So apparently, my pediatrician gave my mom some advice. Maybe it was when the first of us, Julie, was born. He told my mom, and then, later, she told me, that there will come a point in every day when you, as a mom, will just be done. You’ve been with the kids all day, they’ve grated at your nerves, they’ve asked and demanded and whined and spilled and destroyed and pooped everywhere, but you still have a few hours to go before dinner and baths and bed, and everyone, at about four o’clock in the afternoon, is just going to freak out. You’re trying to get dinner going, the kids are tired but it’s too late for a nap, your partner isn’t home from work yet, everybody is hungry, and somehow you’ve got to make it through the next few hours, holding it together, until you can finally get some rest so you can it all over again tomorrow. Our pediatrician told my mom that, during those witching hours, on the hardest of days, you’ve just got to put the kids somewhere safe and wait it out. Stick them in their crib, put them in the play pen, go hang out in the garage or lock yourself in the bathroom, and just let them, and you, feel whatever you’re feeling. It’s a mutual time out, and it’s good for everybody.
That’s similar to the advice I got when I became a mom and the “terrible twos” were just around the corner. Although I’m convinced that “threenagers” have it harder. See, what happens with little ones who are just beginning to learn that they are separate from their parents, that they are their own independent beings, but before they have the language to express what they want or what they’re feeling, all they know to do is to throw themselves on the ground, kick, scream, and flail around, until their caretaker finally figures it out and gives them what they want. We can’t have that, of course. Then we’re just training them - or they’re training us, rather - that whenever they want something they can’t have, they just put operation temper tantrum into place, make a big enough scene, embarrass the parents, and get everyone else to judge their parenting in the middle of the cereal aisle, and voila, two boxes of Cocoa Puffs find themselves into the grocery basket with the milk, the bananas, and the peanut butter. But once again, great advice, I was told, just put them somewhere safe. Take them somewhere where they can feel their feelings, express themselves however they know how, but keep them safe, sit with them and watch them, until the feelings pass and they wear themselves out.
When my brother died, I was twelve. He was six, and of course, my whole family was devastated. I have no idea how my parents got through that horrible time. I remember crying so hard that my head was throbbing, and I’d never experienced a pain like it. Of course, that kind of headache is pretty familiar to me now. Anyway, my mom’s friend, Mary, sat with me on the bed while I cried and cried, and when I’d worn myself out, and my head was exploding, she gave me a handful of chewable Tylenol because I couldn’t swallow the adult ones and put me to bed. In the morning, my mom was sitting at the kitchen table, with, I think, Aunt Debbie maybe?, and they were having brownies and beer for breakfast. We all knew that nothing could be done. Nothing was going to fix this. We were just going to have to feel how we felt and eat the brownies and take the Tylenol and go to bed and feel it all over again the next day. So people sat with us. They brought cookies and casseroles and McDonald’s Big Macs, and waited with us in the dark.
I’d forgotten about that. I’d forgotten about that space we all need. Sometimes we just need to put ourselves in a safe place and wait. I forget about that each time I criticize those disciples for hiding away in their little locked room with their tail between their legs.
See, I love Thomas. I love that he doubts. I love that he’s not in that room when Jesus shows up because that means he’s out there doing something, and he’s not cowering somewhere with his head in the sand. I used to be so hard on the other disciples. What are they doing in that room? Why don’t they believe the news that Mary Magdalene has told them? Why aren’t they out there, out in the world, facing it head on, confronting the powers and principalities that have killed their savior, and maybe, just maybe, those same powers have now been upended and made impotent by that same savior.
I guess I’m just naive to think that after they deserted Jesus in the garden, after they ran off and left the women to mourn and bury and anoint, they’d actually believe Mary when she says that she has seen the Lord. That they’d be emboldened by the news. They’d finally buck up, collect their courage, and be the men Jesus needed them to be in the first place.
But that’s not real life. That’s not real humanity. When terror strikes, some of us stick around and fight, but most of us choose the flight. When threatened, most of us run away and hide. And maybe instead of being critical about their choices, we can see ourselves in them.
Sometimes, when hard things happen, we just have to go somewhere we can keep ourselves safe and just wait it out.
Sometimes, all we can do is take the prescription sleeping pill, wrap ourselves in our favorite quilt, and hope that tomorrow brings something better.
Sometimes, we need the sun to set on our anger. We need to sleep off the overindulgence. We need the three day waiting period. We need to wait until the fever breaks. We need to take deep breaths and count to ten and sit shiva and just be present to how we are feeling. Nothing else. That’s it. Find someplace safe. And wait.
