We dwell in the deep, cold crevices of the ocean's bottom. We are crushed down by the pressure of a thousand million tons of water, salt and sea foam. We adapt. We adjust. Our tiny insides push back with an equal and opposite pressure. We survive. It's really quite amazing, actually. Even we're not sure how we do it. We just do it. Something in us pushes back. It is something in us. But it is not us.
Recently Charity and I learned that someone we love has been hurt deeply. Heinously violated. Someone innocent. It was a very bad day when we discovered the truth. You try to make a difference in the world, to make your contribution, to work some redemption into all of this deep, cold chaos and then one day you come into a moment of glaring clarity when you realize that in a matter of minutes, some sorry bastard has gone and undone a whole little lifetime of love and compassion in one fell swoop. What has been done cannot be undone. And we are pressed down by the weight of it all. But something in us pushes back with an equal and opposite pressure. It is in us, but it is not us. And we are not crushed.
So there's this shrimp that lives deep down in the ocean. Deep down where the light doesn't reach. Where the sun is thought to be a myth. A memory. A legend. But the shrimp knows otherwise. Not because he sees it. He doesn't. I'm pretty sure his eyes don't funtion very well, anyway. But at least he has eyes. Many of the creatures who live down here don't have them at all, you know. It's as if they've given up all hope of ever seeing the sun and surrendered their eyes to the blackness in exchange for boney spines and razor teeth. This shrimp doesn't have that stuff, the spines and the teeth. He's got something else. It's called bioluminescent projectile vomit. Listen to this. When he's threatened by some creature of the deep (probably the kind with boney spines and razor teeth) the shrimp opens his mouth and spews forth a dose of luminous light into the darkness that surrounds him. He pukes sunlight. And all the creatures of the dark run for cover. That's a heckuvalot cooler than boney spines and razor teeth, don't you think?
And so how do we respond when pressed down by the cold and threatened by all the creatures of this dark world which threaten to undo us and the ones we love? I know how I want to respond. I want to say "God damn the man who hurt you" and "God damn the system that failed you" and "God damn the world where this suffering happens". But boney spines and razor teeth can never do what sunlight does. They can never dispell the darkness. (Besides I sold those weapons years ago for a slice of sourdough and a bottle of chardonay). Instead, the strangest thing happens. Something in me wells up and I open my mouth and vomit sunlight forth into the black cold depths. And the dark is a little less dark. This is the turning of the cheek. It's the loving of the enemy. It's the denial of self. The selling of all we have and the giving to the poor. Its the "I love you even though" in place of the "I love you because". And it doesn't make any sense whatsoever, that the sunlight should make it's way from the surface, all the way down here without being seen, only to shine forth from the insides of a spineless, toothless shrimp of a fish. But that's exactly what happens. (And that's how the shrimp knows what he knows about the sun).
And so I still believe grace can change the world. It's the only thing that ever has. And I will not stop believing this. And I will not stop living like this is true. We are strange creatures indeed, but it's not like we can help it. It's not us. It's the one in us. Allelujah. Amen.
But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this allsurpassing power is from God and not from us. We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus' sake, so that his life may be revealed in our mortal body. Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal. - The Apostle Paul
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