"The darkness is not dark to You"

This week I've (finally) been reading Michael Card's book Inexpressible: Hesed and the Mystery of God's Lovingkindness. Hesed is perhaps the key word in the whole of the Hebrew Bible. Because it is a word used time and again to describe the character of God, hesed cannot succinctly be defined. It's range of meaning is pretty vast. It clusters around the words grace, mercy, love, kindness, lovingkindness.

God is love (1 John 4:8.16). Love is what makes God- Father, Son, and Spirit- one God. Love, then, constitutes the mystery of the Trinity at its deepest level.

What is mysterious to me is that God unfailingly loves me. God loves me even though my love often wavers; it ebbs and flows. At least for me, it's not only that loving God requires me to love my neighbor- though, like virtually everyone else, I struggle with that- but really just failing to respond to God's loving initiative towards me. I do this in variety of ways. This often consists of finding ways to distract myself or seeking to satisfy my deepest desire with things that cannot satisfy. It's like eating junk food when you're hungry. The result is that you can consume a lot of calories and still be hungry.

All of this probably sounds pretty blah. But it's amazing how time and again God cuts through my darkness. Sometimes it's later and I receive a gentle a reminder along the lines "When you were really struggling last night, encircled by gloom, why didn't you turn to me in prayer? I am here for you. I am always here for you." I usually respond with something like "D'uh." I then make a mental note not to forget or resist doing this when I feel I am in distress.

Saint John Henry Newman

Speaking of being encircled by gloom, John Henry Newman was raised to the altar last Sunday. He is now a saint. Probably his best known composition is the poem Lead Kindly Light. Here's the poem's first stanza:

Lead, Kindly Light, amid the encircling gloom
Lead Thou me on!
The night is dark, and I am far from home—
Lead Thou me on!
Keep Thou my feet; I do not ask to see
The distant scene—one step enough for me

His canonization makes me happy because Newman's writings were instrumental to my becoming Catholic. It was reading his Essay in Aid of a Grammar of Assent, which I read as an assignment for a sophomore epistemology class, that set me on the path to becoming Catholic. But it was his Apologia Pro Vita Sua- the story of his own conversion- that encouraged me to walk the path. At that point, I had had a conversion experience but was uncertain what it meant. Newman's writings helped me figure it out.

In subsequent years his keen and balanced approach to theology has sustained me often. It was Newman who showed me the vital connection between faith and reason.

I was very gratified by how important Newman was to Muriel Spark, who also became Catholic as a young adult. Once I grasped that connection, I could see Newman in many of her works. These days I love reading Newman's correspondence. He was such a gentle, loving, and humble person. He was very kind and caring. At least in his letters, he often wore his heart on his sleeve. Sure, he could be critical and bitingly witty at times, but all the better.

I can only imagine what relief he would've felt when, towards the beginning of his canonization process, they tried to exhume his earthly remains and there were none. His body was completely decomposed.

Our Friday traditio is Amy Grant singing a song written by Rich Mullins. Mullins was not able to properly record this song or any of the songs he was working on at the time of his death in an auto accident in 1997. After Rich's death, a number of artists recorded the songs he'd written for a planned album. The songs were released in a two disc album: The Jesus Record, which contains the songs recorded in studio by artists and The Jesus Demos featuring the songs recorded on a simple recorder mostly in an old church by Rich.