Thread by @dianabutlerbass

Thinking about the theology of Good Friday tonight.

The medieval mystic, Julian of Norwich, had vision of Christ on the cross.

She wrote: "And the beholding of this [Christ's sufferings on the cross], with all the pains that ever were or ever shall be—and for all this, I understood the passion of Christ to be the greatest pain and overpassing [all other pains]"

The idea that Jesus held the entire universe of suffering at the Cross is profound. It means God literally felt all the the pain ever felt in time in a single embodied act.

This is a powerful point of theological reflection.

It has always made me gasp, feel a kind of via negativa of awe. The emotional reverse of feeling awe as beauty and wonder.

While it is one of the most unnerving aspects of Christian experience, it is also one that Christians are called to imitate.

For as Christians are called to love the world and neighbors deeply, we are called to somehow embrace the suffering of the world equally as deeply.

I've seen a lot of foolishness today whereby people are comparing grief -- and what should or should not cause grief.

That's ridiculous. Grief isn't a zero-sum game. Sadness and suffering aren't games of oneupmanship.

We feel pain. Lots of it. For the devastation of a beautiful cathedral, for the ugliness of racism, for anger over cruelty and demeaning others, for the walls we build and cages housing children. For violence and murder and violations of all sorts. For wounds of heart and soul.

And human beings feel a lot of pain simultaneously. For loves lost, for memories destroyed, for the haunting sounds of Ave Maria on the streets of Paris, for broken families, fear of death, boundaries that separate us, the sounds of storms and war.

All of that.

All that Julian saw in a flicker of time held on the Cross.

We embody that mystery. To hold in our hearts -- at the same time -- the pain and fear and suffering of all our brothers and sisters around the world. And yeah. That stinks. It is terrifying. But suffering unites us as human beings even as does love.

And some days, one or two or five stories might remind us of that mystery. Because however embracing our souls, we are not God. We can only hold so much.

A lot, yes. But not all.

So, a plea: Be tender to one another in suffering. Let each hold what he or she or they can. Remembering that together we hold it all.

And that we are all held by God.

Somehow, in the expansive compassion and mercy that many of us name God, all of that suffering is borne with and for us. That we are not alone. Not left bereft. And peace and tenderness extends its balm.

...within the mesh of the web, Himself
woven within it, yet seeing it,
seeing it whole. Every sorrow and desolation
He saw, and sorrowed in kinship.

--Denise Levertov

Let yourself be in the mesh of the web tonight. You hold a thread of sorrow. Together we are kin. Together we are one. And against that, the gates of hell shall never prevail.