Tag: comfort

Hot-Cold, Bumpy-Smooth, Risky-Safe

We freeze vanilla ice cream. We heat raspberries. And then we put the ice-cold cream and the hot fruit together and eat them! We do strange things. There used to be a bumpy gravel road behind our monastery school. We spent a lot of money to asphalt it. But because people were driving too fast on the beautiful road, we put speed bumps on it. Now the cars drive in a slalom. Life is interesting. People take off their clothes. And then they apply sunscreen to protect their skin. That’s understandable: we want to get a tan, we want to avoid the dust on the road, and we love to enjoy ice cream and hot raspberries. But if you look at it closely, it’s all a bit strange.

Sometimes our heart, our soul is the same. Things don’t go well together. Things do not harmonize at first glance. Things in our inner life are contradictory. I want one thing and do another, says St. Paul (cf. Rom 7:19). We try to tidy up our soul, but it seems to be even messier. I don’t understand myself. But when I look at life in general: life is hot-cold, bumpy-smooth, risky-safe. Why should my inner life be any different? But what really gives me comfort is the belief that God sees me as I am. That he knows me. That he puts together what doesn’t seem to fit together. That he loves me, even in my ambiguity. When I know this, I don’t have to run away from myself and can face who I am and how I am. As it says in Psalm 139:

Lord, you have searched me, you know me:
Where can I go from your spirit?
    From your presence, where can I flee?
If I ascend to the heavens, you are there;
    if I lie down in Sheol, there you are.
If I take the wings of dawn
    and dwell beyond the sea,
Even there your hand guides me,
    your right hand holds me fast.
If I say, “Surely darkness shall hide me,
    and night shall be my light”
Darkness is not dark for you,
    and night shines as the day.
    Darkness and light are but one.
You formed my inmost being;
    you knit me in my mother’s womb.
I praise you, because I am wonderfully made;
    wonderful are your works!
    My very self you know.

God sees everything. He holds me firmly. He guides me along the way, even when I take detours; in his eyes everything will be fine. I thank him with awe: 

How precious to me are your designs, O God;
    how vast the sum of them!

Auguste Rodin: Hand of God


The Heart of Man — An Abyss

Psalms have always given me comfort. In a strange way, I was recently comforted by a very dark verse from Psalm 64.

“The inside of a person and his heart – they are an abyss!”

Most English translations do not put the verse so drastically: “For the inward thought and the heart of a man are deep.” (Psalm 64:7) However, the context of the psalm shows that “depth” here really means “abyss.”

We know that every human being is created in the image of God; we know that every person has dignity. We encourage each other to see the good in others and in ourselves. This is a very helpful approach. But sometimes we discover abysses in other people, not only in times of war. People we thought we knew suddenly show another side of themselves that we could not have imagined before. I don’t want to open the list here: Hatred, aggression, violence … It is like looking into a yawning abyss, dark and impenetrable. Here we might have the dark side of our freedom. I am not advocating cynicism, rather realism. The psalm encourages us to have a kind of detachment that does not hinder us from loving and trusting. It rather invites us to take a sober look at what human beings are capable of; myself included.

The Psalms take seriously what I experience in this world. As God has accepted this world, so may everything have a place in my prayer. Starting from this acceptance, we can stop looking into the abysses and rather turn to the good. It is better to look to Christ.

Dear Lord, you created me as a free being. I thank you for this wonderful gift. I ask you to always choose the good. I ask you to protect me from the evil that may come from my heart or from the hearts of others. On Holy Saturday, you descended into the underworld. You stretched out your hand, even into the abysses of our existence. There, where we would rather not look – there you are with your healing, saving and life-giving power.