Hidden Isolation
FROM THE RECTOR
Holding onto two conflicting feelings at the same time creates emotional labor within us, especially when we do not give ourselves permission to feel them both. Moving to a new city and starting a new job is an opportunity for celebration, but leaving behind people we love and places we know is a source of grief. Will we allow our anxious children to see us cry, or will we push those tears down deep and put on a happy face for their sakes? Watching our child get married should be a reason for unequivocal joy, we tell ourselves, but the absence of our own father, who died recently, gnaws away at that happiness. With no way to carry profound sadness into a setting in which we are supposed to be focused on joy, the seemingly opposed emotions churning within us become more than we can bear.
When we step away from the cultural constraints of a stressful moment, after the party is over and once the children are asleep, we discover in the quiet of authentic reflection that it perfectly human to feel joy and sadness, anxiety and delight, frustration and confidence, all at the same time. It is not our psyches which cannot embrace the duality of life but the roles that we feel we must in habit which cannot contain them. Thankfully, the Christian tradition recognizes that the ups and downs of life are not experienced in succession but all at once, and it proclaims a message of hope to those need to know that God is with them no matter what.
Our faith teaches us to look for God in all things. When the apostle Paul wrote the Letter to the Philippians, he sought to encourage his audience from a place of confidence while inundated with struggle. His words were delivered with an authenticity that came from his own experience of faith and loss. That combination allowed him to write,
It is my eager expectation and hope that I will not be put to shame in any way, but that by my speaking with all boldness, Christ will be exalted now as always in my body, whether by life or by death. For to me, living is Christ and dying is gain. (Philippians 1:20-21)
and, in the same letter, also to write,
Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. Let your gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord is near. Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. (Philippians 4:4-7).
Paul had faith that God was with him in his imprisonment—literally in his chains—and that made it possible for him to encourage the Philippians to rejoice in all things and have confidence that God will protect them no matter what. From anyone else, those words may have sounded like an empty promise, but, despite his own suffering, the apostle believed that Jesus Christ gave him hope in a situation of hopelessness and, thus, gave him integrity to invite us to seek the same.
When we begin to feel that God is only with us in the good times, when we allow the world’s assessment of blessedness to define us, we start to think that our experience of grief, loss, suffering, loneliness, anxiety, and hardship are signs of faithlessness. During the weeks leading up to Christmas, when storefronts, commercials, and Hallmark movies constantly remind us that joy and peace are the emotions we are supposed to feel, our hidden struggles can isolate us from others and even make us feel isolated from God. A return to the biblical themes of Advent as a season of desperate yet hopeful longing may offer some relief.
Tonight at 6:00 p.m., we will hold our annual Blue Christmas service. On this, the longest night of the year, which is also the feast of St. Thomas, our worship expresses most fully our peculiar Advent hopes. For Christians, this is the time of the year when we acknowledge both our confidence in God’s love and salvation and the struggles that make that love and salvation necessary. To feel both hope and doubt, joy and loss, is, therefore, not only deeply human but also deeply faithful. This service is one way to acknowledge that the coming of the Christ child and the return of our savior are things best hoped for from a place of longing and grief. Into our deepest need, God comes.
Yours Faithfully,
Evan D. Garner