Still Quarrying 90 - Broken Glass.

You get an inkling that the way you are behaving, the words you are saying, the decisions you are making with someday come back to bite you in a tender area of your psyche - but you go ahead anyway.  And in time it hurts.  In the past I have often described this as being like broken glass in the soul.  And of course you feel it most when all the natural defenses are low.  That’s why being ill can be such a blanket experience.  We can accept all the physical stuff that is going on.  That is being dealt with through treatment or surgery.  But how do you deal with the other stuff.  I have written in a previous ‘quarrying’ about my friend who was seriously ill due to an attack of sepsis but whose main concern was the ‘demons’, the memories that haunted him, the shadows that fell across his inner being.  

In a sense it’s good that we pass through these experiences.  If there is darkness in the depths it is best that it is recognised and dealt with.  But it is never quite as easy as that.  The broken glass has sharp edges and the pain lingers.  Recently I have been a bit sore in the places where I take my daily injections.  Some antiseptic wipes have helped with that.  Is there a spiritual antiseptic that can sort out the soul’s infestations?  

Psychological tricks are sometimes invoked, like that practised by Danny Torrance in Stephen King’s novel now a movie Dr Sleep.  When something dark arises from his past he mentally places it in a box and shuts it away.  That kind of thing never works for me.   What I have found I need is to be reminded that in every circumstance in the past, right or wrong, good or bad, success or failure, God was present.  Nothing has ever separated me from His love as He has promised, that His love has made forgiveness and renewal possible, that while the dark stuff will not just evaporate with no memory lingering it need no longer hurt and His good purpose for my life will not be denied.  

This is where the Scriptures come in.  I think of the monumental figures: Abraham and David, Peter and Paul and I realise that I will always be at home in the Bible.  These boys and others carried some heavy baggage but by the grace of God it never became an impossible burden.  I am grateful that I can keep company with Paul who lived with the memory of having persecuted the Church and was committed to destroying her.  (Galatians 1: 13)  And yet he goes on to express his conviction that he was set apart from birth and called by God ‘to reveal his Son in me so that I might preach him among the Gentiles.’  ( Galatians 1: 16).  This means that the loving purpose of God for Paul was unfolding even in his moments of deepest moral darkness.   When he persecuted Christians, when he gave approval to Stephen’s stoning, when he made the decision to ask for authorization to arrest Christians in Damascus and bring them to trial in Jerusalem.   God’s loving purpose was still unfolding for Paul and bringing him to that point where he heard the voice of the the Risen and Ascended Jesus and Saul the Pharisee became Paul the Apostle.   The love of God for Paul was not extinguished, His purpose not denied.  

The memories lingered.  It’s interesting that as Paul approached the end of his life he was still conscious of a shameful past.  He was open about this with his close friend Timothy but the sharp edges were taken off when he considered how God was present always and working out His good and loving purpose for His life:

‘I thank Christ Jesus our Lord, who has given me strength, that he considered me trustworthy, appointing me to his service.  Even though I was once a blasphemer and a persecutor and a violent man, I was shown mercy because I acted in ignorance and unbelief. The grace of our Lord was poured out on me abundantly, along with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners—of whom I am the worst.  But for that very reason I was shown mercy so that in me, the worst of sinners, Christ Jesus might display his immense patience as an example for those who would believe in him and receive eternal life.  Now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory for ever and ever. Amen.‘   (1 Timothy 1: 12-17)

This is what we all need to dwell upon.   The past cannot be changed but neither can the love of God.  He was present in that moment that makes you groan with shame when you remember.   His grace was being abundantly poured out, making faith possible, enabling the love of Jesus to be experienced, opening up the possibility of renewal.    Paul had good reason to think of himself as ‘the worst of sinners’ but it led him to appreciate all the more the vision God had for his life.  Not a psychologically crippled failure but an example of what the Holy Spirit can bring out of the darkness that is so much part of the human condition.  

Bob Dylan once wrote about this:

'In the time of my confession, in the hour of my deepest need
When the pool of tears beneath my feet floods every newborn seed
There's a dying voice within me reaching out somewhere
Toiling in the danger and the morals of despair

Don't have the inclination to look back on any mistake
Like Cain, I now behold this chain of events that I must break
In the fury of the moment I can see the master's hand
In every leaf that trembles, in every grain of sand

Oh, the flowers of indulgence and the weeds of yesteryear
Like criminals, they have choked the breath of conscience and good cheer
The sun beams down upon the steps of time to light the way
To ease the pain of idleness and the memory of decay

I gaze into the doorway of temptation's angry flame
And every time I pass that way I'll always hear my name
Then onward in my journey I come to understand
That every hair is numbered like every grain of sand.'