The Power of the Unimaginable

 
Most of you know that I’m not the most outwardly emotional person.  But occasionally there comes a moment when a piece of music, or a scene from a book or movie hits me just so—and I am undone.  I had one of those moments recently.  My daughter is absolutely enthralled with the musical Hamilton.  She plays the soundtrack constantly and sings along. Many times, the music becomes background noise in our home, but one day Becca was listening to the soundtrack in her room, and I walked in about the time “It’s Quiet Uptown” (a.k.a., “The Unimaginable”) played.  Perhaps for the first time, I really heard the lyrics, and tears welled up within me.

 

Especially since tears aren’t that common for me, when they do come, I’ve learned to pay attention.  Theologian Richard Rohr says that our great loves and great sorrows can reveal much about our true identity.  So, I pondered what God might be trying to reveal to me through my tears?   

 

"It's Quiet Uptown" from Hamilton

For those who may be unfamiliar, Hamilton tells the story of the life of Alexander Hamilton through song and dance.  The song “It’s Quiet Uptown” occurs near the end of the play.  Its lyrics are sung by Alexander and his wife Eliza as they work through the loss of their adult son Philip (who has been killed in a duel), and then choose to try and reconcile as a couple. Both acts seem unimaginable: How could God take a child from their parents?  How could Eliza ever forgive Alexander for his betrayal?   The song’s opening lyric says:

 

There are moments that the words don't reach
There is suffering too terrible to name
You hold your child as tight as you can
And push away the unimaginable

 

While I can’t comment personally on the experience of betrayal by a spouse and the choice to reconcile, I can speak with some authority on losing a child.  Many of you know that our daughter Becca’s twin sister Hope died two days after birth.  (I have told that story in other settings and won’t repeat it here.) I remember the pain of letting Hope go.  As much as I wanted to hold on tight to her, there came a point where I realized that nothing I did could save her for this earthly life.  Laurie and I ultimately concluded the most humane choice for her was to do the unimaginable: we let Hope slip from life support to life eternal—from our flailing, finite arms into the everlasting arms of Jesus.   

 

While the Ward’s specific path through the valley of the shadow of death was quite different from that of the Hamilton’s, our respective journeys served as our initiation into The Lost Child Club.  Believe me, this is not a club anyone voluntarily seeks to join.  No, this club chooses you—and the initiation typically leaves an indelible mark on your soul.  Whether the loss is an adult child or an infant, the admission cost is one that no parent should ever have to pay.  And yet some do.  More than you might realize.  

So, if you see us on the street, 

Walking by ourselves, have pity.  

We’re working though the unimaginable.   

Almost 13 years later after my initiation, I still am. 

 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Profound loss can be a window into deeper healing or deeper loss.  For Alexander and Eliza, it seems losing their son led them to try and rebuild their marriage.  But sometimes, the loss of a child leads to the exact opposite result.  The stress of the experience is too much for one or both partners to bear and, rather than pulling together, some couples are torn apart—which only compounds the tragedy.  While Laurie and I were fortunate to come through our loss stronger in the long-run, I would say there were some growing pains along the way.  We each processed our grief differently and had to learn more about one another through the pain of the loss of our daughter.  

So, how did we get through it?  From our Christian perspective, we give glory to God.  We credit the Divine Presence as the “third strand” that held us together even when both of us felt like we were coming unraveled.  But on some level, like Alexander and Eliza express in the lyrics of “It’s Quiet Uptown,” we had to choose to lean toward each during a time of incredible stress—when we might have every reason to pull further apart.  I say without reservation that it took the work of all three strands in our marriage to survive the unimaginable.  

 

For me personally, when I look back on that tragic time, I see that the loss of my daughter opened a window to process some deeper grief in my life.  As great as the sadness was over losing my daughter, there is a Deeper Sadness that hangs like an oppressive cloud over my whole life.  My mother has struggled with mental illness since I was a very small child (if not before) and it has impacted each member of my family in different ways.  Her diagnosis is complicated but obsessive thoughts of harming children—including me—seem to have been part of it, along with depression.  She spent time in psychiatric hospitals on several occasions, including some stints when I was very young.  Not long after Hope died, my mom ended up in the hospital again.  While it was hard to watch her go through that so soon after losing my daughter  I think God used the experience to help me reenter some of my childhood wounds, acknowledge the impact they had on me, and begin to heal.  

 

So,  given all that I suppose it’s easy to see why I found myself wiping tears away that day in my daughter’s room when I heard “It’s Quiet Uptown.”  They were deeply personal. I experienced a sense of solidarity with the Hamilton’s.  I hadn’t been exactly where they were, but it felt familiar. 

  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

But some of my tears, I think, came from a deeper, more universal well.  I think if we live long enough, each one of us will eventually face something in our lives that seems unimaginable.  Perhaps you are facing the unimaginable in your life right now?  Or maybe it's someone close to you—and when they hurt, you hurt with them?  Or maybe it's both... at the same time, and you wonder how much you can bear?   

Likewise, we might witness events the world around us that we never thought we’d see happen—i.e., things that seem unimaginable—and they make us weep.  For example, whoever thought Pearl Harbor would be attacked, or or the President would be shot, or the Space Shuttle would blow apart (twice), or the Pentagon would be attacked and the World Trade Center towers would fall, or the COVID-19 pandemic would force us to radically alter our lives, or the U.S. Capitol would be the site of an attempted insurrection to overthrow an election?  

