Birds and Winged Things

For those of our readers who know me personally, these past couple weeks have been dark. I have struggled to find hope and strength. Furthermore, I have struggled to find hope and strength in the right places. I am in a time of change, looking to grasp at anything that will make my spinning world slow down, even for a bit.

At the risk of making this professional blog a little too personal (I swear this has a relevant religious point), I will briefly say that I kept looking at myself, looking in myself, asking, "Why can't you do this, Rebekah? You used to be able to do this. You didn't used to be so unstable. The ability to accomplish this is somewhere inside you! You say so, everyone else says so!" Well, of course there's my problem: it wasn't. That which carried me through dark times was never some organically-grown-Rebekah-fiber that made everything work. It was the grace of God, through friends, through family, through all the windows in the outside world where God peeks in, it was that which got me through it all. Yes, some of it was a little bit of gumption on my part, but most of it came from compassionate creatures who loved unconditionally, who cared unconditionally, and who dyed my hair pink on a Thursday night because something has to change.

Listening to music has often been one of those therapeutic, soothing, activities for me. As such, I would like to discuss a song, from my parent's generation, that helped get me through this week, not only in it's hearing but in it's understanding. The song comes from The Beatles, and a rendition was performed by Kurt on the popular TV show "Glee."

Historically, while a fan of the Beatles, I have never been particularly keen on the song, "Blackbird." And then Kurt sang it in memorium of a dead mascot. A lyric I once understood as "You were only waiting, for this moment to arrive" was suddenly, "You were only waiting, for this moment to arise." The change of one word changes so much: rather than a doleful resignation to a change in state (in this case death), it becomes a message of hope: you, bird, you can now go on to better things, you are now free to go on and tackle that which comes next: arise, bird, and do that which you were made to do. Another piece of the lyrics reminds us, "Blackbird fly, into the light of the dark black night." This week, for me, that has been a reminder that yes- things are dark, but there is light: now find it, and get there: just go.

To tie this all back to trying times in the Bible, I call upon Job, because while I realize my situation has not been so dire, has not been so depressing, so trying, so excruciating, that doesn't mean my situation hasn't felt a bit like Job's. "On whom does his light not rise?" (Job 25:3). So let us all be reminded, we are under God's jurisdiction, we are under God's light, and we are all together, even in the dark.