Sr. Doreen, SSJD
Dom Helder Camara wrote: “To walk alone is possible, but the good walker knows that the great trip is life, and it requires companions.”
Camara also said, “It is possible to travel alone, but we know the journey is human life and life needs company”.
Philippians 4.13 I can do all things through him who strengthens me. (Whatever I have, wherever I am, I can make it through anything in the One who makes me who I am.)
As I was thinking about Dom Helder’s quote and also the scripture passage from Philippians I began to hear one of Simon and Garfunkel’s songs “Bridge Over Troubled Waters”. I remember that one of the things that inspired this song was the song “Oh Mary Don’t You Weep” and the line in that song ‘I’ll be your bridge over deep waters if you trust in my name’. As I pondered the idea that we ask for a good start and the grace to never give up, we know all too well that each of us has faced or had to live through a trying time in our life. We know the sacrifices and the perseverance that was part of finding our way through those difficult times. And we know too, that we need company during those times!
Our world today seems to be locked in turmoil and tragedy, war and violence … these are indeed troubled times. Perhaps it is time to sing this song again – it will take on meaning for the 21st century in a way that may give us all the inspiration and perseverance and courage to build a world where we become bridges for each other while working to bring that justice and mercy and compassionate love that can help create a calmness and caring unity to the waters of life, in ourselves, in our communities, and in this world of ours today.
When you’re weary, feeling small. When tears are in your eyes, I’ll dry them all, I’m on your side.
Oh, when times get rough, and friends just can’t be found
Like a bridge over troubled water, I will lay me down.
Like a bridge over troubled water, I will lay me down.
When you’re down and out, when you’re on the street, when evening falls so hard.
I will comfort you, I’ll take your part. Oh, when darkness comes and pain is all around
Like a bridge over troubled water, I will lay me down.
Like a bridge over troubled water, I will lay me down.
Sail on silver girl, sail on by. Your time has come to shine, all your dreams are on their way.
See how they shine. Oh, if you need a friend, I’m sailing right behind.
Like a bridge over troubled water, I will lay me down.
Like a bridge over troubled water, I will lay me down.
This song resonates with the hope and care and compassion of knowing both a loving and faithful God whose companionship through life is a bridge over troubled waters – and the hope and care and compassion of loving and faithful friends and companions that are together through all of this. We know how we need to have a bridge or bridges that support and encourage us to persevere in troubling times. Dom Helder Camera often pointed out “that a good traveler cares for weary companions, grieves when we lose heart, take us where she finds us, listens to us. Intelligently, gently, above all lovingly, we encourage each other to go on and recover our joy on the journey.” He had an unblinking passion for merciful justice that was matched by a playfulness and delight born of a deep joy. For him the work of beauty is to remind us that deep down, under the exhausting burdens of our adult commitments, lives a wellspring of grace. That good start, and the grace to never give up.
I’ve often wondered if I’ve stumbled one too many times for God to use someone like me as a bridge for others in this journey of human life and can almost hear the twinkle and sparkle in God’s eye in the midst of these ‘wonderings. I know God’s unending, unbending, unswerving, unconditional love for me, that I am the beloved of the Beloved. And I know that God uses imperfect people like me to do great things.
We can see examples of this in stories in scripture, and one in particular that of Jacob in the Book of Genesis, chapters 25–33. He was less a prodigy and more a prodigal. Strong on savvy. Weak on conscience. Jacob took advantage of his famished brother Esau, and pulled the wool over the eyes of his dying father, yet God never turned his back on Jacob. And he won’t turn his back on you. If you are ready to start counting on God’s grace and believe he never gives up on you. The story of Jacob and Esau is a good story to read.
There is an inherent sadness and tragedy in almost all situations – in our relationships, our mistakes, our failures and even in our victories. It is important to hold this reality in a very real empathy with and for things and people and events as it is this that draws us out of ourselves and into communion with each other and all those around us.
It is together through it all that maintaining a sense of peace within chaos is possible. In another hymn this is so beautifully expressed: “My life goes on in endless song, above earth’s lamentations. I hear the real, though far off hymn that hails a new creation. Through all the tumult and the strife, I hear its music ringing, it sounds an echo in my soul – How can I keep from singing? No storm can shake my inmost calm, while to the rock I’m clinging. Since love is lord of heaven and earth, how can I keep from singing.” (written by Robert Lowery, and hymn # 401 in Common Praise hymn book)
It is this timeless truth, the unending love and acceptance at the centre of all things (even us) that can give us a good start, and the grace to never give up, that together through all of this, on this journey of human life we can make a difference for good in this world.
‘Lord, though each of us rises alone to start this new day, bind us to the faith of all those who have gone before us, and guide us to walk with others in this great trip that is life.’
