Spring wretchedness...

Spring melancholy... It seems like a contradiction in spirit, to be slightly sad during a season of unbounded overflowing blooming birdsong joy. But, there it is, a fine mist that blurs the edges and settles in the valley of the soul. Fall and winter melancholy seems rational. Leaves are dying, light is fading, cold and darkness are increasing. The contrast in the outer world and the inner world is more startling and unsettling in the spring.
I forget that walking through the valley of the shadow of death with friends and family takes its toll. The twilight of grief is lightened some by the season. Resurrection is ablaze all around us in creation’s expansive glory. The contrast between my sputtering soul lamp and the bright sunrising season also heightens my awareness of loss and grief.
It doesn’t help that the taxman cometh in the spring. For those who are self employed and must pay the government without the comfort of a benefits package or a housing allowance, the month is cleft in twain with before and after... anxiety about what the bill will be before and weak kneed relief or fear after the final tally is in.
The monkey grass is running amok in the flower beds as monkeys are wont to do. The grass has brown bald patches. The weeds seem to be springing up all over the place with dandelions leading the charge. Spring pruning waits for no one’s schedule to lighten up and I am behind the eight ball. Gardens must be plowed and pastures bush hogged in preparation for the growing season.
How do I find rest for my weary soul? How can I not just rest but find the deep flowing well of bubbling up joy again? Where are the buds of soulfulness breaking through the crusted over winter hardened soil in my heart? Who can help me?
You wouldn’t expect to find the answers to those questions in the book of Numbers but there it is. The eleventh chapter tells the story of Moses wearing out taking care of his people. They had been in the wilderness awhile and the shine had worn off freedom as boredom with manna set in. So Moses had a “Come to Jesus Meeting” with God and put it straight. “I am not able to carry all this people alone, the burden is too heavy for me. If thou wilt deal thus with me, kill me at once... that I may not see my wretchedness.” This was especially amazing since Moses is described as the meekest man on the face of the earth (Numbers 12). The Lord’s response was immediate and practical. God instructed Moses to gather a group of elders together. God would down and take some of the spirit which was upon Moses and put it upon them. That burden would then be shared and Moses would no longer carry the weight of leadership alone.
So there it is... the answer to the spring melancholy or any other struggle of the soul. Tell it to Jesus and God, then tell it to your elders and friends. Share your spirit so that you might no longer wander in the wilderness alone. Gather together, hold hands, hug, let your spirit rest in the loving embrace of a resurrection God who bings our worlds back to life after death. Smell the flowers, breathe the soft air, feel the wind, get wet in the warm rain, walk in the mud and give thanks for all the seasons of the soul. We are not alone.

Do you hear what I hear?

Last night as our group was gathered around the fire, my curiosity got the better of me. I asked if anyone there had a transcendent experience of God. In most groups, you can talk about sex, theology, painful personal experiences and all sorts of struggles rather freely. We’ve grown accustomed to doing what my Grandma used to call hanging out our dirty laundry for all the world to see. But sharing an inexplicable outside the reality realm experience of God, a time when you were at your most vulnerable and connected to some shimmering sense of all that is Holy, that is most difficult.
It is difficult for several reasons, I think. One reason is the sheer inability of words to transmit the Reality which cannot be confined to words. Jewish tradition has it right. We cannot say the Name of God no matter how many words we use. I told my story of sitting on a mountain top at the end of a hike, surrounded by friends and strangers, watching the sun rise, seeing and feeling the world ablaze with the Glory of God, being caught up as one with creation. At the end of my telling, my friend Janet said, “Is that all? Is there more?” I laughed at the absurdity of trying to capture God experience, God presence, God among us in prosaic words.
Yet we must try to share our experiences of the mystical movements of God in our soul lives. How else can we know and be known by others who are struggling as we ourselves are, trying to find God in our daily living? How else can God know that we noticed His/Her presence among us unless we tell what happened, poor substitute though it might be for the Reality we felt in our whole selves? So some of us tell of hearing God’s voice speak, hearing a Word that brought new revelation to our lives. One tells the story of being at an Easter sunrise service at the Grand Canyon, led by a Freewill Baptist pastor, turning as the sun rose to see, really see the faces of believers lit not just by the sun but by the sure knowledge that death is vanquished because Jesus still lives. Our stories were different but in the telling of them, for a fleeting moment in time, our faces and hearts were illuminated and warmed by the memory of God among us.
Another reason we don’t share our mystical memories of God is fear of being judged and found wanting. In this new Age of Reason, mystics are prophets without honor in their hometowns. We give awards for preaching and a good preacher can write a book of sermons. Peace and social justice activists get newspaper stories and have flesh and blood people and programs to work with and on. Teachers have students who learn the books and stories of the Bible, students who ask questions and learn the faith of their fathers and mothers as they craft a faith of their own. Mystics have themselves and God.
During Eastertide, I give thanks for all those women and men two thousand years ago who shared the inexplicable experience of Resurrection with their world and with me. The stories I read in the Bible can no more capture the reality of their experiences than my words can capture my mountain top experience. Thank God they kept on telling the story whether they were believed or not, whether they were judged or not, whether they were understood or not. The retelling of those stories, the rehearing of those words, the renewal of life after death grows more powerful each year as my treasure chest of God Presence continues to be filled.
It is enough that I speak my story, that others speak their stories, and that we honor our mystical knowledge of God. Like the people at Pentecost, we all are amazed and perplexed, wondering what it all means, but willing to speak our truths whether we are understood or not. Someone hears, and Someone understands. I am content.