A Better Day

   Perhaps it's such a small thing as a successful trip to the walk-in, audiology clinic at the VA, a good night sleep, caring email responses and comments on the blog, but no melancholy today.  Much has been written about the problems with services from the VA but my experience has been overwhelmingly positive. Moving around in the VA and other places my 'Happy New Years' greetings were enthusiastically received. Walking through the Costco parking lot I looked the man pushing carts back to the store in the eye and said "Happy New Year." His response was as if he'd won the lottery. It really doesn't take much to brighten someone's day does it?

   In response to the Buechner quote I posted yesterday Paul said this in an email:

"And the famous Bonhoeffer quote from Letters and Papers, followed by my own commentary that I have shared with others: "Nothing can make up for the absence of someone whom we love, and it would be wrong to try to find a substitute; we must simply hold out and see it through.  That sounds very hard at first, but at the same time it is a great consolation, for the gap, as long as it remains unfilled, preserves the bonds between us.  It is nonsense to say that God fills the gap; he does not fill it, but on the contrary, he keeps it empty and so helps us to keep alive our former communion with each other, even at the cost of pain."----This is the paragraph I remember the best and find the most useful.  This translation from the German is different from the one I remember.  I prefer to use the word "emptiness" rather than "gap".  "Emptiness" is more of a relational word than the spatially oriented "gap".  I like to personify the emptiness to describe it more fully, so I often think of the "father-shaped emptiness" I have known within since the death of my dad when I was 10."

    I think Paul is unto something with preferring 'emptiness' in place of 'gap'. It is about relationship after all. One of the dangers in confronting our sense of emptiness is forming an unhealthy attachment to another, rather than embracing the reality that life is inherently lonely. It is lonely because to be a morally responsible, functioning adult we much take ultimate responsibility for ourselves rather than fusing with another. Responsibility for our choices rests with us. Perhaps  too often I've been know to remark "We all make choices." But, it is true, and therein lies the cause of loneliness.  Buechner would say it is in that emptiness God is present. Bonhoeffer sees in the emptiness opportunity for communion with the departed.

Takk for alt,

Al