Remembering the Parable
I found myself moved, in a session with a wonderful, long-standing client today, to retell the story of Job. It was a struggle for my already way-overstocked memory, for it’s been a very long time since I read this parable in the New Testament.
I further remembered, once I began digging for my memories, how this story had been required reading during my senior year of high school for my English class. I must admit, I still see the teacher as if, as the saying goes, "it were yesterday" (would that were the case – and of course, I wouldn’t go back to those days for a million dollars). She was in her first year of teaching, and she so strongly showed a level of intensity, caring and commitment to teach, that beautifully stoked my philosophical and spiritual fires long before I knew I had any.
The Mystery of Acceptance
If we find our way to being a truly Good Little Boy or Girl and grow up to become a Good Big Man or Woman, "in-your-face" reminders, through the story of Job, dictate that our "god" – our indestructible, spiritually knowing divine Self – can still, for His or Her own higher purposes, take it all away from us. We are left deaf, dumb and blind – cast into the purifying fires of a tidal wave of grief – where we experience, each in our own unique way, its predictable stages: denial, bargaining, anger, helplessness/hopelessness, and acceptance.
The mystery of acceptance in the fires of full-bodied destruction of all that one holds near and dear is a baffling one indeed. It yields its own miracles of restoration, peace, and even greater gifts than the ones we have lost, promises the "happy ending" of the story – BUT it is for us to rightly interpret and understand all of that through the unfolding, synchronistic adventures of our lives.
The Indominable Force of Our Great Spirits
The story of Job is a story of how easy it is for Larger Forces, wherever they hugely come from, to shatter us and our associated world. It reminds us just how fragile, how puny we are. And it banks, even more hugely trusts, in the indominable force of our Great Spirits.
It is, even further, a story that defines the many dimensions – the winding, irregular course – of emerging faith and trust through great betrayal. Who has not, during that course that defines a well-lived life, experienced such a story?
The Uncharted Journey of the Shattered Heart
As we have experienced our own corresponding journeys, have we found our way to that miracle the story promises? This is an uncharted journey of the shattered heart, which rebirths a newly strong soul to, in turn, resurrect us and all we deserve to have and be in our lives.
Like the quilts the pioneer women wove with every worn scrap of cloth, our hearts proudly bear the imprint of all our wounds, knowing where and how they rightly fit in our lives. Perhaps that is the definition of faith, acknowledgment, even ownership. It seems empowerment is simply a reflection of our own deepest, most reality-based spiritual definition of Who We Are and What We Are and How We Be in the world, after all.
