The will of God prevails. In great contests each party claims to act in accordance with the will of God. Both may be, and one must be, wrong. God cannot be for and against the same thing at the same time. In the present civil war it is quite possible that God’s purpose is something different from the purpose of either party — and yet the human instrumentalities, working just as they do, are of the best adaptation to effect His purpose. I am almost ready to say that this is probably true — that God wills this contest, and wills that it shall not end yet. By his mere great power, on the minds of the now contestants, He could have either saved or destroyed the Union without a human contest. Yet the contest began. And having begun He could give the final victory to either side any day. Yet the contest proceeds.
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Scribbled on a scrap of paper, this was found by one of Lincoln's secretaries at the White House. Not meant for publication, or even for private reading, "Meditation" reveals Lincoln trying to work out his understanding of God, to find surcease and strength in faith.
During this most troublesome of years, I've been working out my own understanding of salvation--in the midst of, in the throes of, grief--with fear and trembling.* I have a responsibility to love--the divine and the human--who are the same, for me, as the Word in the World. I cannot believe that Harvey could be taken from me for no reason, so there must be a reason. If there is a reason, then it is my responsibility and my privilege to ponder it, and while I ponder, to live in love, as though Harvey were still with me. He is inside me, if not beside me. He gave me his love and the ability to love. Isn't this the work of God? To send someone to us to show us love? If there is a Harvey in my life, then isn't there a God who sent him? I have to believe that.
Help me. Thank you.
Faith is an act of will and also a non-act--satori. It's Franny's prayer in Franny and Zooey. It's Seymour's Fat Lady. It's the idea of beauty and God and not-knowing that pervades Salinger. It's the divine grounded in the human. It's the acceptance of paradox. (As poets, don't we strive to be comfortable with not-just-one-answer? Emily Dickinson dwells in possibility; Keats, in negative capability. I should also strive to think outside the box--and the canon. Lincoln writes that a house divided against itself cannot stand. I assert that a house that accepts its division can be an elegant duplex).
Help me. Thank you.
* A note on word origin--to decipher: One of my favorite words is katergazomai--to work out, to render, to result in. I have worked out mathematical equations with my son and tangles in my daughter's waist-length curls. I have wrought children into this world, a happy marriage, a few poems. I result in this: Age 53, alone, with pretty good hair, pretty good skin, and, after some crises, pretty good physical and mental balance. Didn't everything that I endured as a child and teenager--physical, emotional, sexual--result in the person I am now? Didn't it all work out for love? Didn't the black-outs of stroke and the darkness of widow's weeds act as chiaroscuro for who I am now--darkness enhancing light (art), lightness enhancing depth (music)? Don't I work through them, and doesn't something bigger than me work through them, as well? What has God wrought through me? And what should I render through writing?
2 comments:
I struggle with this still - 10 years after my brother's death. I've come to realize that not everything that happens in the world is God's will. I don't think He wanted my brother to die crashing into a van. I don't think he wanted Harvey to die unexpectedly like that. I still ask why. Even if it wasn't His will, why didn't he stop it? I wonder if God can't be all-loving and all-knowing and all-present all at the same time? The struggle will continue, sorry to say, but I've kept my faith. Often it's a doubting faith, but it's there. I know you will, too. Love you girl.
I think that everything that happens is inside God's will. I don't think we can understand his ways, because they aren't like ours. I think God can be all loving, all knowing, and all present, but bad things still happen. What we consider bad is also sometimes what we don't understand. (What could be a better death than dying in a split second, thinking that you were going for ice cream?)
All I can do is to try to be kinder to myself, to others, and to remember what I have had and what I lost and what I've been given in return. I believe I will see Harvey again, as soon as the time is right. So far, that's been enough to keep me off the edge of the bridge and out of the middle of the highway. I can only take it minute by minute, hour by hour. It sustains me to know that most people don't feel someone loves them to the level that Harvey loved me. That was a great gift, and one that I will never have to give back.
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