[SB] Sabbath Blessing

[Molly Wolf]

Moment of Joy

Damn. I hate it when this happens.

"This" isn't so much crying in church -- I do that pretty routinely, after 
all. "This" is crying when I'm supposed to be singing. I cannot sing and 
cry at the same time; the moment my tear glands act up, my singing voice 
wobbles like a top and then shuts down completely. It's even worse this 
time because (a) it's the first communion hymn and (b) there's only one 
other tenor in the section, and he doesn't know this hymn as well as I do. 
Sorry, Jim, you're on your own. He is a nice man and passes the kleenex.

I am having trouble with this hymn, which I love a great deal (it's "I come 
with joy, a child of God" sung to the lovely American tune "Land of Rest") 
precisely because it represents, for me, a moment of holy joy. At the time, 
that moment seemed to go on and on endlessly, one of those times when 
eternity touches my mind and heart and I know that God is very real and 
very close indeed. But later, it was deeply betrayed, partly by my own 
head-knots but much more by another's choices. I'm much of the way over the 
betrayal, but obviously not entirely -- not going by the surge of tears 
that's shut my singing voice down.

The shrill and cranky doubter who lurks in the corner of my mind leaps to 
the obvious negative conclusion -- that that moment of joy was illusory, my 
faith setting me up for yet another fall. The God of the Gospel (she says) 
is indeed the father who promises bread and gives a stone.  This part of me 
(for she *is* a part of me, not a separate entity) regards God's promises 
skeptically, with a muttered "Yeah, sure." I understand why the doubter 
needs to be there -- she keeps me honest -- but she doesn't make my 
faith-life easy or pleasant. I'm always having to answer to her for God's 
apparent failure to follow through, for the moments of holy joy that life 
betrays.

And the fact is that I can't always answer her. I can reason with her, I 
can talk theology with her, I can show that God's apparent failings are, in 
fact, ours, not God's. It's not God's will that's the problem but our 
unwillingness to follow it.  I can talk out of my own beliefs, chosen again 
and again, but can't reach her hurt and stubborn heart. She has little 
faith in fathers, this doubter; for her, fathers are remote. Fathers turn 
away with a light dismissive remark when you're in pain; they are detached 
and unproviding, not to be relied on much, because that way lies 
disappointment.

But (I tell her now) I *knew* that moment of holy joy You were there too. 
You were in the moment with me, not just silenced, but as much in joy as 
the rest of me.  You remember. Don't tell me you don't remember.

If doubt keeps my faithful side honest, maybe it's a two-way street. Maybe 
my faith needs to keep my doubt honest. That moment *was* real, it *was* 
genuine, it *was* of God, and saying anything else is dishonest.  It was 
not my mind and my desires tricking me into some self-induced spiritual 
high. It was the genuine article. It was, for a moment, standing in Love, 
even if ordinary love turned traitor.

And (my soul says to the doubter) you will get back there; you'll get the 
answers your stubborn heart requires, but you'll get them from the Source, 
in time. Then there will be only Joy. Be patient, my soul says to my 
hurting, doubting heart: all will be well.

I slipped out right after the service and sat in the car and cried for a 
little while. Then I went home and got on with the housework.

http://spindlegeek.blog-city.com/


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I'm about to hit some sacred cows, and they moo so badly. -- Phyllis 
Tickle, aka The Divine Miz T.