We moderns
have been trained to decouple tragedy and beauty. We view suffering and worship
as incompatible truths. Mourning and loss may come to us, but when we
experience the discomfort of sorrow, we seek escape as quickly as possible.
With comfort upon comfort available to us, in the United States anyway, we flee
from hardship. We are unapologetic escapists consuming alcohol, pornography,
food, or exercise to numb our pain. We use whatever means available to help us
to “feel better”.
The Bible
paints a different picture. Mourning is a given reality of life and when we
read God’s Words, we see real people dealing with honest emotion. When writing
lament, the psalmists leaned into their pain and brought it before the Restorer
Himself. In the first chapter of Job after hearing of the loss of his children,
servants, and livestock, Job shaved his head, tore his robes, fell to the
ground, and worshipped. Too often, we
escape.
Early in Mel
Gibson’s movie Braveheart, we see “the gift of a thistle.” We see beauty
in tragedy. A young boy stands alone looking upon the rocky graves of his
father and brother. Trying to be strong, his body shakes, almost imperceptibly,
as shovels full of dirt fall upon the only family that he knows.
A young
Murron turns back and pulls away from her mother. She breaks the stalk of a
single purple thistle, a perfect image of beauty intermingled with pain, and
walks to William. Her innocence and beauty carrying light to a lost boy.
Their eyes
meet as she hands him the flower. For a moment, he looks upon the flower and
then back to her. Tears fill his eyes, but he holds her gaze, and her his. A
simple gesture bringing beauty to sorrow, bringing connection to loneliness.
Not a word
was exchanged in the scene, but James Horner’s music speaks clearer than any
tongue. It is the music that makes this scene transcendent. It is the music
that helps me to see the beauty of tragedy. Many of us are too far-sighted to
see God’s beautiful work in the midst of sorrow.
2 comments:
So very true Doc, we are that much emptier for not leaning in to mourning and allowing it to do what only it can do. I misunderstood what loneliness could mean past just the pain of it and ran, hard, towards what seemed like answers...hurt others and myself in the process. Leaning into the pain seems so counter-intuitive...and yet it holds so much promise.
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