CP 290 Sadness in this human heart

 

CP 290 Sadness in this human heart

Hello friends, I trust you are safe. I am a little unsure about writing on the topic for this week’s CrossPurposes because there’s more than one or two who get stroppy if I’m not always 100% positive and overcoming. Here it is anyway. I want share about something that has caught me by surprise at this time of my life. It’s this: I wake up most days nursing a deep sadness in my heart. I think it’s Isaiah who has the phrase, ‘A spirit of heaviness.’ That’s probably a good description of what it feels like. Now, before you jump to any unnecessary conclusions, let me make it clear about what this is not about. Is that clear? First I’ll tell you what it’s not about and then I tell you what it is about.

What my sadness is not about

First, I’m not writing about personal stuff. While there are any number of things about myself which might, and do sadden me, I deal with those. One example: During the pandemic I’ve had the privilege of a nearby gentle bicycle path which goes into Wollongong. I use it most days. During the solo journeys all sorts of things ‘in my history’ have kept popping up – some going way, way, way back, even 60 years – often ugly and ungodly things I said and did from wayback that I haven’t ever given a second thought to until now. They were often situations of dishonesty or failure or compromise or unwholesomeness which sometimes had real consequences for others.

As I said, most of these things had been out of mind since they took place. I’d forgotten them and I’d never mindfully confessed them to the Lord. Over months of solitary cycling, the Spirit kept on bringing them to the fore of my mind. And when he did, I’d chew the memory, then look up and say, ‘Thank you Father that you covered that too through Jesus and the cross.’ I could rejoice in the forgiveness each time. It was always forgiven but now I could own the forgiveness. In other words, the Lord has used this time to do some housecleaning in me. Sure, it was uncomfortable, and there was plenty to make me squirm at the memory, but overall it has been a healing time.   

Second, it’s not necessarily about the pandemic either, although it certainly contributes to it. I’m sure most of us have checked the internet to see what’s been going on around the world. Early on, the Washington Post, the paper which exposed ‘Watergate’, was offering full digital subscription for a year for $US29 Being interested in both the pandemic and the coming US elections I jumped at it. It has been so instructive about the wider world. We have a tendency to think Americans are ‘insular’ but we are not much different. Anyway, because of that subscription, I’ve been aware of the scale of the suffering around the world. From the beginning I was aware of how things might unfold because I’ve always had an interest in the plagues in history.

Yes, the consequences of disasters sadden me, and so they should. I think we are all aware that knowing the history doesn’t take away the question of ‘why’ things are allowed to happen. Humans have always been perplexed about why the Lord allows such disasters in his creation. I have exactly those thoughts about the terrible distressing fires or soul-destroying floods, or overwhelming tsunamis, destructive earthquakes or withering droughts. Ever since Adam and Eve surrendered their godly dominion, the creation hasn’t always been a source of blessing or comfort. And clearly Christians haven’t got a magic immunity ticket from sickness and suffering.

What my sadness is about: Injustice and cruelty

I hate seeing people exposed to injustice. My spirit rages at those who inflict it. I hate the denial of rights to the powerless. My spirit rages at the perpetrators. I loathe bullying and cruelty. My spirit rages against the brutal. I can’t stand the ignoring of the cries of the little people. I can’t stand it when some people or groups are demonised and exposed to hatred. I ache about stereotyping by a powerful majority which consigns the minority to being regarded with contempt. I positively rage when political systems are used with deliberate malice to achieve ‘blessings’ for those who are ‘acceptable’ without the slightest regard for the consequences for those who are deemed not to count. I loathe lying. Even more, I loathe systematic lying. It is always a cover for evil. I’ll repeat that. Behind all systematic and deliberate lying there is always evil at work.

I think I can sum it up by saying that my sadness is for those who are affected by deliberate evil words and actions, or silence and inaction, which results in suffering for those who are trapped. I grieve angrily, daily, constantly, over these things. I carry that grief in my heart and I haven’t been able to download it at the cross as I’m often told, piously, that I should.

The event that crystallised it all for me was watching a police officer, supposedly representing godly appointed authority, keep his knee on George Floyd’s neck, forcefully, in full view of protesting observers, for 8 minutes and 47 seconds. I watched that man die!!! I watched him die as that senior police officer indifferently ignored bystanders who were pleading with him to get his knee off the neck. Even then it wasn’t enough. When paramedics finally arrived there was no immediate concern. It was all so ….ing blasé. Do you see the lie? Seriously, can you discern the lie? The system says that what we observed was OK! It was so normal, so ho-hum! That’s what got to me. And I realised that if the policeman had kept his knee on that man’s neck for only 7 minutes and 47 seconds rather than 8 minutes and 47 seconds, it would have become just one more instance of brutality among many.

The man died before my eyes. Because he was black it was apparently OK to do these things. I lived that man’s fear and pain. I felt his family’s grief and rage. The communal grief and rage which followed was mine too. It has stayed with me. Perhaps it’s the impotent rage of powerlessness. It has remained an inner companion… made worse by the fact that in another time I’ve been part of these oppressive behaviours and systems myself.

How many terrible things have happened in this very land I inhabit and whose blessings I currently enjoy? For years I haven’t bothered to know or find out. Are you aware that in the history of this country there have been at over 400 occasions on which 6 or more indigenous people were simply removed -  shot dead or poisoned - because they were in the way of noble settlers? Did I know? More importantly, did I want to know? Possibly worse, did I choose not to know? For years I couldn’t have cared less, even as my indigenous brothers and sisters, denied a voice, wept in despair at the injustice of it all. And to my great shame, I have been in the chorus of those who dismissed my black brothers and sisters because they had no ‘go’. I’m a beneficiary of actions which caused soul-destroying suffering to the original inhabitants and communities of this Great South Land of the Holy Spirit. Oh! Oh! Aaahhh…

This is the sadness and pain which seems to have become my companion. It’s the cry, the pain, the suffering, the grief, the fear and the shame of the powerless, of those not heard. Deep down I’m surprised, not only about the intensity of the emotions I’m experiencing, but also that I haven’t been able to release it at all. While they weep, why am I not weeping with them?

Perhaps I should not be so surprised. I know a little better the meaning of the suffering of my Lord Jesus before ever he died… Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows… That’s not just about Calvary. It is about the Cross he was carrying before he arrived there. If my Lord, the man of sorrows, fully acquainted with grief, was carrying this sort of load for humanity… I am in awe.

Perhaps he wants me to know a little of what he experienced not only in my head, but in my heart and in my spirit. Is that what he meant when he said to his disciples, ‘BLESSED are the poor in spirit’? (Matthew 5) Paul too touches on this when he says, ‘Weep with those who weep…’ Or as the writer of Hebrews put it, ‘Consider him who endured such opposition from sinners, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart. (Hebrews 12:3)

‘But Lord, I’m too tired to care…’

That’s how I’ve made sense of it so far… All glory to Him.

Fred

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