O break my heart; but break it as a field
Is by the plough up-broken for the corn;
O break it as the buds, by green leaf seated,
Are, to unloose the golden blossom, torn;
Love would I offer unto Love’s great Master,
Set free the odor, break the alabaster.

O break my heart; break it victorious God,
That life’s eternal well may flash abroad;
O let it break as when the captive trees,
Breaking cold bonds, regain their liberties;
And as thought’s sacred grove to life is springing,
Be joys, like birds, their hope, Thy victory singing.
–Thomas Toke Lynch (1818-1871)

I raised my eyes
To see Thy kinging
Thorns not gold Thy honor crowned
Men throw dice, no fealty bringing
Their eyes are blind, their souls are bound.

I raised mine eyes
To see Thy sighing
A shaft of sorrow pierced my heart
Nails of sin, their hammer ringing
On tree of life, now death’s dark hour

I raised mine eyes
To see Thy dying
My God, my God, Thy trusting plea
Echoed words, forsaken keening
Among the women who follow Thee

I raised my eyes
To see Thy loving
Words like manna from Thy lips
Behold, my Lord for redemption bleeding,
All our souls his life receiving,
Into Thy hands my spirit give!

(Death of a Prince, S. Forshey)

Do not be discouraged at your faults; bear with yourself in correcting them, as you would with your neighbor. Lay aside this ardor of mind, which exhausts your body, and leads you to commit errors. Accustom yourself gradually to carry prayer into all your daily occupations. Speak, move, work, in peace, as if you were in prayer, as indeed you ought to be. Do everything without excitement, by the spirit of grace. As soon as you perceive your natural impetuosity gliding in, retire quietly within, where is the kingdom of God. Listen to the leadings of grace, then say and do nothing but what the Holy Spirit shall put in your heart. You will find that you will become more tranquil, that your words will be fewer and more effectual, and that, with less effort, you will accomplish more good.–FRANÇOIS DE LA MOTHE FÉNELON.

If she falls into some error, she does not fret over it, but rising up with a humble spirit, she goes on her way anew rejoicing. Were she to fall a hundred times in the day, she would not despair–she would rather cry out lovingly to God, appealing to His tender pity. The really devout woman has a horror of evil, but she has a still greater love of that which is good; she is more set on doing what is right, than avoiding what is wrong. Generous, large-hearted, she is not afraid of danger in serving God, and would rather run the risk of doing His will imperfectly than not strive to serve Him lest she fail in the attempt. –JEAN NICOLAS GROU (pronouns changed)

God has brought us into this time; He, and not ourselves or some dark demon. If we are not fit to cope with that which He has prepared for us, we should have been utterly unfit for any condition that we imagine for ourselves. In this time we are to live and wrestle, and in no other. Let us humbly, tremblingly, courageously look at it, and we shall not wish that the sun could go back its ten degrees, or that we could go back with it. If easy times are departed, it is that the difficult times may make us more in earnest; that they may teach us not to depend upon ourselves. If easy belief is impossible, it is that we may learn what belief is, and in whom it is to be placed.–F. D. MAURICE.

I won’t mince any words. The past six weeks have run the gamut from delightful to downright awful.

In early December, I woke up with heart-pounding, stomach-clenching anxiety like I haven’t had since comp exams.

And it continued. And continued. I finally called my dear friend Kimberlee and she packed me up to her house, put me on the couch, and fed me dinner.  Jack and Jane drew me pictures, which I have taped above my sink. A few days before all hell broke loose, I had waxed poetic to Jack about the Book of Kells and showed him pictures of the illuminated manuscript on-line. He drew me an illuminated picture of my name. I could not see it for the tears.

Later, Kimberlee and I sat by candle-light late into the evening and talked about dreams and regrets and hopes. A healing, holy moment. For awhile the panic abated.

Yet over the next weeks, I continued to lose sleep, have migraines, and stomach aches.  The fear and trembling would strike at the oddest times, then disappear.

At one point, pacing around the living room where I’d had the worst of the panic, I kept saying, “I don’t want to go there again.”

But as clear as can be, I sensed a surprising response: “But Susan, it is a door to your heart, to love and compassion for others. Don’t look at it like a pit you can’t escape, but a door to my redemption.”

Pit or door. Idol or icon.

