"Nothing can fill the gap/ When we are away from those we love and it would be/ Wrong to try to find anything/ Since leaving the gap unfilled preserves the bond between/ Us. It is nonsense to say that God fills the gap./ He does not fill it but keeps it empty, so that our communion/ With another may be kept alive even at the cost of pain." - Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Letter & Papers from Prison
As I write you, I am in a city swept by a blizzard. This Boston blizzard means "white-outs" - the phenomenon where weather interferes with the ability to see more than a few feet.
Out of doors, we are isolated in such conditions. Our relationship to the rest of the world is cut shallow.
Often, I find comfort in walking through falling snow if I am dressed for it. Boots and a winter coat make me feel wrapped in the storm rather than punished by it.
But, what coat protects our souls from our winters of despair? What fills the gap of being separated from those we love and from Love itself?
If we, and those we care for, can remain strong through these empty seasons - the times of agony when God holds us in the hard territory of "empty" - we may finally find the greatest beauty life can offer.
What is this "gap?" It is the space between physical gratification and spiritual fulfillment.
Some WWII concentration camp victims experienced a strange joy at the very bottom of physical need. Deprived of everything the world offered, they crossed the gap and, like Job, discovered God.
Sadly, an increasing number of Americans, in the midst of worldly health and wealth, decide they don't need God. They only seem to discover God, if at all, when they are tossed into despair.
God is not here to meet our physical appetites. God's Love waits to fill our hearts only when we surrender our fixation on worldly fulfillment.
I heard this wisdom from my friend Rhonda Swanson who, in the depths of suffering during treatment for two different kinds of cancer, said, "Erie, down here, it's only me and God. No one else is with me in this awful emptiness."
Caregivers live next to suffering. You, as a caregiver, seek to relieve suffering. You also know that morphine cannot heal despair.
Shortly before he was executed by the Nazis, theologian Dietrich Bonhoffer lived moments of isolation where only God could help. Facing death, Bonhoffer came to understand why Jesus cried from the cross "God, why hast thou forsaken me?" For awhile, God left the gap empty for before granting Jesus eternal heaven.
It's so hard to wait for God when despair lies heavy. It is so difficult to know that on the other side of the unfilled gap lies Beauty.
As John O'Donohue writes: "Beauty shines with a light from beyond itself. Love is the name of that light."
-Reverend Erie Chapman
