Today’s Word from Pastor Jim…
“I lift up my eyes to the hills, from where is my help to come?”
Psalm 121
Sometimes, I just get tired. I get tired of the suffering and loss. Tired of the tears cried with our TLC families as they battle with addiction, disease, mental illness, divorce, or depression. A bit worn down by 600 slow walks to gravesides. I say my prayers for their families and mine, but it seems sometimes like the prayers are not heard, the pain does not go away, and the silence of God is deafening. Sometimes, I just get tired of being a human, of human frailty, of our uncanny ability to complicate our lives and hurt those we love.
It is not easy being a creature; it is not easy living by faith in a fallen world. I am thankful that we have each other in joy and sorrow. Misery loves company, and celebrations are grander when shared.
As I spend a few moments railing against the created order, allow me to share a favorite poem with you. The author, Edna St. Vincent Millay, born in Rockland, Maine on February 22, 1892.
Dirge Without Music
by Edna St. Vincent Millay
I am not resigned to the shutting away of loving hearts in the hard ground.
So it is, and so it will be, for so it has been, time out of mind:
Into the darkness they go, the wise and the lovely. Crowned
With lilies and with laurel they go; but I am not resigned.
Lovers and thinkers, into the earth with you.
Be one with the dull, the indiscriminate dust.
A fragment of what you felt, of what you knew,
A formula, a phrase remains, — but the best is lost.
The answers quick and keen, the honest look, the laughter, the love, —
They are gone. They are gone to feed the roses. Elegant and curled
Is the blossom. Fragrant is the blossom. I know. But I do not approve.
More precious was the light in your eyes than all the roses in the world.
Down, down, down into the darkness of the grave
Gently they go, the beautiful, the tender, the kind;
Quietly they go, the intelligent, the witty, the brave.
I know. But I do not approve. And I am not resigned.
“I lift up my eyes to the hills, from where is my help to come?
My help comes from the Lord.”
I am not resigned, I do not approve or understand, but I go forward in faith.
Pastor Jim
