This impulse, this drive to name, categorize, and find meaning in every experience, is the hallmark of a rational creature. We do not want to be like witless crickets, singing and leaping our way through the world, taking seasons as they come and then one day mindlessly coming to an end ourselves. We are made in the image of God, and that means we know there is meaning; and so we want to know why things happen. We want to know what our lives mean.
But sometimes, we can’t. Sometimes we are passing through the moor, on our way to a strange and new life we would never have chosen for ourselves. We cannot name what we see in that great expanse of dark. And it is normal to, like Mary, simply decide we do not like it.
Read the rest of my latest for The Catholic Weekly.
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Photo by Dan Cook via Flickr (Creative Commons)
Thank you. This really spoke to me. My beautiful 18 year old daughter moved in with her boyfriend a few months ago and has left her catholic faith behind. I DO NOT LIKE this new land that is not of my choosing, but I hold onto the hope (cling actually, with only my fingertips at times) that HIS light will penetrate the darkness and it will bring unexpected growth in both of us as only God can.
Beautiful. Needed this. Thank you.
Thanks for writing this. Just got another “no” today in our infertility journey and this article really spoke to me in a beautiful way. Thank you.