The Gospel of John makes it clear that the disciples are locked up in their room because they are terrified. They are afraid of “the Jews,” which really means that they’re afraid of a few folks in leadership who have a lot of power and control, not of all Jews themselves. After all, they’re Jews, too. So they’re staying together. And they’re staying where they feel safe. And they’ve locked the door behind them. They are gathering together to mourn, to cry, to be angry, to have brownies and beer for breakfast, to ride each wave of exhausting grief until they wear themselves out and finally fall asleep. It makes sense. They are tapped out. They have reached capacity. They are at that point where it’s best just to put yourself somewhere safe and wait until the storm passes and the sun comes out again.
And maybe the sun won’t come out again. Their savior is dead, after all.
Except. He’s not.
Jesus shows up. He goes to their safe space. He goes to where they are. He enters in to that closed room full of sweat and tears and body odor and he doesn’t berate them for running away. He doesn’t lecture them about hiding in fear. He doesn’t criticize them for not believing what Mary has so clearly told them. Instead, he stands among them. He stands among the tears and the grief-torn garments and the women urging the men to at least stay hydrated, and he says, “Peace be with you.” They’re hiding. But Jesus finds them. They’re cowering in fear, but Jesus reaches them. It’s astonishing, really. The one who experienced the full brunt of the trauma of Good Friday has come to comfort the traumatized on Easter Sunday. The one who still carries the wounds in his hands and the gash in his side comes to them, where they are, as they are.
And yay! Hooray! Jesus is alive! “We have seen the Lord!” they tell Thomas. And that lasts for what, a half a second? Because the next time we see them in the text, just a week later, they’re back in that room, behind those locked doors, wrapped in those same tear stained blankets, drinking flat beer and crying it out. Are they really any more faithful than Thomas? Do they really have more “belief” than he does? They got to see. They got to hear. Somehow they finally believed enough to tell Thomas all about what he’d missed. But they still end up back in that room. They still find themselves terrified and weeping and needing that safe space just to sit and wait. Just a week passes, and nothing has really changed.
And you know what Jesus does? He doesn’t tell them, “Well, you had your chance. Too bad.” Nope. He comes to them again. He finds them. Again. He reveals himself to them. Again. And John tells us that he keeps doing it. He says, “Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples that are not written in this book.” See, belief is not about assenting to a series of prescribed creeds or signing your name on the dotted line. I think belief comes from Christ, is rooted in Christ, and comes to us as Christ. As author Serene Jones tells us, “When doubt crowds out hope, we can be confident that Jesus will come to meet us where we are, even if it is out on the far edge of faith that has forgotten how to believe.” Jesus meets us in the temper tantrums and the afternoon witching hours and in the crying headaches and in the locked rooms where we’re just trying to keep ourselves safe.
Jesus doesn’t knock. Jesus doesn’t ask, “is anybody home?” Jesus doesn’t ring the door bell and when he doesn’t get an answer he just walks away. No. Jesus isn’t asking for permission. Jesus isn’t giving us the password or teaching us the secret handshake or sending us directions to him in invisible ink. Jesus is barging right in. Get out the hand sanitizer because Jesus is breaking quarantine. He’s showing us his open wounds. And when he does, Jesus breathes on us, whether we’re masked or not, and gives us the gift of himself. Jesus is entering in to exactly where we are hiding and cowering and licking our wounds, Jesus is coming in and breaking all the rules of social distancing and proper pandemic protocol, and Jesus is giving us peace. Jesus enters in to the places where we don’t believe, those places where we have lost all hope, and he reveals himself to us. And he keeps breaking in, he keeps revealing himself, he keeps getting so awkwardly close to us that we can feel his breath on our skin, over and over, again and again, week after week, for as long as the doors remain locked behind us.
This is no excuse for us to lock our church doors or sit on our hands and twiddle our thumbs. No. Jesus wants us out there. But until we can do that, he is going to come to us in here.
Sometimes, all we have to do is find a place where we can be safe, and wait. Brew some tea, take some Tylenol, wrap yourself up in your great grandmother’s afghan and just wait. Feel what you feel. Jesus will come. We don’t even have to leave the door open for him. And when he does, maybe for just half a second, we’ll see him and we’ll hear him and we’ll experience him and it will be real for us. And when the feeling and the conviction and the so called “belief” that we hold on to is gone, he’ll come back again. And he will keep coming back. He will keep coming to you. Until it feels real for you again. Until you can say, with total astonishment, “My Lord, and My God.” Until you can hear, with your whole self, “Peace be with you.”
Thanks be to God.
No comments:
Post a Comment