[SB] Sabbath Blessing

[Molly Wolf]

Prayers

My inbox is packed full and overflowing. I'm slowly building a Word file of 
prayers for Erin, whose 11-month-old daughter Savannah died suddenly on 
Thursday.  I'm up to 11 pages and counting. There are so many prayers from 
so many different places, right round this world.

What strikes me about the emails that have flooded in is their wisdom. Not 
one has tried to tell Erin that Savannah's death must have been her 
mother's punishment for sin; not one has said, "This must have been God's 
plan for you." Many of them say "This tragedy is not your fault; you aren't 
responsible for this," which is probably the thing that needs to be said 
most strongly. Many, many, say "God's been through what you're going 
through now; God knows exactly how you feel." They speak of Savannah's 
absolute safety -- that she is entirely in God's hands, and there is no 
safer place to be.  The prayers are wise and tender.

Some prayers are particularly poignant, because they come from parents who 
have sat exactly where Erin is now sitting, mourning the death of a child 
-- in one case, children.  These people *know*, as the rest of us can't, 
really, what this grief is about. They cut through the isolation that 
surrounds tragedy; they say, "We're here too, and we're keeping you 
company." It's the exact opposite of Job's comforters. The willingness 
simply to sit with suffering, not to try to erase or fix it, is a rare and 
beautiful thing.

What gets me especially is what feels like a vast pond of simple goodness, 
into which Savannah's small death has tapped. It's something Advent taps 
into as well. We feel that our love of children is a universal, eternal 
matter, but if it were, humankind would be doing better by its youngest, 
not exploiting them or abusing them or selling them off for profit. 
Tenderness towards the vulnerable isn't, in fact, a universal human value. 
But it is a value that Jesus taught, strongly and repeatedly.

We know of God's love for children through Jesus, who woke something up in 
us by his birth. The waking-up process isn't a one-time event; we're still 
very much in process. The love of children, like so much else in the 
Kingdom way, is a matter of evolution. Sometimes, looking at the cruelty of 
this world, it's hard to believe that the Kingdom way will indeed triumph. 
But the stack of email in my inbox is evidence (to me at least) that it 
will indeed win out.

God chose to come among us, which is astonishing right there. God chose to 
come among us not as a warrior or a leader, but as a helpless and 
vulnerable newborn. God, having experienced that helplessness and 
vulnerability, taught us, through Jesus, to see our children as priceless 
and beautiful; and the love that we show them and the care we have for them 
nurture them. That love and care bring them into the Kingdom way, whether 
or not we succeed in keeping them in church.

So much concern and tenderness for a girl none of you has ever met -- and 
neither have I. It's like a candle burning strongly in the dark; it says 
that the Light is there, and will prevail. Thank you.