Full

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.”

Paradoxes make catchy openers, don’t they?

In a way, this peerless opening line of Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities expresses my current state of being.

It’s the best of times: I am writing every day and feel increasingly confident that this is what I am meant to do. “Vocation is where our deep gladness meets the world’s great need”, said Buechner, and I wholeheartedly agree. Writing is my vocation, and I am deliriously grateful that I get to do it – now! Every day! At this minute, I am walking in my calling! Huzzah!!!

It’s the worst of times: this vocation is not yet lucrative, nor does it guarantee income down the line. Ergo, I get up at 4:00 AM every day so I can work at a job that will make some money. The future is uncertain, and that makes the present somewhat arduous. 

Yay, paradox. It’s my life right now.

As I was musing on this, I realized I encounter paradox whenever I look at the state of current affairs. Take Facebook, for example. It’s not a perfect parallel to Dickens’ quote – I don’t think anybody is calling this “the best of times” – but there are certainly opposing forces at work in my little corner of the world. My news feed seems split down the middle: everyone is upset, but for opposite reasons. I have people I love and respect on either side of so many equations I’ve lost count.

It’s enough to make a confrontation-phobic, “can’t-we-all-just-get-along” youngest child like yours truly want to bury her head under a pillow and wake up when it’s all over.

And therein lies the peril.

A few weeks ago, I heard a sermon about another paradox. Jesus has just fed 5,000 people using five loaves and two fish, so the crowds flock to him, hoping for another free meal. He tells them, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.”

The sermon dwelt on the paradox that eating the bread of life fills you with hunger – hunger for God, for the life that is in God and is God, for the right and best things for which we were made and which we cannot find anywhere else. It reminded me of a sermon my dad used to preach on the beatitudes: “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled” – with more hunger and thirst for righteousness, as my dad put it.

To be full is not to be so sated in ourselves that we crawl under the covers and let the world tear itself apart.

To be full is to be hungry:

~ hungry to listen – even and especially to those with whom I do not agree.

~ hungry to serve – even and especially those from whom I will receive nothing in return.

~ hungry to love – even and especially those whom one side or the other has deemed “the enemy”.

Paradoxes can be hard to embrace. Hope is, itself, a paradox – believing in the best while still surrounded by the worst – and I have found it the most prickly bear I’ve ever tried to hug.

Regarding this paradox of full hunger calls to mind one of my favorite – and most personally convicting – passages from my upcoming novel, The Ancient:

     “Come, Ancient. Come and be renewed.”
     “I do not want to be renewed.”
     His reply was quavering, the images blurred by shame and Fear; but, once begun, the confession must be completed.
     “I am weary – too weary for the effort of hope. I did not want to find a Radiant One. I did not want to receive new vision, but release. If the Light can break through thus, then we are bound to cultivate it. The labor will be hard, and my strength is nearly gone.”
     The rising clarity of self-revelation brought no stability to his words. They flickered feebly on the Plain, sputtering like a spent candle, and all the while the message from the unseen Voice did not waver:
     “Come, Ancient. Come, and be renewed.”
     Despair made a final stand, flaring up inside him and overshadowing his inner vision, giving his closing cry a brief moment of reckless solidity:
     “I do not want more strength, or the hope that will give it. I do not want this miracle, or the mission it mandates. I want to rest.”
     The candle gave out, and darkness fell upon the inner vision of the Phoenix, illuminated only by the words of the message, tender but unyielding:
     “Come, Ancient. Come and be renewed.”

Soon after hearing the aforementioned sermon, I wrote a poem called “Full”. Last week, I wrote a poem called “Empty”, discovering in the midst of writing that it was a sequel to “Full”. I shall share them both with you over the next two weeks.

Bon appetít, friends.

Full

The fullness is the hunger
     – come again?
I want to be full, filled to bursting –
Why speak you of want?
What danger lurks in satiety?
Do you call fullness “stasis”?
Maybe I want to be still for a while
     still, and summed, and surfeited
Perhaps to fall asleep
    snuggle into my hole of satisfaction
    like a squirrel in the snow
    and dream of sunshine
To find a picture more innocent
              a notion more idyllic
    I defy you.
Are you still talking?
My alarm was set for spring
What harm hides in hibernation?
None, you say, so long as you accept
    the waking.
Fall asleep full, you’ll choke on your fullness.
REST, yes –  
Not like a squirrel, burrowed in snow
    – unwisely, for she’ll freeze in moments –
But like a caterpillar
    aching for spring
   hungry for pain that will squeeze out life:
The juice of the grape
Bruised and crushed into
    peerless beauty.
Come now, daughter:
    Seek not the sleep of the sated and senseless
    Crave not the chains of caustic care
CARE, dear heart
Open wide your mouth and I will fill it
    with Hunger insatiable
             Thirst unquenchable
             Desire untameable
             Love unbearable
Forcing the fight out through the cocoon
Until you break free
    pressed into purest wonder
Burst on a world of absence and find it
Full
And only then
Fully present.