When they walk through the Valley of Weeping, it will become a place of refreshing springs. The autumn rains will clothe it with blessings. They will continue to grow stronger, and each of them will appear before God in Jerusalem.
O Lord God of Heaven’s Armies, hear my prayer. Listen, O God of Jacob. Interlude
Psalm 84:6-8
The Lord had said to Abram, “Leave your native country, your relatives, and your father’s family, and go to the land that I will show you.
Genesis 12:1
“I have come to set the world on fire, and I wish it were already burning! I have a terrible baptism of suffering ahead of me, and I am under a heavy burden until it is accomplished.
Luke 12:49-50
Once you’ve heard a child cry out to heaven for help,
and go unanswered,
nothing’s ever the same again.
Nothing.
Even God changes.
But there is a healing hand at work
that cannot be deflected from its purpose.
I just can’t make sense of it, other than to cry.
Those tears are part of what it is to be a monk.
Out there, in the world, it can be very cold.
It seems to be about luck, good and bad,
and the distribution is absurd.
We have to be candles, burning between hope and despair,
faith and doubt, life and death,
all the opposites.