Themes: Storms, conflicts, chaos, faith, hope, healing, peace
- This past week I was paged to the Intensive Care Unit at the hospital. I walked into
the unit and immediately sensed the tension in the area. I didn't need to ask where
I was needed--it was obvious. There in one of the rooms was an elderly gentleman
wearing an oxygen mask, lying on the bed with a nurse trying to hook up a bi-pap
machine to assist his breathing, while a young man in his 30's stood on the other
side talking to his father. The older man's condition had deteriorated rapidly through
the morning and the son was trying to get his father to hang on until the gentleman's
wife of 55 years arrived. I entered the room and stood at the end of the bed,
listening to the machine helping this man breath while the son talked to his father
about special memories. The nurse left and I moved to the empty side of the bed
and held the gentleman's hand.
The older man had kept trying to remove the mask. The breathing grew more and more laboured and the gentleman struggled to remove the mask, rubbing his head first one way, then the other, trying to take it off with his hands but he wasn't able to because of the type of mask. His movements became more and more agitated as he struggled. Finally the son said to the nurse "Please remove the mask. He doesn't want it. I can't let him continue like this." The mask was removed and the respirator shut off, the struggles ceased, and the gentleman grew quiet. The only sound in the room was the son talking to his dad and myself about playing guitar, about a three year old grand-daughter that was very special to the gentleman, about how the son hadn't listened to his father as he should have, how he wished his brothers and mother would get here--what was taking them so long? (he had called over an hour ago).
I sat holding the gentleman's hand, listening to the son, asking the occasional question, and watched and listened as the breathing became shallower. Something told me (was it God?) that all of a sudden it was time and I said to the son "Tell your father you love him." He looked at me, tears streaming down his face, looked at his father, realized what was happening, and told his father how much he loved him. His father breathed a couple of last breaths and died with his son's head resting on his chest. The conflict was over--in the silence there was healing, love, and peace--a sense of God's presence.
Difficult questions and not easy ones to ask ourselves! It means admitting that we must surrender our lives to Christ rather than telling God what we are going to do. It means trusting in God and believing that even faith as small as a mustard seed is sufficient for God to work in our lives. It means believing that even when the storms of life seem to overwhelm us, that in the midst of it all, there is quiet and calm if we can trust in God.
What prevents us from having faith in God, to receive God's healing graces, to be gathered, upheld and sent into the world to proclaim the Gospel as Christ sent out the disciples? "Fear"--plain and simple. Yet throughout the Bible, we are told, 365 times to be exact, to "Fear Not". That's one for every day of the year! When we are afraid, then we lose the sense of God's presence, that inner silence which is the eye in the midst of the storm. Take another look at the story of Jesus calming the storm. As Jesus calms the storm, the Greek actually says "Peace. Be Silent." It is only if we are willing to allow ourselves to be silent in the midst of the storm that we find our God, hear God's voice in our lives. Christ in calming the storm and bringing peace, reminds us that in Genesis God created the heavens and the earth, the sun and moon, the animals and humans out of chaos. I'm not saying that there won't be moments, days, times, when we are not afraid--even Mary was afraid when the angel spoke to her (a "Fear Not" passage)--but if we can find a place in our hearts and minds where we can allow ourselves to be silent before God and receive God's peace and love in the midst of chaos, conflict, doubts, and pain, then we will find our God and our faith, even though it may only be as small as a mustard seed.
Faith as small as a mustard seed could be an allegory for David and Goliath. The story of David and Goliath seems a little bit ludicrous. Here is a ten foot armoured giant, Goliath, against David, a teen-age boy with a slingshot and five smooth stones! It's the stuff movies are made of, like Pierce Brosnan aka James Bond against the evil forces of the newest oil cartel in the latest James Bond movie and saves the world almost single-handedly. In David and Goliath, we all cheer for the underdog, David. David won, right? Wrong, God won! In the words of Herbert O'Driscoll "The truth of the story is this: those who know clearly that their own resources are limited, but that spiritual resources are available to them, are the ones who win all the battles that matter." (The Word Among Us, Year B, Vol 3, pg. 32) We may not win the argument, beat the disease, or come out of an emotionally, physically, and spiritually draining situation unscathed. But if we believe that God is in the situation, walking with us, holding us in the palm of Her hand, touching our hearts and the situation with His Spirit, then we will have won, for our spirits will have been nourished and nurtured by Christ's love and presence in our lives, even though we may feel very alone and/or betrayed and abandoned by those whom we thought to be friends or people who loved and cared for us. Not all the Goliaths may come tumbling down, not all the storms will be calmed and we will still have "dark nights of the soul" where we agonize and wonder where God is in the events that happen, but if we put our hope and trust in the Lord, who made the heavens and the earth, and let Christ into our hearts and lives, then we will receive healing as well as the peace that passes all understanding.
Let me take you back to the young man and his father that I told you about at the beginning. As I spoke with the young man in the minutes following, he described some very difficult years that he and his father had had where the conflicts between them were numerous and many. I asked him what kept the relationship going and the young man said love and hope that the relationship would be healed and that it would grow, which it had. It reminded me of these words written by Joyce Rupp that I would leave with you:
To hope is more than just to wish for something. It is to yearn for and to dream something so much that we really believe it can be, that it will happen even though the odds may be against it. To hope is to have a strong, clear, positive vision of the future. To hope is to know the God of hope, the God of promise, the one who has already taken us out of darkness into wonderful light...Have we fallen in love enough with the God of hope that we can trust God will always be with us no matter what our trials and tribulations may be?
(Comments to Allison at aacline@isys.ca.)