Both personally and globally, on this Third Rock from the Sun we call home, it seems we constantly have to stretch our imaginations to imagine new possibilities when it comes to trials and suffering.

I wonder though: Do we also need to stretch our imagination when it comes to envisioning goodness and grace?  Do certain positive outcomes to circumstances that arise seem impossible to us because we aren't yet creative enough to see how they can possibly become reality?  Like the Prophets, both ancient and modern, do we need to expand our imagination to imagine new possibilities, new ways of being with God?  Are we too quick to limit the power of faith, hope, and, "the greatest of these," LOVE, to "the way we've always done it"?  The COVID pandemic has forced us to break out of our "boxes" of comfort and familiarity and try doing things a different way.  However, only time will tell if the change is temporary or transformative   Will we immediately retreat back to our cozy boxes when the current crisis is over, or will we allow this time in liminal space to help us imagine and begin to shape new ways of being "the Church" in the post-COVID world?  

If Paul is right (in 1 Corinthians 13:13) about the qualities that will truly endure in the end (and perhaps into eternity), then it seems to me that everything that our communities of faith do should be aimed at one thing: giving us opportunities to practice at living faith, hope, and especially love, in our daily lives.

Could it be that the solution to the unimaginable suffering in this world will ultimately only be found as more people learn to practice unimaginable love?  

That seems to be the road that Alexander and Eliza chose to walk.  Out of the tragedy of losing their son, they chose to work to reconcile their marriage. No doubt it would be hard, but they decided the effort to rekindle their love was worth it.  It's also the story that's at the core of our Christian faith.  Out of the unimaginable tragedy of the Cross of Good Friday comes the unimaginable triumph of the Empty Tomb on Easter.  

In the end unimaginable love triumphs over unimaginable suffering.  

 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I heard “It’s Quiet Uptown” again recently when Becca was playing it, and the tears came back.  This time I heard it from the perspective of a husband whose wife will soon undergo open heart surgery.  I will soon put my trust in capable surgeons to put a “new heart” in her—or a new valve anyway.  I’ve been assured that things will go well and that she will have a better quality of life after this.  And I believe… 

And yet I need help with my unbelief.  I’ve learned the hard way that life comes with no guarantees.  Things can go horribly wrong.  We aren’t always spared the unimaginable.   

I went back to the lyrics and read these words:

 

I don't pretend to know
The challenges we're facing
….
And you need time
But I'm not afraid
I know who I married
Just let me stay here by your side
That would be enough

 

I don’t know how it feels to be in my wife’s shoes right now as she prepares to have heart surgery.  I can’t go through this for her, but I can go through it with her.  I also don’t know what challenges might arise in the next few weeks for our family, but I trust that God will equip me/equip us to respond.  There’s no way around this, so we’ve got to go through it—together.  My wife needs time to heal her body—and I need to help create the space for her to do that.  It can seem like a task that’s too big for any of us, but I am not afraid, because I know the woman I married is strong and resilient—and the God we worship is with us even in the midst of the unimaginable.   I’m committed to be there for Laurie—and to trust that I will be enough.  I can say that last line with confidence because I know I don't take this journey alone.  God goes with me, and with my wife, and others from our church family are praying for us and supporting us.  Our church community is modeling love in a powerful way.  

 

I was also moved by these words near the end of the song:

 

There are moments that the words don't reach
There's a grace too powerful to name
We push away what we can never understand
We push away the unimaginable

 

The Apostle Paul said that there comes a moment when we’ve said all we can and must yield to God’s Spirit who intercedes for us in a wordless language that sounds like groans to us—Romans 12:26–27.  I know the time will come when there can be no more spoken words between my beloved and me until "after surgery."  I truly believe she is in good hands at Inova Hospital—and I believe that God’s hand holds my wife and everyone else involved.  Nevertheless, I know it will be hard to let her go into that operating room.  In those moments that the words don't reach, I must trust that I stand in the presence of that Grace too Powerful to Name (which I call God), who speaks when I can’t.  Confident in that knowledge I can push away what I can never understand; I can push away the unimaginable;  and I can trust, along with Lady Julian of Norwich, that "all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing will be well."  

FOR REFLECTION

The season of Lent will soon be upon us.  (Ash Wednesday is February 17, 2021.)  This six-week liturgical season is intended to draw us closer to the cross. The idea is to intentionally examine ourselves to see what keeps us from experiencing a deeper union with our Creator and then seek to rid ourselves of those practices and/or take up new practices that lead us toward our stated goal of growing in our walk with God.  The ancient Threefold Way often used as a model during Lent includes: purgation (i.e., getting rid of the old things that clutter our life), illumination (i.e., becoming aware of new possibilities), and contemplation (i.e., moving into deeper relationship with God).

• Is there something unimaginable you are carrying that you need to lay down this year on Ash Wednesday?  
• Does doing something good in some area of life seem unimaginable to you right now?   Ask God to stretch your vision during Lent to help you imagine a new possibility for achieving it.  
• How does God call you to open yourselves to the power of unimaginable love this Lent?

Perhaps you could find a friend or friends with whom you can discuss these questions.  I can't guarantee you will be set free from your trial or suffering or be given an epiphany on the spot.  I don't think faith works that way.  What I can tell you, based on personal experience, is that: "After the last tear falls there is love."