Our vacation last week was a nice reset--we swam at the local pond, cooked, lay in the hammock, read, and spent time together. Some friends and family came to visit a couple of the days, but largely we were removed from our normal work and social routine. It was overdue. And one of the surprising side-effects I found was that I didn't want to see, text, or talk to anyone even after we got home.
Please forgive my slightly cynical mood at the moment. I have been pouring myself out at work, with little regard or recognition. In the works of charity, this is the desired approach to build humility and merit; but at work, I get chaffy and resentful. I've felt similarly in other areas of my life, and other circles--I shouldn't be surprised at this point how quickly people can turn their backs on you, social relations can sour, and how our expectations of reciprocity are often frustrated. I'm human, and am tired of pouring into things when I often feel empty myself.
In Genesis 18, Abraham negotiates with Yahweh, who is looking for 50 righteous men to stem his wrath against Sodom and Gommorah. Abraham talks him down to 45, then 40, then 30, then 20, and they finally settle upon 10. He only needs to find ten righteous men to spare the city. In the end it doesn't matter, for by the time the perverts hit Lot's door and want debauchery, not hospitality and charity, Yahweh has prepared His arm to destroy it all. You can only take so much.
Ten men...not even ten righteous men in the city. I often think about the bishops, the men of God: "Give me ten righteous bishops," the Lord asks, and you realize you have trouble numbering them all on one hand. Sure, you might get a "bold" tweet or some kind of stand that should have been made fifty years ago; the bar is so low we are impressed by even a modicum of so-called bravery. And I guarantee that any of the faithful to put their neck out to pay the price on any issue would not get backed up by one of the bishops with anything other than a standard dicoesan statement on the matter. As has been proven time and time again, they'll often be the first to throw you under the bus.
Words are cheap. We see it in scripture as well: on Palm Sunday, when the crowds chanted Hosana to the King of Kings only to quickly change their tune before Pilate. We see Peter offering to die for Christ, and then disowning him. The disciples couldn't even stay awake for one hour in Jesus' greatest time of need, his most desolate hour. We see it at the Cross, when only his mother and a handful of others stay at his feet.
Christ's abandonment can be spoken of in two ways: his complete abandonment to the Father's will, and his being almost completely abandoned by men in his hour of need. He is stripped and scorned, with no human solace. His cry from the cross is a worthy meditation: Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? ("My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?"). For the pain of abandonment had gone so deep as to echo David's cry that his own Father had left him. The cavalry isn't coming, because the Father willed that Christ go through, not around, the suffering and abandonment. Which, of course, is straight to the Cross, the loneliest of lonely sufferings and humiliations.
We don't often do the same. We seek human comfort and understanding, a shoulder to cry on or an ear to listen to your lament. But the longer you are in the grind, the more you realize the establishment (from the Holy Father on down) is a in-name-only set of reinforcements. Maybe it's unrealistic to expect otherwise. The Church has been made weak and a laughingstock not to be taken seriously. Because the saints and those willing to pay the price of discipleship among them do not number in the 50, or 45, 40, 30, 20, or even 10. As the sheep are led to slaughter, those willing to lay their lives down for them can be counted on one hand; the rest are simply weak men and pious administrators.
You will have a few friends (hopefully) in your lifetime who will sit with you in the Garden when you are sweating blood, come to your Cross, and not leave when it's dinnertime. I haven't found those friends yet, and I haven't been one either, so I don't even blame them. One can't expect too much.
Even family, as thick as it can be, is not absolute. Otherwise Christ would not have subjected the Fourth Commandment to the call to hate father, mother, wife, children, and breathren for the Gospel (Lk 14:26). Children turn on their parents, parents disown their children. Many converts know this pain, and it cuts absolutely deep.
There is one who does have your back, though, and that is Christ, our God, our deliverer in whom we have our hope. Zion said, The Lord has forsaken me! And yet,
"Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne? Though she may forget, I will not forget you! See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands; your walls are ever before me" (Is 49:15-16).
I think entering into this sadness, this desolation, can be a fertile burial plot for our spirit. No one would choose it, but when we find ourselves feeling alone and abandoned, sucked dry and empty with nothing left, the love of the Lord has room to fill us, bathe us, and comfort us. Our spirits are often crowded with the coming and going of men, of engagements, of sweet encouragement and contingent affection.
But at the end of the day, everyone goes home to their own house promising to come back in the morning, and the sweaty dark of night seeps into your cell from beneath the door jamb. We can meet Christ now, because he has now found room at the inn. When no one else has your back, when the reinforcements aren't coming, when you are hung out to dry and have no consolation and your tears become your bread...I think then you will taste a little bit of the loneliness of Christ, who had nowhere to lay his head in this world.
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