The Rain

We're having a bona fide rainy day up here today.

We haven't actually had too many of these since we moved up here...a lot of snow last year, not a lot of rain.

I'm thinking about how rain both restricts and relieves.  It's cozy if you can let go of all the should-be-doings.  Like, I can't make any progress today on my deck painting project. But I can enjoy the quiet of my living room & the hug of my weighted blanket, the release and "permission" to just sit and not produce (if I can get there mentally). And I can be glad about how it's abating the deep-seated fears of fire season.  I also chastise myself for not getting more done inside. Alas.  The perpetual struggle.

Rain is also thought to be cleansing, renewing. It can be.  It can also be gloomy and oppressive.  It's a good metaphor for the dark night journey.  Sandra's talking this morning about how the metaphor of journey can also go two ways.  It can help us not to feel stuck, but it can also discourage us if we feel like we have to be making progress.

I appreciate her thoughtfulness and her thoroughness in her treatment of the dark night.

She suggests maybe dwelling at home rather than a pilgrimage might suit someone better.  Which resonates this morning as I sit in my cozy chair, producing nothing of measure.  Could I just be at home with God, with no demands of production or proof?  That's a freeing thought.

Could I really be allowed time and space to figure things out, to reacquaint myself with God?  It's hard to imagine, what with everyone's expectations.  That I keep my actual physical house in order (in much better order than it is right now). That time is money and I should be doing whatever I can to make some. That people need me to support them, not to abandon them.  That there are errands to be run.  That I should be doing a workout instead of sitting here.

We moved up here unabashedly to escape much...to decidedly pull out of the frenzy and dysfunction of more densely packed communities.  And yet, being given space often only magnifies how much of a stranglehold life and people have on you.

Jeremiah (chapter 21 this morning) is approached by the king's people.  They say, "Perhaps the Lord will perform wonders for us as in times past so that he will withdraw from us."

Am I reading this right?  "Please, Lord, do those good things you are capable of, and then please leave us alone."

It's connected for me.  The dark night journey's purpose is to re-center us in God.  Strip away all that we thought and knew so the false bottoms can be ripped out and everything can be rebuilt on truth.  

So we have to examine what we've thought God was up to now.  And, as I touched on yesterday, we all so easily fall into the rut or trap of having a transactional relationship with God, of making God a genie, a Santa Claus, just like the king's people did.  Give us the good stuff and then don't mind the rest.  Let us do what we want.  We want the rain that nourishes, but not the rain that floods.

It's a brutal confrontation, being shoved up against the mirror.  I know I've treated him this way.  Just the good stuff, please. And while I have many questions--and many protests--about why things are the way they are,  I still have to face whether I am willing to accept God as he is as opposed to what I had hoped he would be. My false constructs of him.

Sandra keeps telling me that's the whole point of this, This Present Darkness.  Somehow her voice in this helps gives me hope that it's not all just bleeding, gaping wounds from here on out.

"[The journey quality] is very much needed when we may be caught up in pain, bewilderment, and despair. We need hope that God is at work, even though we may not be able to 'see' or 'feel' it. Most people do not experience a sense of dwelling with God when confronting the painful barriers which can exist in the dark night.  It is very comforting to learn from others that they have drawn closer to God in the midst of what may seem an empty waste...We are not just left with the barriers and stumbling blocks.  Hope gives us the courage to continue allowing God to lead us when we cannot see our way." (Dark Night Journey, pg. 65)

The rain can feel like a restriction or an opportunity. If anything is required of me right now, it seems that it is this work of perspective.  I don't feel led, but can I believe that I am still being led?  I don't feel hope, but can I let others' experience of something more through this be my hope for now? I feel only barriers, but might they be guides?

I'm trying to stay and learn, instead of just rage.