Earthen Vessels

I tried. I try all the time. I keep the outside input to a minimum. I work hard to create a bubble of peace, of love, of joy, of forgiveness, of grace,  and of simple humanity around my home. I fail sometimes. I slip up and I crack. I have never shattered. I tried.

I can distance myself when I need to. I can look reasonably at terrible things. I can try to see all sides. I can seek honest solutions. I can always find hope. I can always look for good. I tried

I constructed a fragile peace this weekend; made of Christmas candies, ice skating shows, Lego skyscrapers, knitted hats and lots of snuggles. I constructed a fragile peace around what was becoming a towering rage.

I don't have a hot temper. The rage came blowing in like an arctic squall and froze me, empty, hollow and brittle as ice. I tried to warm it. I tried. Instead I let it shatter me.

I just wanted to make some hot cocoa. I wanted something warm inside me.
The mug that bears my son's name hung limp and empty from my hand and my face buried in the front of my husband's sweatshirt. Shaking howling sobs.

So many children... their parents... they were the same age as ours... they're saying - the gun people - they're saying we should arm the teachers... everyone is saying such horrible things... I don't want to live in this world... this shit just keeps happening... I don't want our kids to inherit this mess... I give up... 

My husband wordlessly absorbed my snot and my tears and my rage through his sweatshirt, directly to his heart. He held my shattered pieces while I shook and he didn't say a word. He has never heard me give up. The next morning, he silently handed me the keys when the hymns stuck in my throat and only the words I can't do this came out. I sat in the car in the cold and tried so hard not to cry. I don't like to make an emotional spectacle of myself. I applied the patches of reason, of calm, of faith, of love as best I could and went back inside. My husband squeezed my hand before he went up to speak. He read from 2 Corinthians:

For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us. We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed.

He stood in a pulpit and reminded me, along with the rest of the people gathered there that we are, in fact, earthen vessels. That we are fragile and sometimes we shatter, but that those cracks should allow the light to shine through. His voice broke a little when he explained that no matter what terrible things may happen to us or around us, we can be a source of light, of love, that we contain power. I sat and let the tears come; I let them slide soundlessly again and again down my face. A warm, baptismal rain.

I thought suddenly of our wedding ceremony. At the end of the service, we dimmed the lights. We lit our candles off of the larger one in the center and turned to light our family's candles, too. They turned and lit the people next to them and so on. The flame passed around the dark room until it was on fire. A candlelight vigil to love, to faith, to the community that makes love possible. We were young and we were poets and we wanted to set the world on fire with our love. We believed we could change the world. We exited that room into our life together triumphantly, buoyed on a wave of flame and music - Ode to Joy.

We are older and a little more weary. We have lost some of the hubris of youth. But yesterday, it was as if my husband had again, with shaking hands and voice, re-lit my tiny candle. And now I hold it out, fragile and tenuous, behind a cupped hand, to assuage this towering rage.

Rage has no place in my world. My rage is from the same source as the rage that pulls a trigger. My judgement and fear are no more productive than that of those who would arm the whole world. I shake my head and say I don't understand evil, but I do. I have had my share of destruction, of evil, of tearing down when I should build, of lashing out when I should seek help. I know that what keeps me from ever reaching that point of tipping into the unthinkable is love, is conscience, is support, is this tiny candle of hope I hold in my hand. May it never be snuffed out. May I instead use it to light the flames of others. May I never give up.

"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing." -Edmund Burke

We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed.

I am only an earthen vessel. I am fragile and sometimes I crack to the point of shattering. I will not be destroyed.