Suffering can become an idol. We flee from it in terror or sacrifice to it in hopes of relief.  We don’t want to ever go through it again, so we build the walls to keep it out. We move away, or hide away. We offer it tokens to buy an uneasy peace. It can become a petty god, demanding our lives in submission. Idols stop our gaze at themselves–there seems to be nothing more to life.

Or, suffering can be an icon. Never as an end in itself, never to be sought, but when experienced, walked through as a door into a wider reality, a reality where hearts of stone can break and reveal the flesh of Christ’s own love.

A heart that feels grief can also find love painfully present. When I focused on the love, the door opened wide.

I stopped at the exact spot on the carpet where, the night before, grief had filled me,  a beige shag abyss of panic, and realized that I never need flee or appease the suffering again. I could simply step into it…and through. I continued to feel the panic in my very marrow and cry out of the depths with the psalmist, but I did not fear it. God could and would redeem the experience. Every experience. No matter what. And not for me alone, but for others, too. The icon beckoned me beyond.

“God comforts us, not to make us comfortable, but to make us comforters.” –J. Henry Jowett

Or as scripture tells us:

“Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort,  who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God. For just as we share abundantly in the sufferings of Christ, so also our comfort abounds through Christ.” –2 Corinthians 1:3-5

****

(Not long after this, I got on a plane, weary and spent, to visit my parents for Christmas. During the two wonderful weeks there, my heart began to ease through their loving care and conversation. And a trip to the hospital revealed that, whatever else may be going on, I have acid reflux, which can have very similar symptoms to heart-pounding panic. The treatment helped and I finally slept. Thanks be to God!)

This year, I’m trying a radical (for me) practice: not journaling. After 26 years and thousands of pages, it felt like time to invest that writing energy into my dissertation, blog, and other projects, as well as to take time to go back through the journals to see if there were seed ideas I could develop. I will be occasionally posting excerpts, such as the one below.

From July 23, 2002:

I used to want to be a saint and now I say–

I’ll do what I can in the life I’ve been given, no more, and with no grandiose goal.

Knowing when to say ‘enough’ and rest is more important than spiritual olympics.

God sits with me now and points out the many different colors of green in the trees and that is enough.

Just being present to where I am is enough.

Just to hear the cry of the loon is enough.

Hungry and tired, she waited for the campus bus, the visible world reduced to the lamp light’s reach. The chill made her burrow deeper into her jacket, the library’s warmth only a memory in the foggy twilight.

Decisions yet to be made pressed in upon her. She worried at all the questions as she worried at her frayed sleeve, plucking threads and watching the fabric unravel. A familiar sting pricked her eyes.

Clenching her teeth, she shoved her hands back into her pockets, roughly setting her thoughts against the ache and her eyes to look for distant headlights.

And there, on the sidewalk, she saw them, just at the edge between sight and obscurity:

Paw prints.

Large paw prints, like some gigantic creature only meant for the wilds had stepped through paint and then sprinted into the darkening fog.

She half-turned away. It was cold. Late. I’ll take a closer look tomorrow, she decided. 

Pinpricks of bus lights cut through the fog. Supper and bed beckoned. Warmth and sleep wooed.

Yet her eyes kept finding their way back to the prints. Even in the fog, she could just make out more marking a path into the distance. A little spark of adventure flickered to life in her heart. A little less weariness weighed down her limbs.

She hardly noticed stepping out from the certainty of the stop.

She followed, up and around, down and back, street lamps lighting her way, one moment certain she had lost the trail only to find it again further up and further in, until the paw prints finally stopped.

And she stopped; breathing deep from the chase, hope of a deeper magic rising in her heart.

At the end of the trail, scrawled joyfully on the pavement, were two shimmering words from her childhood, catching her up in the Story, breaking past all her doubts, filling the ache, until her heart spilled over in laughter and tears and laughter again:

ASLAN LIVES!!

(And edited repost from the archives, in honor of CS Lewis Day, and based on Deborah Smith Douglas’ mention of finding paw prints on Duke University’s campus and following them to the joyful words.  She writes: “I simply, with all my heart, recognized the transforming truth of the affirmation. Aslan is alive. Resurrection happens. Christ is risen.  In a single leap, Aslan had bounded past the watchful dragons of my mind and all the intervening years to return…Because my whole childhood rose up to greet the Lion, my tenuously sophisticated young-adult self had no defenses against the saving “allelujah!” truth of that moment.” –Weavings, Jan/Feb 1997, 21)