It’s Monday morning in Spain. We’ve had a lot of rain. And yes, we live on the plain. The heat of imminent summer ignites a little bit of dread in my bones. Last summer, during my second bout of COVID, I kept myself home for a week. We didn’t have air-conditioning, so I camped in a dark corner of the duplex we rent, laying restlessly on the cool tile floors for relief.
What would you risk your life for? What do you stand for?
Those questions are easy… God, Family, Ideals. Some days a triumphant ending would be a welcome relief, perhaps catching a fiery dart in the chest from some godless horde, fist clutching a banner of some sort, dropping defiantly to the knees, eyes cast toward heaven with a shout.
But life only grants the Hollywood ending to a few, and usually the brave souls are wet and deep in mud, which brings me back to my point. Mud can be cold, crossing a field can be exhausting.
Dying can be easy. Living can be hard. The missionary prize often goes to the sloggers, those that have left family behind years ago to fend for themselves, those unnoticed souls who stand alone under clouds, soaked by rains of insecurity, fantasizing about a large Diet Coke and a warm chicken sandwich, yet they see the other field-hands striving way in the distance so they pick up that hoe - that pick once again, and swing it back down. WHACK! Observers who care to look say “You’re standing in the rain!” Yes. “Why don’t you get a better umbrella?” Yeah. WHACK!
Before I hold forth too sanctimoniously, know this. There is no other option for me, or for you. You will not find peace, joy, kindness, rest, and all the other sweet fruits I can’t remember anywhere else in the world right now. Your options are being squeezed out you see. The physical illusions we have built for ourselves are fading. Reality is tipping. Maybe you, like me, have felt harried and harassed into this realization. Emotions are queasy. “Where is the fulfillment I’ve been promised?”, we ask God. “Is this really holy? I’ve missed something. Maybe I’ve missed the shuttle bus to the funfair. It’s barren out here!”
Perhaps you have now learned to live with a series of bruises. Old ones. New ones. Your ankles hurt from the uneven ground, shoulder still complain. That is the cross we carry you see. You are in the middle of a holy act. We long for the other country, the other garden. Don’t drop whatever tool you have in whatever field you are and go wait on the bus for the foreman to call it a day. That bus is packed, loud and crowded and not leaving the parking lot before the work is over. Come back out into the wind-lashed fields where risk is everywhere, and standing is an act of worship.
Out here, the Gospel is all we have, and it is worth everything to understand that that truth. Once we have this gem embedded deep in our frail frames, we will have to live it out because there will be no other option, no other respite.
Endure. Sweat. Breath hard. Cry. Our weather is about to change, and storms are forecast for this afternoon. Laugh with the thunder.