MInor Key

This is what the table looked like last night, after Christmas in a Minor Key. Each one of those small votive candles represents a person or a situation that causes pain. I know, for a fact that, three of those candles are for young men who took their own lives. One is for a brother who died at 22. Another for a baby, miscarried, deep into a pregnancy. Several are for parents who have died, or whose stories are winding down to an unexpected disoriented ending. One for a man who left his family. Another for a son who is jail.

It was a powerful night last night. To damn God. To see only darkness. Then to talk and sing our way to the light. There was crying in the chapel. I heard it after the very first passage was read. And, at times, there was sobbing and the heavy heaving of of breaths that could barely be breathed. Yet, it was not uncomfortable. It was not hard. It was the softest and most god-filled space I have been in in a long time. There is something about raw truth that orients us back. Not to the nature of life's suffering, but to the fragility of our hearts. And the gentle care we must take of each other.

It is an amazing gift to sit in safety, surrounded by others who are bruised and yet still leaning. Towards God. Towards honoring. Towards being naked, yet swaddled in light.