Bravely On The Way

When We Don't Know The Way.

“Somewhere off in the dark hills I could hear a shepherd calling. It is the loneliest of all lonely sounds. You call though there is no one to answer you and because you are lonely. The dark is only the dark until you call into it, and then your call makes the dark the answer to your call. Then you are lonelier still.”

                                                                   —Frederich Buechner, Son of Laughter

Bravely On The Way: When We Don't Know The Way                                                               

Another beautiful morning on the porch came like a clumsy thief, Kansas City birdsong loud in my ear. I’d spent the night in solidarity with new moms and night shift workers, making our respective rounds inside of work and worry and prayer—scant sleep sneaking in sideways. Huddled over a mug of black coffee, part of my brain was chasing squirrels while the other part was meandering through the words of John 14. Then, a question from Thomas gathered up all the bits of me: “Lord, we don’t know where you are going. How can we know the way?”¹

The simplicity of his words rang with clarity—resonance—and I was taken back to find Thomas alongside me, right here on the porch. (It was as if he’d been hiding out here for months—listening to questions, eavesdropping on conversations, taking in the best of the live jazz improv.) Now he turned towards me, subtle and soulful, offering up the last best-run of these early morning hours.

With each chirping loop, his words drilled a layer deeper: we don’t know where you are going; how can we know the way?

I have come to believe that dark seasons in our lives come with the double-edged sword of hardship and shame. K.J. Ramsey talks about this in her book on suffering that lingers and I’m hard pressed to think of anyone who says it much better than she does:

When pain of any kind makes us feel less ourselves and less capable of engaging in relationships, we experience it as suffering…

She continues, helpfully connecting suffering to shame:

All our lives, we have marched to the cadence of a culture that tells us we can avoid suffering through hard work. [But] with a body that cannot work or a spirit crushed by loss, we feel like flat notes played a beat behind in a song whose tempo no longer feels achievable…When the notes of your life are in a minor key of somber limitation, you come to hear the sounds of shame screeching and scraping…

Shame tells the story that we are alone and must make our own way through the distress we feel. It diminishes us in suffering by coaxing us to ignore the pain, minimize it, and pretend everything is more okay than it is. It’s sin, energized, silently persuading us to stay in hiding. Shame wants us to live divided, dishonest, disembodied lives, to treat our bodies and stories like failures to conceal, to let our lips say we believe God is good while our hearts stay discouraged in the dark. The most harrowing power of shame might be its stealth in convincing us that silencing our pain behind statements of God’s goodness is spiritual, when really it’s just a churchy form of self-sufficiency.

It is only in honesty and exposure, in being seen in our sadness and despair, that we’ll most clearly see the truth that we’re still living in a story of love.²

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Questions for Reflection:

1. What questions have been drilling deeper into your heart lately? Where do you hear or see echoes of those questions in the world around you?

2. Have you ever had a moment when someone said or did something that “gathered up all the bits”—of yourself or your story? What were the conditions allowing for that to happen? How did the experience affect you?

3. Ramsey says the most “harrowing power of shame” might be the way it silences honesty about pain—especially hiding behind statements of God’s goodness. How have you been tempted to avoid honesty about broken or difficult things in your life?

4. What resonates with you about the image of Thomas as a quiet observer, listening and waiting? What would you want him to notice or know about your life today?

5. In our Lenten practice of truth-telling: What’s the thing you need to know today? What’s the thing you need to name?

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Several weeks ago, I invited you to join me on a Lenten journey. Here are the earlier posts, in case you missed them:

Blurt It Out: A Lenten Invitation!
Bravely On The Way: A Chorus of Questions

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I leave you today with a blessing from Kate Bowler—a reminder that “we are loved, we are loved, we are loved. And best of all: we are not alone.”

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1. John 14:5: Thomas said to him, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?”

2. This Too Shall Last, K.J. Ramsey, p. 31, 54-55.