Hermeneutics, Imagination, Grief, and Change

I was late to Sunday School yesterday.  I had gotten up plenty early, and I was about to finish getting dressed for church.  Then I looked at some photos from six years ago, when our five Broadways went on a family cruise together.  I read some words I wrote in 2014 about how I was not looking forward to the next two months of memories.  In those moments a shadow descended on me, my mind started racing, tears welled up, my body shook, and I was suddenly caught up in the grief of Everly's absence again.

Let me quickly finish this part of the story. I did some thinking, some reading, some crying, and then I debated what to do next.  One impulse when sad is to stay alone and deal with it without having to explain oneself to anyone else.  Another is to turn to people who care for you.  I decided on the latter, since I expected to see the loving eyes of some of my best friends in Sunday School when I arrived.  Just last Sunday, another member of the class was sharing with us about her intermittent and surprising intrusions of grief over the loss of her mother.  I knew that going to my people was better, so I went to be in the company of wounded healers, even if I was 15 minutes late.  It was the right choice, and I got the loving care we hope anyone would receive.

You won't be surprised to know that with me there is a longer story to tell.  So we've had the summary of events, and now the more detailed analysis.

On Saturday morning, I was dressing to go out to one of the big festivals Durham throws each year.  I put on a shirt, one of my usual guayaberas, and stepped away from the closet only to realize that the date was May 18.  For those who used to read my blog when I was writing more often, you may remember that I call every 18th of the month an "Everly Day," because she died on July 18, 2013.  It's one of my ways of honoring the blessing of her life with me for 30+ years.  Most months on the 18th I take some time for remembering.  And when I remember while getting dressed, I almost always wear a purple shirt for Everly Day.  So I changed shirts and got a purple guayabera before heading out.

Another thing I usually do on the 18th, is count the passage of time.  We are approaching six years since her death on that July 18th.  Being in a math family, I seldom settle for just one way of counting.  This month was five years and ten months, and it was also 70 months.  Now for those of you who, like me, have lived your lives immersed in the texts and symbols of the Bible, it is probably no surprise to you where my mind immediately jumped.  No matter how much sophisticated theoretical work I do on biblical hermeneutics, that still does not keep me from imagining relationships of numbers and symbols and language that is not directly part of what Dr. McClendon would call "the plain sense" of scripture.  Seventy months made me think of seventy years, the rounded-off figure in scripture to represent the length of the exile.  Seventy, a multiple of seven but ten times over, conveys a message of completion as well as of long duration.  Above all, the seventy year mark in this instance represents an end to a period of suffering, despair, and seemingly endless waiting.

I recognize that seventy years is not the same as seventy months.  I recognize that my 70 months is not somehow predicted or conjured in the biblical text.  But what did happen in the aftermath of noticing the similarity of number still seems to me to be worthy of the scriptural imagination.  From that recognition, I was propelled into a reflection on the passage of time in my life by analogy to the longer passage of time in the life of Israel.  What did the 70 years mean for God's people so many centuries ago?  Were there ways that their recorded experience might shed light on my situation, 70 months after the devastating loss of my beloved?

The numerical similarity had occurred to me on Saturday, but with the coming of a wave of grief on Sunday morning, I turned back to that thought and opened my Bible to the Prophet Isaiah, starting in the 40th chapter, and began to read about that prophet's theological reflections on the end of the exile, the end of the 70 years of waiting.  I read quickly through four or five chapters, not stopping very long at any text, and letting it wash over me.  Then I realized that if I were going to make it to Sunday School, I had better finish getting dressed and get in the car to head over to the church.

The verses were very familiar.  The prophet's words of comfort offer a message from the infinite and unchanging God that resonates in the Bible reader's ears.  The first of the Servant Songs describes the humility and compassion of the people that God is calling to serve in the world.  When I reached the 43rd chapter, I was brought to a text I read with Everly often during her suffering toward death.  It speaks of God's presence in the most dangerous and fearful situations.  It proclaims God's concern for humanity in creation, a precious relationship, in which God has known and given us our names even before we have known ourselves.  And of course, as I have written before, John Claypool's reflections on the the end of chapter 40 spoke with power into my life during days of most intense grief years ago.  God will hold us up through the most difficult times, so that we can walk and not faint, taking one more step in the strength of knowing that God will never leave us to suffer alone.

And what I had already begun to think on Saturday when I first connected the number seventy between my life and the scriptural allusion, also was there.

Sing to the Lord a new song!

I will turn the darkness before them into light,
  the rough places into level ground.
These are the things I will do,
  and I will not forsake them.

Do not remember the former things,
  or consider the things of old.
I am about to do a new thing;
  now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?
I will make a way in the wilderness
  and rivers in the desert.

From this time forward I will make you hear new things,
  hidden things that you have not known.
They are created now, not long ago;
  before today you have never heard of them,
  so that you could not say, "I already knew them."

Again, to be clear, I am not advocating a type of interpretation which personalizes the prophetic oracles as if they are not linked to the history of Israel and the coming of the Messiah, revealing the meaning of history and the nature of the One in whom history resides and finds its meaning and purpose.  These verses are not about me.  The exile is not a convenient turn of events meant to make me feel better or even to rethink my life.  On the other hand, the pattern of divine work and character that the prophet speaks of has ongoing relevance for persons and communities who seek to turn to God for guidance and insight on the meaning and purpose of their personal and collective lives, even in our day.

Thus, the coinciding of the number 70 in the biblical story and my personal story becomes a seed of potentiality as I reflect on this season of my life in the aftermath of my greatest grief.  Has a time of pilgrimage through wilderness reached a point of fullness? Are there signs in my work, my ministry, my family life, my friendships, my study, and all aspects of my existence that point to the possibility of something new?  Should there be some things that I set aside in these days?  Should there be readiness to take a decisive turn toward something new and unexpected, something not even created before now?  What is the new song that I should sing to the Lord?  What darkness will be lifted, and where will light begin to shine?  I can't say that I know answers, but these questions continue to fill in the gaps of restlessness, and sometimes discontent, that arise in the life I'm now living.

This month of May marks seven years since Everly emerged from near death caused by her first dose of chemotherapy.  She began to articulate to us the new vision she had of the life ahead of her.  Seventy months have passed since her death.  Soon that anniversary of six years will come.  None of these are magic numbers.  There are no rules for grief and its duration, no time limits that can be set and enforced.  We have no capacity to know what the future brings, nor to be sure what choices we must make in each moment.  Yet this imaginitive foray into the grand narrative of scripture as a way to recognize the continuing work of God will, I believe, bear fruit for my journey in this world.  May God go with me and with you in each step, that we may walk and not faint.