It is in my nature to search for answers-- to always strive to make sense out of things; to find meaning in paradox. But sometimes-- often times-- I can't. And right now, as I look forward to my trip to Haiti and as I delve deeper in my knowledge of both the spirit and the suffering of the people there, I feel that inability perhaps as acutely as I ever have in my life. I am living in a kind of in between world-- knowing that I am about to experience something in which I will certainly be changed, knowing that my heart is necessarily already being given to people I have never met, and yet remaining committed to my day to day life in the here and now. And each time I sit to write about the tangle of anticipation, fears, hopes, sadness, uncertainty, sureness of purpose, burdens and blessings that all seem to somehow move together fluidly through my spirit during this time of preparation, words fail me.
In many ways music has been a lifeline for me through this time. One song in particular has given me rest by articulating what I feel I cannot. Its lyrics are unafraid of paradox, of ellipses, of the unanswered. And when I feel incapable of doing it myself, this song speaks the turmoil of my heart out into the world, and speaks the turmoil of the world into my heart.
Oh my God, can I complain?
You take away my firm belief,
And graft my soul upon your grief.
Oh my God.
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