Tunnels with bends

 

I was talking with someone just yesterday who said they are struggling to see any light at the end of the particular tunnel they and their family are facing.  And it is true, right now it is difficult to see any positive outcomes for them.  Sometimes we just need to say it out loud, be honest and call it what it is.

This Lent the St James community are following the theme of 'Sorrow, Solidarity and Hope' and this will come up now and again in these reflective pieces.   A tunnel without light in it is a way of describing an experience of sorrow and loss but can also refer sometimes to the way life is changed by such experiences.  I am sure for some people their life during the pandemic has been like this.   I saw some research this week that suggests the 100,000 deaths in the UK means 891,000 people will have lost a near relative.

When I was in school we once went for a hike along a railway line ( this was in India in the early 1980's!)  and had to walk through a couple of tunnels.  They were cold and damp places which if I had been on my own would have been quite fearful places to be.   I was with my friends though and that made all the difference and it became another teenage adventure.   Obviously the tunnels of later years are much more sinister affairs, but there is no doubt that having companions with us can make a difference.  

Solidarity is shown in many ways as we all know, but I just want to take one small example.   Our Ash Wednesday service was online and as Harriet crossed and blessed each of us by name from the setting of our beautiful chapel I looked around at all the faces on the screen and sensed the solidarity of journeying together during this strange time.   We don't have to journey into our tunnel alone, whether it is our experience of the pandemic or our own private situation.

However, tunnels also have bends.   Some of the tunnels in the Alps wind back on themselves in loop after loop.  Light is there at the end of the tunnel but we can't see it at the beginning, or even half way through, but it is there.   This pandemic time has been a bit like that when we have felt sometimes that the tunnel has looped back on itself.   There have also been times in my life and perhaps yours too when the light has taken a long time to appear.  Maybe when we talk about lights and tunnels we need to be a bit less binary.  Rather than asking can we see light or not at the end of the tunnel, we could ask what kind of a tunnel am I in, does it have bends and who is in it with me?    

There will always be light at the end of tunnels.  Living in the light under an open sky is what we spend most of our lives doing, tunnels may be long but they are temporary and never, never final.

There will be no more dark.  They will not need the light of a lamp or the light of the sun for the Lord God will give them light.  Revelation 22:5