Blessed be the name of the Lord…

…Job 1:21 (KJV) The LORD gave, and the LORD hath taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD.

Our beloved Principal, Joseph Gerth, shared a book with me that I’ve been slowly savoring, Eugene Vodolazkin’s latest: Brisbane. As with Laurus, this one probes the depths as Russian works are wont to do. A world famous musician, at the height of his powers, able to move people to tears with his guitar and voice, comes down with Parkinson’s. Too many echoes there of my friend, Henry Gerike. 

In the novel, a mad man (like the medieval fool) speaks truth: “Life is the long habituation to death.” And our lives consist of many “deaths” along the way, that is, gifts that God gives and then takes away. I’ve watched it up close and personal with my wife, who had the voice of an angel of God. Simply stunning in its clarity and simplicity and seeming to have no stopping point at the height. She could soar and it would take my breath away. 

But God has taken that gift from her. Oh, she’s still more musical than almost any person you’d meet. But the effortless voice is gone, and she grieves it. I grieve it with her. The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.

Or when God brings people into our lives and gives them to us as companions for a while on the journey. To quote from Vodolzkin, again, “Any gift is undeserved.” I remember when Carlo was playing for us at St. Paul’s and leading choir. I thought I was in heaven. Such joy. But then he moved on. I grieved, I truly did. I knew I had been given a grace undeserved in that experience. But how foolish and stupid would it be for me in that sad moment not to realize that He who took it away had more gifts to give that would also bring joy. So first, Kate, then Kantor. It was all good in the end.

Of course, it is so much harder when it’s not someone moving onto other things, but someone dying. But every little death along the way is given to prepare us for that, for the loss of those whom we can’t imagine being able to live without. Dr. John Kleinig put it like this: Throughout our life He keeps taking away people and things, but He always says, “But you still have Me and I am enough.” Indeed, as Francis Thompson portrays it in his delightful The Hound of Heaven, 

All which I took from thee I did but take,
Not for thy harms,
But just that thou might’st seek it in My arms.
All which thy child’s mistake
Fancies as lost, I have stored for thee at home:
Rise, clasp My hand, and come!’

And so it seems to me that the art of living gracefully is to learn gratitude toward God for the gifts given and then taken, for the memories created and cherished, for the moments which in retrospect shine with a heavenly happiness that we may not even have heeded as they transpired. C. S. Lewis in his space trilogy notes how prone we are to destroy a present joy because it is not the joy we had anticipated or expected. “The fruit you are eating is always the best fruit.” Rather than moaning that the apple tastes not like the orange I had anticipated, I must learn to savor the apple for what it is, for it is also a gift, for which I can bless God.

O Lord God, help us to see all as gift. Help us to become habituated to all the deaths of life and to the death when You shall even take away our breath. Fill us all with gratitude for each undeserved joy. Help us to fearlessly clasp your hand, and walk with You the road to home with gratitude for all You give and for all You take away, but above all for all that awaits us; through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.