SimonMary Asese Aihiokhai.
Have you ever been in a situation where you suddenly realize that the song that pups up in your head from nowhere captures the essence of your being or more poignantly, it captures the very essence of your current life condition? Such is how the humorous God relates with us. It is never a coincidence when such a thing happens. At least for those who embrace religious faith, this is how God encounters them in the concrete locus of their existence.
The humor of God can also be the disruptive moment for one that opens one to an experience of radical self-emptying – a kenosis of healing and a reception of new perspective. Our personalities speak to how God’s grace makes itself manifest in our lives. For some humans, agreeableness is something that comes naturally to them. For others, dissent or stubbornness is a natural way of being in the world. For the agreeable ones, God sometimes comes to them in the form of the disruptive presence rebellion. In and through this experience, they experience a loss of control. Confusion becomes their modus vivendi for a while. Yet, it is there that God’s most saturated presence is found. They must let go of their natural peace to allow the God of the storm to find them and take them to a new abode where enduring peace reveals itself in abundance.
For those whom stubbornness defines their lives as the familiar way of being in the world, God comes to them as the gentle puppy of love seeking that gentle touch, that pleasant presence of romance that sooths the aching nerves and the troubled heart. Their natural disposition of chaos and crisis is upended, and they must then learn to be still like a pillar holding the holy Temple of Venus and Roma on the sacred Velian Hill. Stillness is how God manifests Godself to them in a saturated manner.
In all these, whether for the agreeable or the stubborn ones, there arises an insight, an inspiration, a song, that evokes complete surrender to God. God both surrenders Godself to them in the form of the apophatic – the opposite of the familiar. They in turn must also learn to embody the apophatic as a surrendering response. This process is captured in the poem written by Saint Cardinal John Henry Newman. Stuck in Italy and unable to get back home to England, the young Newman, still an Anglican priest felt trapped. In his confusion, he felt inspired to write the poem – LEAD KINDLY LIGHT.
For many of us, we may have heard this song many times. We may have sung it ourselves as part of our respective liturgies. But it speaks to us in different ways. The power of the song can only be experienced when one’s world turns upside down and one is forced to encounter the humorous God who comes to one as the apophatic God. Only when one’s world is completely upended and one reaches the limits of reason can the cry of faith shatter the sound of the familiar that the ears have been accustomed to. The cry of faith can only be heard by the heart because it is a language of the heart that is spoken only by the heart. From heart to heart, a bond of love ushers into the dawn of time between oneself and God.
LEAD KINDLY LIGHT is a cry of surrender to God. It is also a statement of covenantal faith. Does God abandon one when one cries out? The answer is NO! It is easier to say this. But only one who has gone through this experience of complete abandonment can speak the truth of the experience – God never fails when the cry of faith comes from the heart of one who is desolate. Imagine the young Newman lamenting in Italy while all his commitments in England were falling apart. Imagine a sick friend in the hospital not knowing when they would recover so that they can return to their responsibilities at home. Imagine a mother or a dad stuck in the night storm on the roads of Buffalo, New York trying to get home to care for their family. Imagine a child separated from their family as the Israeli army bombs their neighborhood in Gaza. Imagine a grandmother in Ukraine seeking her lost family not knowing if they survived the recent attack by the Russian troops in Kharkiv. It is at these moments that LEAD KINDLY LIGHT becomes a statement of faith in a God who MUST show up when the heart cries out for help.
Remember this: FAITH NEVER DIES. It makes mortality immortal. It makes the cataphatic a jewel of saturated apophaticness. In times of confusion, we pray to you Oh God. LEAD KINDLY LIGHT. Enjoy!
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