On the journey home

(This piece was written and published at Easter 2012, but having recently met Lorraine Nicholson myself, I thought I would put it on the blog to make more widely available my appreciation of Lorraine's powerful sharing of her journey in hope, and towards hope.  13th July 2013)

This week, a friend mentioned a web-site created by a lady he’d met. At www.hope4recovery.co.uk Scottish artist Lorraine Nicholson uses words, photos and artwork to map her journey to recovery through years of intense depression, a journey taken with the help of professionals and friends. It’s an uplifting story, told more fully in Lorraine’s book The Journey Home. ‘Know that now is not forever. Out of every cocoon flies freedom.’

This weekend, it’s Easter, when Christians remember Jesus’ journey home. For him, the road led through Good Friday’s pitch-black bleakness to the gentle resurrection dawn of Easter Sunday. Christians believe this journey was of crucial importance, making it possible for the whole of humanity to be drawn back to God.

But life offers many examples of the ‘darkness to light’ motif. Night gives way to morning. Spring conquers winter. The chrysalis births the butterfly. And as Lorraine Nicholson’s powerful experience reminds us, hope brings healing to wounds of grief and sadness.

So while emphasising the importance of Jesus’ Easter journey, Christians emphasise that God is active in the whole of creation, weaving this pattern of shadow and radiance. The journey from chrysalis to butterfly, the journey of a wounded soul through depression to recovery can be described in scientific or psychological language, but we believe that in all such journeys the finger of God is seen.

I’ve no idea what Lorraine’s personal beliefs are, but it’s my conviction that we can have hope whatever our situation not just because of our human resourcefulness but through God’s transforming power.

Christians believe that Jesus shaking off the clutches of death that first Easter morning is not simply an inspiration to us, not even simply a demonstration of a power which pulses through the universe calling us by name, offering us transformation. It is, somehow, the pivotal event which makes freedom and hope possible, ensuring that at the end of all things light will triumph.

Lorraine’s ‘journey home’ involved a recognition that over the years she had, as she puts it, ‘been living life for everyone else but me,’ trying to be the Lorraine other people expected her to be rather than the Lorraine she actually is. ‘For all my adult life I had suppressed my truth, my authenticity to “get the proper job” and to please others at the expense of my soul’s truth.’ Her recognition that this was the case, and the will to change was, she says, a precious gift which her depression gave her.

Sometimes at Easter we’re encouraged to ask ‘Am I crucifying Jesus today by rejecting his words, denying his uniqueness and turning my back on his love?’  But Lorraine’s experiences prompt me to ask a different question: ‘Am I crucifying myself?’

I crucify myself if I insist on living in ways which destroy me rather than bringing wholeness. If, as a Christian, I haven’t  listened to the voice in my heart telling me who I really am, and if Jesus’ call to ‘deny yourself’ is emphasised by my fellow-Christians, I can find myself rushing around, immersed in church programmes, constantly doing things for others, while all the time feeling I can never do enough to please God. Throwing myself into ever more frantic activity I burn myself out. The cruel nails which hold me captive in the gathering darkness I myself have hammered in.

This self-crucifixion is so different from the way it is meant to be, where I listen to the inner voice, and discover my gifts and my uniqueness, happily being the me I have been created to be, joyfully dancing with God.

But what about the darkness for which we’re not responsible? The darkness which leaves you feeling, as Lorraine did ‘in prison for a crime I did not commit.’ We don’t have any answers. All we know is that when Jesus died, God entered the darkness with us, and as a result offers us hope both in this life and in the dimension beyond.

This Easter, if I am wrestling with darkness whatever its cause, I can stand in the resurrection garden with Mary Magdalene and, tears in my eyes, hear my name on the Master’s lips.

But I know there will be some people this weekend who though they walk in spring sunshine and feel its warmth, and though they sit in church hearing the message of hope and acknowledge its truth have nevertheless no hope that the warmth and the words will ever penetrate the cold despair which lies across the entrance to their hearts.

Easter reminds us that Christ is in the dark tomb with us. He lays his strong hands confidently on the great stone, and invites us to place our hands beside his. Soon, rays of sunshine lance through the shadows.

(Christian Viewpoint column from the Highland News issue dated 5th April 2012)