“Deeper than your sins.”

 

E,

 

There is always this received wisdom about the nature of the mistakes you are bound to make. Most of parenting is, unfortunately, caught up in trying to steer you away from our own common mistakes. You are quite human enough to find your own darkness. We really should just get out of your way and love you as best as we can. The rest will fold, eventually, into the eternal love of God.

 

The great debate about predestination also rolls into how you own errors will work out. Are we to fight against our worst inclinations or hide in the snow still it all passes? How do we balance grace against always falling? Where is the place of self-discipline? Does the wrinkle of earth matter to the light of heaven and the things that last forever?

 

I will say this: deeper than all your sins is the reason for them. There is the human stain that we cannot escape. For this we must be forgiving of others as well as ourselves, as much as we can. This does not mean letting evil thrive. Not in us and certainly not in others. It means understanding that evil is alive in all of us and the light of God is here to heal all that.

 

 We must open our hearts and lives to it. Or we fall more into the mire. But this is not about one obvious fault. It is about all of our nature. We are fallen. Yet, we will rise again. Do not despair. The light is always winning against the dark.

 

 

 

“43.”

 

H,

 

So much has happened since we last had a letter between us. There are upheavals and there are upheavals. We do not know how we will survive this dark moment and we do not yet fully understand what it means for our future. Yet, these feelings are transient because all of life is transient. The danger passes or reaches it climax. If we are still here after the storm, the pressure recedes, and we are back to normal. We form back into our normal shape with only the odd scar or wrinkle from past experience. Yet, each scar or wrinkle can hold deep trauma.

 

Our only hope is in the eternal stain. We know these things are temporal events that will be unfolded in time. This will make sense in the things that come after. We will not be stuck in despair forever. Anger is easy, revenge is falsely satisfying but resolution is hard to get at and will take all of time. This is the eternal stain.

 

We can never fully understand the fallen world. It is not home. It is not home for anyone. We have these reminders that life is not perfect and, for most people, is not even good. The gift of it is that we can feel, experience, confront and learn. We can reach the depths of ourselves and the heights of our pursuits. The idea that we might live forever and go over and over again, these things we face today. Everything will be resolved. We must never forget this. Everything will be resolved.

 

May the souls of all our dearly departed, rest in this perfect resolution.