Humans like to feel good. Humans like to feel happy. Humans
are silly creatures.
There is a difference between living joyfully and feeling
happy. Joy springs from the well of the divine, from our hearts. Happiness is a
reaction, and can be shaken. Joy is a cause. All too often are we torn from
happiness by some great cataclysm of life but it is in our darkest times that
we are never closer to the Light.
Darkness and despair is a tricky subject to tackle, but here
in the Easter season we are to be joyful at the victory of Christ’s Sacrifice
and what happens when that feeling fades? Ol’ Clive Staples had it right as he
described the Christian life as a series of waves that rise and fall. We have
an experience and it elevates us to an almost manic state of happiness and
elation in the light, and then we and dipped back into shadow as we come down
from that mountain, like Moses returning from meeting God only to come back to
his people worshipping a cow. We all experience this of course. The funny thing
is we tend to know that good times do not last forever but we tend to assume
the bad will. It is our nature to yearn for those feelings of happiness and to
see beauty in life again and so when the going gets rough we tend to chicken
out.
I find myself thinking should we be just as grateful for
dark times in our lives? They do provide opportunities for growth and to
strengthen ourselves. The truth is the dark and hard times should be uplifting.
The shadows cast on the wall only prove the source of light. The bad things
that happen in this world can leave us broken and weak but all we have to
remember is that it ends, that we can see it through.
We have such a richness
of faith, and the Sacraments that provide us with such grace to lift our hearts
out of darkness but we must act. Robert Frost’s “Stopping By Woods on a Snowy
Evening” gives us the image of a man standing between two images: A frozen lake
and a snow filled woods on the darkest night of the year. I see every one of us
in that image; standing between God’s endless forest and Hell’s Frozen Lake
Our Dark night of the
Soul comes to an end eventually but it always seems like Winter in Narnia: “Always
winter but never Christmas.” We can see each other through a harsh winter. We
can Love our neighbor and our enemies. Like campers in the cold night in the
wilderness we are drawn closer to the light of the fire. I believe we can stay
joyful in the dark times and that is what makes the love of God shine in the
world. We should be grateful for our winters because we are never closer to God
or to each other. Eventually, somewhere in Narnia the snows start to melt, the
sun breaks the clouds, and you might even hear sleigh bells in the distance.
(Dibs on the Sword.)
Also give this song a listen: Even the Winter by Audrey Assad
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