I have been many places and I have met many people. I am often amazed, however, at how these people really differ from one another a lot less than you would assume.
There are some powerful unifiers in the human experience.
One is pain.
Pain is scattered like footprints of sin across our globe. And its path runs through each of our lives. Whether you live in rural Nebraska or desolate Alaska or urban London or in the chaos of Pakistan- there is pain. This path connects us. A unifier of humanity. Our lives can be so steeped in pain that we feel nothing else. Often, writing can be a way to rise above the surface of it all and to make sense of it.
Some people (I being one of them) say another entity exists and connects humanity to one another.
And that entity is God.
Eula Biss mused about this in her essay "The Pain Scale":
"In my worst pain, I can remember thinking, 'This is not beautiful.' I can remember being disgusted by the very idea.
"But in my worst pain, I also found myself secretly cherishing the phrase, 'This too shall pass.' The longer the pain lasted, the more beautiful and impossible and absolutely holy this phrase became."
Unlike Eula Biss, I do claim Christianity because Christ has claimed me. Sin's footprints in our lives are in such pain as she describes- the physical, the emotional, and the chronic. But there is also a hope for humanity, a hope that I pray is just as universal as the pain which it overcomes. That hope is found in Christ Jesus, who promises that pains that characterize our lives will pass one day- for he has overcome the world and its paths of pain.
I strive to express this to my fellow sufferers across this earth. Writing can uncover so much hope for each of us- buried under oceans of painful experiences, doubts, and sufferings. Let us make the statement
'This too shall pass'
and know that Christ whispers it with us, for us- wherever we are on this globe.
Powerful writing, Elizabeth!! The tone is really ponderous and strong--exactly as it needs to be for this topic.
ReplyDeleteI think sentence structure can go a long way toward creating the right tone. I LOVE these sentences: "Sin's footprints in our lives are in such pain as she describes- the physical, the emotional, and the chronic. But there is also a hope for humanity, a hope that I pray is just as universal as the pain which it overcomes."
I love the list that comes at the end of the first sentence, and I love the repetition of "a hope" in the second. These little devices make a huge contribution to the tone you're trying to impart here. Excellent decisions, excellent effects!