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God of the In-Between Places
Dec. 9th, 2018 02:38 pmI'm having one of those days. A friend of mine said something that I took way too personally, mostly because it reminded me of all the times I had been ostracized because of my lack of performative femininity. I certainly seem more feminine these days, but the external and the internal don't always match up. I don't understand a lot of women, but I'm not a man. I really dislike the binarist nature of gender complementarity. I just don't understand the desire to shove people into such small boxes. I always wonder if I should say something. Maybe I will. I don't want anyone to feel called out, but I honestly think people take for granted that their experience of their gender is typical.
Anyway, I was reminded of this letter written by Franciscan friar Giovanni Giocondo in 1513:
I salute you. I am your friend, and my love for you goes deep. There is nothing I can give you which you have not. But there is much, very much, that, while I cannot give it, you can take. No heaven can come to us unless our hearts find rest in it today. Take heaven! No peace lies in the future which is not hidden in this present little instant.
Anyway, I was reminded of this letter written by Franciscan friar Giovanni Giocondo in 1513:
I salute you. I am your friend, and my love for you goes deep. There is nothing I can give you which you have not. But there is much, very much, that, while I cannot give it, you can take. No heaven can come to us unless our hearts find rest in it today. Take heaven! No peace lies in the future which is not hidden in this present little instant.
Take peace! The gloom of the world is but a shadow. Behind it, yet within our reach, is joy. There is radiance and glory in darkness, could we but see. And to see, we have only to look. I beseech you to look!
Life is so generous a giver. But we, judging its gifts by their covering, cast them away as ugly or heavy or hard. Remove the covering, and you will find beneath it a living splendor, woven of love by wisdom, with power. Welcome it, grasp it, and you touch the angel’s hand that brings it to you.
Everything we call a trial, a sorrow or a duty, believe me, that angel’s hand is there. The gift is there and the wonder of an overshadowing presence. Your joys, too, be not content with them as joys. They, too, conceal diviner gifts.
Life is so full of meaning and purpose, so full of beauty beneath its covering, that you will find earth but cloaks your heaven. Courage then to claim it; that is all! But courage you have, and the knowledge that we are pilgrims together, wending through unknown country home.
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