"Faith and hope in what is"- Noirin Lynch - 3 May 2020 (SS102fm Programme Excerpt) (S10E24b) - a podcast by Come & See Inspirations team

On this weeks programme, Noirin Lynch joins Shane and John to reflect on how things are at this moment in time. As always, Noirin leads us through some thought provoking and often slightly different way of dealing and how do we find hope in the midst of so much change? Sometimes its tempting to insist that a familiar prayer or line of scripture MUST make sense of it all – but of course we are in unfamiliar times, so old usual’s can be great but can also be useless. And that’s ok. What matters is that we connect with God, not how we connect in this strange new time!

"How are you? Several people spoke to me last week about how it special Holy Week was – a real sense of journeying down into the tomb – and how hard it was to feel the usual joy of Easter, the sense of resurrection. A friend said she felt down in a small dark place still. And I was reminded of the Lasaux caves in France where explorers one day found themselves in small underground caves, dark and dull. And someone raised a torch and found that prehistoric artists had drawn the most beautiful and amazing images of animals and hunters all around the roof in beautiful colours. Totally surprising everyone - in this dark place, beauty was all around.

Is it possible to find God in the darkness, in the dullness? Can there be beauty here?

Kim Rosen has a stunning simple poem about the caterpillar moving into a cocoon. Before I read it, can I tell you that when a caterpillar forms a cocoon, it has no intention of becoming a butterfly. Slowly in the darkness the cells of the caterpillar began to vibrate and change, and when enough cells vibrate, the caterpillar liquifies and begins to reform in this new way – a weak, vulnerable butterfly that will need to push the blood through its wings as it squeezes out of this tight space. Kim Rosen writes:

Do you know how
the caterpillar
turns?
Do you remember
what happens
inside a cocoon?
You liquefy.
There in the thick black
of your self-spun womb,
void as the moon before waxing,
you melt
(as Christ did
for three days
in the tomb)
conceiving
in impossible darkness
the sheer
inevitability
of wings.

I am reminded of the apostles leaving Jerusalem to walk home, by Emmaus. Men who had made a huge commitment to Jesus, who had left normality and followed hope. Men who found their hero knocked, rejected and even shamed with crucifixion. Men who tried to make sense of it all as they walked. Men whose heartbreak was vibrating out of them in waves of hurt – and their dream liqueifying. What sense could be made of it all? I wonder why didn’t Jesus interrupt them and just tell them the answer … as the women had already? Surely they only needed to hear from him and it’d all make sense. Yet he didn’t rush them – he let them speak, listened, offered possibilities, allowed them time in this dark place, this cocoon of disappointment.

Rebecca Solinit is an American writer and had a lovely article this week about fairy tales and living in the now. She reminded me that, in her words, ‘Nearly all of us would like to be at the end of the story, because to live in the middle of it is to live in suspense and uncertainty about what will happen.’ Isn’t that so Emmaus! Jesus stayed with them in the middle of it all, the ending was not guaranteed. Isn’t that what these weeks are like – if we only knew the ending of the story it would be so much easier!

God is present in the groceries delivered, in the cowslip in a corner, in the phone call, in the soft pillow or strong support. If its hard to find God in the extraordinary, its ok to find God in the ordinary – that is the work of poets. See the beauty, celebrate the beauty, call it hope!
I’ll finish by sharing where I found God in these weeks – in good people. Ordinary people who were kind or gentle or positive. Signs of Hope and Healing. Moments of joy and of peace. I wish

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