Finding voice again

Spring, that riotous season of new life breaking forth, has finally come to me. I did not recognize that I have been living in the season of winter. Day by day, I put one foot in front of the other. Time passed. I was silent. I could not find words for what was happening within me. I have not been sad. I have not been depressed, only still and silent, like the molecules that make me up having been cooled and have been moving more slowly.

But while all seemed silent, much has been going on underground. Leaving the church in October and then going on the trip to Palestine in November shook up my comfortable certainties. I went on the trip to learn about another perspective in our Holy Land. I had never been exposed so clearly to unspeakable oppression, injustice and hope destroying situations. Everybody is afraid of everybody. Fear hangs over the country like the smell of sweat in a busy gym.

Venue and voice finally came together for me several weeks ago. I was able to give a slide presentation about my trip to the Friday Group I attend at the Berkeley church. My goal was to stand in what Parker Palmer calls "the tragic gap." By that he means the place where one stands in the place between our deepest hopes and the current realities, however bad they are. In this place of tension one does not give in to cynicism, to fluffy clichés, one does not become polarized, taking one or the other side. Standing in this hard place literally took my voice away.

While I have no answers, I occasionally find I am more clearly able to find footing. In this place of tension, there is no judgment. Standing in this holy place of tension, I see the face of Christ.

In these final days before Easter, Christians everywhere are called to stand in this tragic gap of tension between what is and what could be. I pray we all can find steady inner ground and trust that by holding the tension, new life, new compassionate possibilities can come.

Check out my slide show of Palestine on the web! www.jstokstad.com/Palenstine