Cocooning

My good friend Margie, on her blog, shares the deeply difficult and Christ-infused journey of living with a husband who has been diagnosed with terminal cancer. Recently, Margie posted an entry about reading the biblical "Noah" story to her daughter:

I read the story of Noah to the kids this week. The Lord opened that scripture to my heart and mind in a way I had never known it before. I can't describe it fully, I just know it fed me. One thing I took away was imagining what that time in the ark must have been like. Noah had spent over one hundred years and probably his life's savings building the thing.

And then once they got in, there was a long wait before anything happened. I thought of John and me sealed up in our "ark" of marriage and waiting for the journey that God has prepared for us to begin. And then it begins with a bang. Imagine how terrifying it must have been to hear the storm and feel the unleashed waters of the deep lifting and tossing the ark in a tempest. We, too, are in a tempest. We are warm (except for the ice on the door) and dry, our basic needs are met, but we are, nonetheless, in a tempest.

But God remembered Noah and all the wild animals and the livestock that were with him in the ark, and he sent a wind over the earth, and the waters receded. (Genesis 8:1) God knows we are huddled together in the ark waiting out the storm. He is in complete control and we are waiting for him to send a wind so that the waters will recede.

I have imagined the details of Noah's journey in a similiar way, and I can relate to Margie's description of being fed somehow. Over the last six years, the story has provided profound sustenance during stormy days. In light of Margie's entry, and thoughts about storms, I find it interesting that today I received an email with the following excerpt from You Were Made For This, by Clarissa Pinkola Estes.

One of the most calming and powerful actions you can do to intervene in a stormy world is to stand up and show your soul. Soul on deck shines like gold in dark times. The light of the soul throws sparks, can send up flares, builds signal fires, causes proper matters to catch fire. To display the lantern of soul in shadowy times like these -- to be fierce and to show mercy toward others; both are acts of immense bravery and greatest necessity. Struggling souls catch light from other souls who are fully lit and willing to show it. If you would help to calm the tumult, this is one of the strongest things you can do.

I love that image of soul on deck. It calls to me somehow. Perhaps I will adopt it as a motto for moving into midlife:

Soul on deck: a lantern fully lit. May I burn. . . brave, fierce and merciful!


To share in Margie and John's journey, check out their blogs: www.margiefawcett.blogspot.com www.johnfawcett.blogspot.com It blesses me to know that people world-wide are praying for them!