Lovely Letter #3: On Love Being Mingled With Sorrow

...from husband to wife and back again.

My dearest Schmoopie, 

I blushed a little while reading your previous letter. 

You’re worried? I’m the one that should be worried. I didn’t think about this little series of ours exposing how much of a better writer you are than me. The best I could offer were some tenuous Seinfeld and Lord of the Rings references. And I’m supposed to teach the rhetoric class for our homeschool co-op. Dear me. And then you come in here getting all serious with some deep theological reflections.  But you know me too well. I am a sucker for theological reflections, so I’ll bite. 

I think you touched on the essence of faith when you said, “I don’t understand it, but I trust He can.” How many things must we say this about in life? And the older we get I find the more we add to the list of “faith seeking understanding”. But should this surprise us? 

One of the helpful things about having an awareness of human history is that you come to see your moment, your life, is not entirely novel. Some may push back against the notion that we aren’t really all that unique and special in the grand scheme of things, but with the proper perspective, I find it quite comforting. The mysteries of God’s Providence are a normal part of human experience and it reflects the limitations of our creatureliness. Anselm of Canterbury said it like this so many years ago, “I do not seek to understand in order that I may believe, but rather, I believe in order that I may understand.”  St. Augustine put it similarly, “believe so that you may understand,” he said.  

The order is what’s important here. Trust is not necessarily the result of understanding; it’s a prerequisite. And the understanding that comes from trusting may be as simple as “I understand that it’s in His hands and not in mine.” 

How often do we joke about understanding all the Biblical allusions to sheep in a new way because we keep sheep on our homestead? I think this is one of the many wonderful benefits of having the opportunity to be closely connected to the land. Working the land brings into high relief this paradox of living. We toil and work intentionally and responsibly, but the more we do this the more we come to see how dependent we are. In other words, it turns out life this side of glory must be lived in a state of humility. Working the land is one of the best places to cultivate that state. 

Because we are human, I think this state of humility can surface as a kind of melancholy, but I think a better characterization is to say it produces a longing in the soul. God made us emotional creatures and there is nothing wrong with appropriately experiencing and expressing the emotions he made us with, including sadness. But among those emotions we were made to experience is joy. 

Now, I did warn you of this so I don’t want any lip later, but there is a fitting Lord of the Rings quote about all of this (I do realize I bear some of the responsibility for you not having read The Lord of the Rings because I tried to read it to you while you were in labor, forgive me, for I was young and naive). Haldir the elf said, “The world is indeed full of peril, and in it there are many dark places; but still there is much that is fair, and though in all lands love is now mingled with grief, it grows perhaps the greater.” The elves of Middle Earth I think offer us a positive example to emulate. As Samwise the Hobbit described them: “They are quite different from what I expected –so old and young, and so gay and sad, as it were.” In them (as in us), joy and sorrow are mingled together. They are happy/sad. 

This past weekend we went to your mom’s Telford family reunion at the lake. It wasn’t as well attended this year as in years past, but your Great Aunts Delta and Marilyn, and your Great Uncle Jim were there. Three of thirteen siblings left. I saw tears in your mom's eyes as she stood next to your Great Uncle Jim; he has faded more than his older sisters, who are still sharp as tacks. I had fun pulling the kids over while we sat next to Uncle Jim to tell them the story of how he picked us up on our wedding day in his old Cadillac limousine. He was dressed in his tux and a top hat. He had champagne on ice waiting for us in the limo to celebrate. Do you remember?  I was touched as your dad, with care and patience, took Uncle Jim to the bathroom, and we had a laugh when “things” needed to be “adjusted” before he sat down with us again. Joy and sorrow are mingled together.     

My love, my Schmoopie, I look forward to the joy and the sorrow that we will experience together. And I will bear it with you, for as long as it is ours to bear. 

With love,

Your Schmoopie Schmoopie

(P.S. You got Seinfeld and LOTR in this one. You're welcome.)