Kirkepiscatoid

That it may please thee to support, help, and comfort all who
are in danger, necessity, and tribulation,
We beseech thee to hear us, good Lord.

I was thinking about how have so many different people in our parish with “tribulation” right now. We have illness--both people and pets. We have relationship issues. We have loneliness issues. We have substance abuse issues. We have job change issues. For a small parish, we have lots and lots of issues. Some are acute, some are chronic. I probably only know the tip of the iceberg, not even TRYING to know; I'm sure there are far more that I don't know squat about but can only hope my own prayers reach them.

I think about my own tribulations, 9/10 of which most people don't know, because work and HiPPA and other confidentiality factors come into play.

Tribulation is defined as, “Great affliction, trial, or distress; suffering,” or “An experience that tests one's endurance, patience, or faith.” It comes from the Latin word for “oppress.”

Oppress is a good word for this. All of these things feel oppressive, like a weight.

But it’s not just the sudden or cataclysmic events in our lives that are tribulations. Some tribulations are slow, insidious chronic processes that, like the proverbial frog in the pot of water that is slowly heated; they come upon us so slowly we don’t know what is happening until we are almost cooked. A lot of my own personal tribulations have fallen under that category. Some of them, I didn’t even know they existed until it was over, and saw them through the “retrospectoscope.” I looked back and thought, “Wow...I had been through a lot with that. Hmmm."

For that matter, “comfort” is not necessarily a “there, there,” pat-on-the-back, compassionate thing. Sometimes, comfort is simply the end of the suffering. The Old English word for comfort actually meant to poke and prod and spur someone into doing something positive. One of the Hebrew words for “comfort”, the word Nacham, can actually mean, “To be sorry” in certain contexts.

I was thinking something along those lines the other day. Just as there is a wonderful comfort in just being in the presence of people you trust or the beauty of God’s world, there is a similar comfort in having made up after a rift, or a similar comfort in that magic moment when you start to feel one of your “bad days” turn around. This is a hard feeling to explain but I call it my “The moment I am in is a very okay place” feeling. It’s not just a feeling of satisfaction and love, it’s a feeling with hope. A feeling that says, “There are even more good feelings out there for me.” It’s not a feeling of things bursting out all over; not an enthusiasm, not a “gee whiz.” It’s a very calm feeling filled with love and laced with hope. That’s the best way I can describe it. I think it is what grace feels like to me.

It’s liberating. It’s releasing. But it doesn’t appear unless you’ve first “been through something.” It’s fleet and elusive; try to grab for it and it falls apart between your fingers. You can only feel it and long for its return. The elusiveness of grace—it flows and it goes. I could stand as much of it as will come my way. We don't ask for grace. We don't look for grace. But somehow it finds us.