“Thus says the Lord GOD: Lo, I am sending my messenger to prepare the way before me; And suddenly there will come to the temple the LORD whom you seek, And the messenger of the covenant whom you desire. Yes, he is coming, says the LORD of hosts. But who will endure the day of his coming? And who can stand when he appears?” (MAL 3: 1-4)
So Phil did not see his shadow. This purportedly signifies that we will have an early Spring. We forecast the weather based on whether or not a groundhog is frightened and retreats back into his den. Hmmm… To be afraid of shadow is not something foreign to us as humans. Sometimes to be afraid of sunlight occurs as well. Some studies have shown that depression can arise more readily in an environment that has limited or no sunlight. And the interesting thing is that we need sunlight to see shadows, to see darkness. The first light of a new day coming through a window causes eyes to squint at times. Light has elements that both can affirm and challenge it seems – beauty and shadow. Is the space between them that great? I believe that both together can serve to “wake” us up.
In the difficult-to-watch film, “Room,” a child that has been secluded from space, light and interaction with the world for the first 6 years of his life, has an extremely limited frame of reference when finally encountering life outside of the confined room wherein he found familiarity and safety, despite the circumstances responsible for the confinement. The depiction in the movie of the child’s struggle for orientation in a world grown suddenly spacious and bright beyond recognition and familiarity is both disturbing and beautiful, in its illustration of how difficult but (eventually) empowering a new landscape (as foreign as it may be initially) can be! And all of this drawn up against the mother’s own experience paints a somber, sometimes devastating, but I would say more of a hopeful, approach to the tragic transitions that we all have to face on one level or another in this life.
Today’s Scriptures focus on the Presentation of the Lord in the temple (LK 2: 22-40), and we hear not only the Hebrew prescription of how a male child is to be formally presented in the temple, but at a more dynamic level, there seems to be the elements of awareness, appreciation, consolation, and suffering in the story. Somewhat complimenting the prophet Malachi’s description of the suddenness of the Lord’s appearance and the inability to “stand” before this presence in the first reading, Luke points even beyond the parents of the God-Child to two wisdom characters, who have long anticipated the opportunity to really “see” the Lord’s salvation. Simeon and Anna, both advanced in years, and wizened along the way with life’s joys and struggles, behold this Child, who “… is destined for the fall and rise of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be contradicted —and you yourself a sword will pierce — so that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed.”
Again, the Christ Child, Jesus, as a sign of contradiction, will ultimately embrace all of the joys and sufferings of our lives, and potentially teach us to do the same with ourselves and each other. We squint in this bright light of salvation, that does in fact have a shadow, but not one that we must fear. For the Child that walked in the shadow of our lives, leads us out into the light and invites us to look at the shadow in the spaciousness of light and (here is one of the contradictions) actually embrace the shadow – to try to patiently abide with that which we don’t understand – people, places, religions, politics. This doesn’t mean we have to agree with everything presented us, but there is a sense, I believe, that we are asked to bear patiently, and sometimes with suffering, the differences that shine forth in our lives, in ourselves and in those with whom we come in contact. It is a question of space or “room” that we can allow each other. This is not a sense of exclusive space or “room” for “you” or for “me,” but really a shared space wherein we can be who we are uniquely and together!
It is sometimes a hard pill to swallow that “you yourself a sword will pierce – so that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed.” It seems inevitable that we have to give up, loosen up our grip, release something in order to share. And, don’t fool yourself, it is a hard transition to let go of something that we consider familiar and comfortable and risk something unknown and new, with the power to transform. Sometimes I think that what we have to give up is something that never belonged to us exclusively in the first place. In other words, perhaps we are all asked to “give up” the same thing. Could surrender and vulnerability really be the Gift of salve-ation for all of us – the ointment that heals and transforms from the source of Mercy, the “many hearts…revealed?”
It might be nice to have an early Spring…
Peace,
Thomas