Indomitable Life in the Deep Cold Darkness
The cold of this past week was unrelenting.
Yes it got to -35°C. Not just once for a few hours but twice, staying below -30°C for long, cold, dark hours. And during that time there was no furnace that would run, taken down by a what, or was it a who? With repairs two nights distant, two deep cold dark nights away.
Yes, there are more than a few people who know some of the truth of what has been done to me xxxx but that I am under threat if I speak the truth (the xxxx indicate phrases I needed to delete). Most people have believed the lies told about me: they think that I am some kind of monster that is portrayed nowadays in film and tv as the ultimate male gone amok x x x x.
I am nothing of the sort.
I am a person who at great cost to myself has practiced unconditional love for those closest to me x x x x
I am a person practiced in bringing others to experience Grace, even in the midst of the brokenness of their lives, often after surviving the death of loved ones, even by suicide.
Yet I am told, repeatedly, that I have done what I have not done, that I am a person I am not and have never been nor would ever allow myself to become.
X x x x
How is this even possible?
That impossibility become real is the deep dark cold that corrupts and consumes the goodness in life, not just for me and those close to me, but for everyone who encounters this dark cold. X x x x Our sense of truth is so assaulted and violated that it will be a miracle x x x x if anyone is left capable of receiving and then giving unconditional love.
Grace is such a miracle, and grace requires human hands and hearts to carry it and deliver it, to reflect it as light … to show by example that Grace does exist … unconditionally for us all.
Yet in spite of the unrelenting deep cold darkness
I stand, surviving the cold, by faith through grace alone.
Who will stand with me?
Or
Who will continue to stand against me?
There are so many people who know a piece or two of the truth which would make obvious the lies told about me. There are a few people who know so much truth about the lies being told about me. If only one or two people came forward with the truth they know, the lies could not continue to ruin lives all around; and the conglomerations of lies are not innocent; they have already brought people to their deaths; they will bring more people to their deaths by their own hands.
Who will you be, in the face of the deep, cold, darkness that invades your lives?
Will you be an agent of Grace, or one who impedes others knowing Grace is also for them?
“First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—
“Because I was not a Socialist.
“Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out—
“Because I was not a Trade Unionist.
“Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
“Because I was not a Jew.
“Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.”
Martin Niemoller from Wikipedia
“Friedrich Gustav Emil Martin Niemöller (German: [ˈniːmœlɐ]; 14 January 1892 – 6 March 1984) was a German anti-Nazi theologian and Lutheran pastor.[1][2] He is best known for a widely-paraphrased statement which he made in different versions, one of which is “First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out-because I was not a Socialist. … Then they came for me-and there was no one left to speak for me.” [see above.]
He was a national conservative and initially a supporter of Adolf Hitler,[3] but he became one of the founders of the Confessing Church, which opposed the Nazification of German Protestant churches. He vehemently opposed the Nazis’ Aryan Paragraph,[4] but made remarks about Jews that some scholars have called antisemitic.[5] For his opposition to the Nazis’ state control of the churches, Niemöller was imprisoned in Sachsenhausen and Dachau concentration camps from 1938 to 1945.[6][7] He narrowly escaped execution. After his imprisonment, he expressed his deep regret about not having done enough to help the victims of the Nazis.[4] He turned away from his earlier nationalistic beliefs and was one of the initiators of the Stuttgart Declaration of Guilt.[4] From the 1950s on, he was a vocal pacifist and anti-war activist, and vice-chair of War Resisters’ International from 1966 to 1972.[8] He met with Ho Chi Minh during the Vietnam War and was a committed campaigner for nuclear disarmament.[9]”
Wikipedia about Martin Niemöller
Who are they coming for today, for whom you do not speak out?
What do you see around you?
The COLD and the DARK settling in again?
OR
GRACE and BEAUTY of light, the light that brings truth even in the darkness?
Can you find the path to the light?
The light that rises indomitably even in the deep dark cold.
The path is never straight, and often meanders at many crossroads on its way to the light.
We can be no more than ones who reflect the light of Grace. And sometimes when we have so little life left in us we can at most point in the deep, dark, cold to where the light is reflected, to others who reflect the light.
Then, by the reflected light, we can show others the path …
The path that winds its way toward home,
home where the infinite meets our finite lives,
turning everything upside down, inside out
and
warm with the goodness of life,
the indomitable life
given to us all by Grace.
And we are left able in the cold to walk on water,
for there is no other choice.
Most every path we tread is covered
with water,
frozen water,
snow and ice.
Miracles of indomitable life often only occur in the face of the deepest, darkest, coldest ….
X x x x