Bleeding Love

I will not numb the pain.

A sword too will pierce your own heart.

I bleed for the Muslims slaughtered in their house of prayer. I bleed for victims of sexual abuse. I bleed for those left behind when loved ones die from terminal illnesses. I bleed for a generation never free for a minute from advertising that undermines their worth. I bleed for those driven from their homelands. I bleed for those who have never known what home is. I bleed for our plastic-coated earth. I bleed for my brothers and sisters throughout the world whose hearts have been pierced by sorrow and despair and anger and doubt and darkness.

I bleed, and I weep, and maybe it would make more sense to numb the pain.

It would make sense to watch an episode of something that will make me laugh, something with a silly, happy ending. It would make sense to bake brownies. It would make sense to systematically seal off every one of my nerve-endings so I could remain useful, chipper.

Lord, you tell them the Son of Man will suffer and die, and you lead them up a mountain to pray. You lead them up a mountain where you will be transfigured before them in light and they will say ‘It is good, Lord, to be here’. You lead them up a mountain only to lead them back down, back to persecution and suffering and death, back to Calvary.

You lead us back to Calvary.

I will not numb the pain.

Five wounds on a little chaplet: pierced hands; pierced feet; pierced side – or is it pierced heart? To say nothing of pierced brow, lacerated back, aching legs. To say nothing of Christchurch, or clerical abuses, or my own wilful sins.

Really, Lord, a new heaven and a new earth? But when? How long, O Lord? How many lives? How much pain?

Come quickly.

Of course, it’s nothing new. The world turned upside down in 1914. Hundreds of times before and since. They kept on keeping on, and we will too. They made it through to temporary victories, and we will too. They lived through the darkness and gave birth to new light.

Such as we are, such are the times.

Can I dare to hope?

Can I dare to dream of a more loving world?

Can I dare to be the love and the hope in the world?

Such as You are, Lord – let the times be as such!

Thy Kingdom come, Thy Will be done: How do I not notice the words that I pray? How do I not notice their answer to the jagged, salted nerve-endings of my weary soul, weary world?

You offer no answer because You Yourself are the answer.

But what does that mean? When will we see? Blessed the pure in heart, for they shall see you in all of this pain, all of this mess.

Purify my heart, Lord! I want to see. Show us your face and we shall be saved.

I would rather be in real dark than artificial light.

For in this darkness, this bleeding, this unnumbed pain, I will meet You, my broken-for-us God, my God-with-us Emmanuel.

Here at rock bottom I will once more find my sure foundation; our sure foundation; the only sure foundation.

Here, only here, there is hope which does not disappoint us, hope that endures.

I will not numb that hope.

AMDG