is the way you roll
50% percent, eh?
Half of all you knew.
I took the statistic to the source
Never got an answer.
Not surprised…
Inclined to believe they, like you
Would tell the students
And hell, eat your broccoli as well
As the water rises around us
To the end.
In all fairness to Facebook, I was a failure from the beginning.
I never posted a grumpy cat meme. I posted Bible verses. I wrote about child advocacy.
I was no fun.
So the decision to exit stage right was overdue. I stayed for the people I knew I would miss. And I left for my family’s safety.
Several times this morning I found myself fashioning vestigial posts about ghrelin, Alice Monro, and a beautiful rainstorm.
Notice I am still blogging, so I am hardly cured.
But it is a start.
I believe in the power of prayer. With or without the artifice of social media to prove that I am real.
I want to be real–
A tree that merely grows quietly in the forest. Making little noise at all.
I always see a rather dour group of chocolate, flower, and card execs huddled together in a dimly lit office…
(Think Brando in Godfather)
Coming up with new holidays–world chicken day? Classic sitcoms day? Creative tie day?
So there. You have my context for Sibling Day. Notice I have waited until the celebrations have subsided to comment.
Years ago I had to buy a book called Sibling Abuse after my adopted daughter revealed that my adopted son was abusing my youngest daughter. And others. He had a list of victims.
He had used his siblings. He abused their trust and their innocence.
And the aftermath was scorching. Our family has stood in a lonely place for a long time now.
My sibling did nothing.
My husband’s sibling as well.
So “sibling day” is kinda painful for me except for one thing–
The children in my family now have the best siblings. They shelter each other and enrich the lives of their brothers and sisters.
They give me hope.
I just wish I could give them the uncles, aunts, grandparents, cousins, and friends they so richly deserve.
The news article announced–a person guilty of mass murder in Rwanda had been forgiven after 20 years.
A cause for celebration?
Perhaps. If you don’t want the survivors to languish in the grips of anger and a desire for revenge–perhaps.
Beware of cheap forgiveness.
What do I mean? I mean that anyone genuinely harmed by another person has to forgive at a terrible price. The price of rape and murder is unthinkable.
It is too big a number. Too large a sum.
Which brings me to Jesus.
I understand that however we humans talk of releasing the debt of pain and loss caused by irrevocable harm, what we mean is let go of it.
We do not have the power to undo it. We do not have the power to expiate. We do not have the power to redeem.
Only Jesus can do that because he does and he did.
He has the power; he paid the debt.
Well, to start with you should know: Ezekiel’s life was no walk in the park.
Stroll in the bone-strewn valley, perhaps.
He lost people he loved.
He was constrained by God to do wacky, uncomfortable, challenging, and humbling things.
And in return–visions. Beautiful visions.
And here is God, taking him out to the dead husks of a human wasteland to challenge his faith.
Do you believe God can raise the dead?
Do you?
Sometimes people can still have a pulse and seem so dead. The idea that a murderer or child molester could be resurrected to a compassionate life?
Almost feels harder than Ezekiel’s bones.
But God makes the injunction:
Ezekiel 37:9-10 (NIV)
Then he said to me, “Prophesy to the breath; prophesy, son of man, and say to it, `This is what the Sovereign Lord says: Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe into these slain, that they may live.’ ” [10] So I prophesied as he commanded me, and breath entered them; they came to life and stood up on their feet—a vast army.
I confess, I believe God can make these dry bones live.
I believe Ezekiel can prophesy to the breath.
Lord, help my unbelief.
In You, dear Ransomer.
Carrying Light 