I will always love you
Last week we noodled what it means to fight the good fight – fighting to love, especially when to do so is not easy, even to love our enemies. We also faced the reality that loving the unlovable is seemingly beyond our human capabilities, and yet, striving to do so brings us that much closer to the created beings we were formed to be. Even when we fall short, our trying brings love into this world and into the lives of those we touch, those who sometimes before then never have felt such caring.
What a springboard for discussion as this Friday we experience Dolly Parton Day! Of course her musical talent was unique, but her giving heart was incomparable. Her life demonstrated a capacity to love your neighbor that was a model for all of us. If you’re only familiar with her music, or even if you’re not, I invite you to watch any of the documentaries about her life now streaming to learn of an exceptionally loving individual who demonstrated immense capacity to love the unlovable and gave from her heart to better the lives of millions. Dirt poor, born into an Appalachian family of 12 children, Dolly rose to become an icon of human kindness.
Dolly Parton died the day after I met with the detective about the possibility that the deceased Jane Doe we were discussing could be my daughter AnnaLisa. Since then, listening to Dolly’s music has brought me through a musical journey of grief processing that has been poignantly, perfectly timed. I also recently watched Dolly’s series “Heartstrings” that takes on some tough topics of loving others when doing so is not acceptable according to certain societal standards. I’ve laughed at her “Don’t Make Me Have to Come Down There”, the lyrics as if written by God as our disciplining Father. This musical journey alongside my despair has brought me to an understanding of the both/and of life once again, how sorrow can co-exist alongside joy and laughter. Somehow our hearts are that big. They have that capacity, if we make the choice to fight for the joy.
A few weeks ago Rabbi Nathan asked me if I wanted to have a memorial service for AnnaLisa, and if so, what about the day after my bat mitzvah on October 25th. At first I couldn’t even conceptualize that suggestion. I had not been sure I could go ahead even with the bat mitzvah, let alone a memorial service on its heels. So much prayer and conversation with God went down during that time frame.
Yet I emerged wanting both, a bat mitzvah and a memorial service, with new eyes about these rites of passage. I want to fight for the joy of the bat mitzvah no matter how my Hebrew readings sound given my fractured focus these days. October 24th will be a day to be celebrated, especially with my sister and niece joining that day for their bat mitzvahs as well. I also want to remember and celebrate my daughter the next day which will be difficult and heart breaking, but also, something I want to experience even if hard to do. These are my fights for the joy in the sorrow. It is the both/and of life that is our humanity, just an extreme example of human reality.
Life’s a fight. Whether we have a good life or not depends on our choices. Making the right decisions, the ones that bring us closer to His Light, especially in hard times, can only be made with trust in God. For in the dark times we can become vulnerable. The evil one is lurking in that darkness just waiting to crush us under his thumb, for us to lose our faith.
That’s the point. The harder it is to make that choice of joy in the face of darkness, the more we recognize the need for our Creator. The only way we can make such an impossible choice for joy at such times is to trust God, for in those moments of weakness we feel we can’t do it on our own.
The truth is we can’t. We will either give into darkness, or trust God, for our human capacities can’t be joyful in the face of sorrow. We want to be joyful but we can’t. That’s the Catch-22. The only way for joy in extreme sorrow is to let go, let God. We have to let God do it for us. We have to trust Him, to believe that not only is He in it with us, but that He will bring us through it, that the sorrow will end. There will be joy in the morning, perhaps even in the mourning.
We double down on what we know to be the truth – God’s got this and He’s got us always. He’ll never let us go. He’ll never let us down.
In the intimacy of our relationship with Yeshua we feel His Presence simultaneously with our Abba’s fatherly hug, the Ruach seamlessly present here on earth as it is in Heaven. We feel a sense of being loved that is beyond human capacity. It is His Divine love of us. That reality is our life if we choose it. That reality is our life even when we can’t see or feel it. That reality is Him.
So bring a little Dolly cheer inside your succah this year. True love is eternal.
Shabbat Shalom and Chag Sukkot Sameach.
Diane
