Last weekend the skies cleared after over a week of rain. The sun shone, warming the earth and drying up the yards and puddles. People, extra-cooped-up from the stay-at-home ordinances, came out to walk the sidewalks, play in yards, draw on sidewalks.
After doing some overdue yard work, I sat down on the porch in the afternoon sun with a book and some coffee to read and let the light from our ancient star warm my skin. It was what I needed. It’s what my body’s been longing for as the dawn brought day after day of gray.
Yet, at one point, I tucked a finger into my book, looked up, and wondered if this was wrong. How could the sun be shining, the sky a clear blue, children playing down the street when so many were in so much pain?
In the Gospel accounts, in the hours that Jesus hangs upon the cross, darkness falls. The bright spring day turns to gloom. The world, perhaps the universe realizes the weight of the moment. Love Incarnate is dying, and it responds by blotting out the noonday sun.
Doesn’t the world realize what’s happening now?
It’s been almost thirty years since my grandmother passed suddenly. Yet, I can still remember something my mother said the evening of her funeral. As we rode to and from the cemetery, she saw the traffic running like any other day, the world continuing on as if nothing had happened. Didn’t they know, she thought, what had happened? Shouldn’t the bird’s song stop, and the sun dull its glow? Shouldn’t the world stop its mad rush, stand on the sidewalks, and realize the grief that’s passing them on this day?
Maybe her question was really, didn’t God know?
The grief and suffering filling our world right now is so great it seems like it, alone, should darken the skies. And even so, shouldn’t God’s heart be broken? Shouldn’t the grief of the Holy One dull the colors of our world?
In the twelfth chapter of Romans, Paul instructs us as to what it means to always act with love. Laugh, he says, with those who laugh. Cry with those who cry. Mourn with all those who mourn. He doesn’t say it, but he knew that sometimes we will do so on the same day, within the same hour.
Sitting on the porch, the late-March breeze stirring the wind chimes to song, causing flags to flutter I found I could only pray: for the sick, the dying, the grieving, and those working so hard to tend to them. I asked Christ to be with them, knowing he already was, and is.
Then I smiled at my love as she came out to sit beside me in the fading afternoon. My heart still feeling sadness, but also holding joy. Not understanding but knowing God’s heart, greater than mine, is doing the same.
And seeing that the sky can darken, yet still hold light.