The Cracks In the Wall

Much of my weekend was - unfashionably – spent in church, since my son celebrated his first communion. At home, I’ve been thinking a lot about Lars Gustafsson, a Swedish author I once interviewed and wrote about, and who means a lot to me. I don’t have his books here, though they are available in English. The book that I read over the weekend is a gift from a very special woman and friend and it is one that I highly recommend to women of all ages. Goddesses Never Age by Christiane Northrup will change the way you look at yourself, I promise! And of course, it’s Monday so here’s a smoothie: Strawberry and coconut milk!

Lars Gustafsson is a Swedish author who lived for many years in Austin, TX. One of his books, The Death of a Beekeeper, is a perennial favorite of mine. In that book, and the   subsequent The Cracks In the Wall, Gustafsson shares a kind of repeated motto, a diapsalmata if you will, which inspired me to write this entry. That motto is: “We never give up. We begin anew.” May you feel that way always, even when times are difficult.

Difficult times have a tendency to bring out creativity like nothing else. Difficult times force us to discover things about ourselves that we didn’t know before, or perhaps didn’t want to know. When that happens, we mustn’t freak out. Something important is in the making.

“We never give up. We begin anew.”

It’s safe to say that the past three years of my life have been pretty hard in comparison to other years, but in comparison to other people’s lives, perhaps not hard at all? It’s important to have things like that in mind.

In a beautiful little book called Den pebrede susen in its original Danish, Suzanne Brøgger writes: “I cry often and on my knees and my forehead is pressed to the ground in gratefulness while empty palms are filled in the wind. It must be that tears cleanse the eyes, because secrets are continuously being revealed: Twelve deer, for instance, who were hidden up until now and who have always lived there right in front of my nose, but who never came out before, they are standing here now, sniffing on the hill that is me while a bud opens into a flower.” This shows that difficult times are necessary in order for us to grow and to be able appreciate what we have hitherto taken for granted (for surely Brøgger saw the deer before, she just failed to take notice of them). And the knowledge that this is so, should make us respect those difficult times in a new way, and to react to them differently. We are not “losers” when we’re walking “through the darkest valley”, maybe that walk alone is a blessing? Only the person who has walked through that valley will truly appreciate the light that follows.

The question is how to balance on the precipice of hope and not fall down into the despair of hopelessness. Because Brøgger’s twelve lucky deer do not always appear right when we want them to, no matter how much we’ve cried and prayed.

“We never give up. We begin anew.”

I think it’s important to keep in mind that the wall of difficulties in front of our eyes is not solid. It has cracks in it, and perhaps it is part of our journey to find those cracks and see the light that lies ahead through them. There’s always a way out for the person who is interested, but that way is not necessarily what we imagine or want for it to be.

Sometimes all that’s needed is a glimmer of hope. The smallest glimmer will do, and we must seize it and let it propel us forward. My son taught me the other day that even crumbs count. This past Saturday, we celebrated his first holy communion. The entire week prior, all the kids rehearsed the ceremony and the readings in church over and over. One day, my son came home and talked very excitedly about the “tabernacle”.

“It is golden and sits up front to the right,” he explained.

“What’s it for?” I asked.

He looked a bit confused, as if he didn’t quite know. Then he lit up and whispered.

“God lives in there!”

“Ooo! That’s a bit spooky!”

“And we got to peek inside.”

“You didn’t!”
“Yes we did!”
“What was inside?”
He paused a little for ultimate effect.

“Crumbs!”

“Crumbs?”
He nodded and smiled.

“Yes, but Mamma, not just any crumbs, those were the crumbs of God!”