Expectant Still

Remember that surge of expectancy I wrote about back in September (it's likely you don't and more likely you never read it but since I write this for myself more than anything...)? Since then, I have seen it prove true in a surprisingly vibrant way in community. Small miracles have occurred and long prayed for hopes are unfolding. I rejoice with every revelation and moment shared in our gatherings.

Towards the end of last year, I have reflected much on death and the brevity of life. It has been agonizing. Not that these are new thoughts but their weight is heavier as I grow older. Life is so sweet and rapid. I look at Dan sometimes as we lay in bed reading and I cannot imagine either of us no longer alive. It breaks my heart right down the middle and brings a pain I cannot describe. Each moment is so frail, sad and spectacular.

In this first month of the new year, I am feeling that surge of expectancy again. The sadness is still deep within in me as it always has been even when I was a girl. My sense of the magic behind all things beautiful was bittersweet as the best moments never lasted. My keen attuning to the view of God in the glorious variety of the world has always brought joy accompanied by a never-ending ache.

My expectancy is for a freer me who does not continue to wallow in self-laceration for all the things I do and say wrong. It's for coming into my calling in my thirties like never before. It's for creative, artistic fulfillment for my incredibly gifted husband - a coming into his calling - into our calling together in ways just hinted at up till now. It is for a wild abandon to my heart's cries... the me who dreams vibrant dreams and sees behind the veil into the majesty that is each breath, each sunset, each face I pass in the street, each night sky.

While I would not call this something I am expectant about, I sense that some of the greatest freedom and release ahead lies for me in coming to terms with beauty in the horror of the world, and ultimately, death. My secret vision of glory has always been in nature, music, people, the arts, miniscule moments that speak of the deep beneath the surface. But when it comes to destruction, pain, abuse, misunderstanding, war and death, my dreamer self wallows in a pain so agonizing there is no end. Looking for beauty in ashes is a tiring effort and most times I cannot see any reason to the senseless horror we humans inflict on each other and our world.

But I sense that if I can somehow come to a place where beauty and horror do not cancel each other out... where they are held by the same hand... then I can see those hints of glory in the blood and tears. I can see it in death and decay as I also see it in newness and life.

This is what I hope for.