My son Bradford has always been one of those wonderful old souls who has always been wise beyond his years. Now just past 30, he has managed one of life’s most emotionally wrenching experiences with grace and calm. And he’s come through it without resentments, no why me, nothing but acceptance of life as it is, in all its pain and all its joy. . . just as I knew he would.
When he graduated some time back with a degree in Philosophy (naturally) he didn’t know what he would do with his degree but I assured him it was just one step on his journey of learning to trust the process. Once the student, this old soul now is becoming the teacher.
I was telling him of my growing distress over my faith, or more correctly the institution that is the Catholic Church. My faith in faith is more or less intact, but my faith in the institution is shattered and I’m not sure I can put back the pieces anymore. I told him there was a big hole for me where my Church used to be.
Bradford listened with his whole heart. . .
“You know,” he said, “holes are a good thing. . . ”
“They are?”
“Sure,” he said with a certainty borne from lived experience, “because they leave room for the Light to come in.”
Ah, yes. The Light. . . Isn’t that what I really seek as member of a community within a Church? What I yearn for is to see that Light in myself and in others as a way to return to the Source of all being and reclaim my sense of wholeness, of belonging. For years I found what I longed for in the traditions and rituals of the Church, but not so now. I feel betrayed. Set adrift. In my loss can I, like my son, follow a path outside of tradition? Can I stay in the discomfort that this hole has opened and let the mystery of what now envelop me?
My son, in his hard earned wisdom, is teaching me yet again to see this loss, this hole as grace, as a gift to be embraced. So now I bless the hole and ask that in the space that was opened I might receive so that Light comes in to fill the space where faith in institutions used to be. I will trust the process.
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