Advent Thoughts, #14
What did Mary ponder in her heart? She had much to ponder. As Simeon said, "he will pierce your own soul, too" (I think Simeon is the forgotten character of this story.) She had to ponder--there was no one who could give her answers. There was much uncertainty. This had never happened before and never would again. This is the unique moment in history.
Our desire for answers, our discomfort (our extreme lack of equilibrium) with uncertainty, with lack of answers, makes us look for answers anywhere and accept wrong answers, impatiently, anywhere.
Mary had a lot of suffering ahead of her; suffering by being maligned, suffering by watching her son die. We do best not to ponder suffering ahead of time, because it can never be as bad in our minds as it is in reality.
20 sets of parents in Connecticut have unspeakable suffering ahead of them; their babies have not just been taken from them, but their little bodies crushed with bullets. Those parents will have to ponder what their children's last moments were like. Making this an avenue for political discussions is wrong, heartless, selfish. Yes, we have guns, we shoot guns. But I hate them really. We as a society have too many guns, but we also have too many mentally ill people. If we knew that these tragedies would never happen again, if we had that certainty, we could give up guns. But we know it won't.
We live in uncertainty in terms of human conditions, in certainty in terms of grace, which will always be there. We can only grieve right now.
Our desire for answers, our discomfort (our extreme lack of equilibrium) with uncertainty, with lack of answers, makes us look for answers anywhere and accept wrong answers, impatiently, anywhere.
Mary had a lot of suffering ahead of her; suffering by being maligned, suffering by watching her son die. We do best not to ponder suffering ahead of time, because it can never be as bad in our minds as it is in reality.
20 sets of parents in Connecticut have unspeakable suffering ahead of them; their babies have not just been taken from them, but their little bodies crushed with bullets. Those parents will have to ponder what their children's last moments were like. Making this an avenue for political discussions is wrong, heartless, selfish. Yes, we have guns, we shoot guns. But I hate them really. We as a society have too many guns, but we also have too many mentally ill people. If we knew that these tragedies would never happen again, if we had that certainty, we could give up guns. But we know it won't.
We live in uncertainty in terms of human conditions, in certainty in terms of grace, which will always be there. We can only grieve right now.
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