Seraphic Singles by Dorothy Cummings

Author:Dorothy Cummings
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Novalis
Published: 2013-10-15T00:00:00+00:00

Loneliness Happens

Bitter to Drink

Yesterday was a very happy day indeed. All my stuff and I fit into my brother’s tiny car, the music at Mass was fantastic, and there was scarcely any lineup at my favourite Cambridge sandwich shop, Darwin’s Ltd. The drive out of Massachusetts, through New Hampshire and Vermont was a cool and pleasant one, and my heart swelled with love as we crossed the border into Canada.

Now I am in my brother’s adopted city of Montreal, a seventeenth-century town with a big anglophone minority and block after block of gorgeous old houses and shops. My favourite street, rue St-Denis, is lined with cafés, boutiques and bars. I sat there on a terrasse with my brother at “L’Amère à Boire.” L’amère à boire means “a thing bitter to drink,” but the house beer was anything but bitter. It was delicious. When I got back to my brother’s house, I thought about the concept of bitterness.

Someone asked me how an older Single can prevent herself/himself from growing bitter and blaming God. I slept on that question all night. But first, I lay awake and thought about Job, who demanded justice from God. And Jacob, who may have wrestled with him. And Rebekah, Jacob’s mother, who, when her children were struggling within her womb, asked, “If it is to be this way, why do I live?” and, as Genesis records, “she went to inquire of the Lord” (Genesis 25:22). And I thought that these great heroes were a lot braver than we are. They had no problem arguing and demanding things from God. We are all cheery “Praise & Worship” music and not much Psalms, which run the gamut of responses to God.

I once popped into a church at my undergrad university and heard yelling from within the nave. There was a man in the aisle yelling with all his might at the crucifix. Awed and rather shocked, I beat a hasty retreat. I wasn’t sure if I had witnessed terrible impiety or a great faith, a faith that was strong enough to be honest with God and demand, “If it is to be this way, why do I live?”

After all, we are not the slaves of God. Let me repeat that. We. Are. Not. The. Slaves. Of. God. Slavery is antithetical to Christianity. We should obey God not because we are afraid of God but because we love God. Job crept and crawled and made sacrifices on behalf of his children just in case they might have sinned. It took real hardship to rouse him to another level in his relationship with God. Finally, Job stood on his feet “like a man” and demanded justice from God. And God said, “My servant Job has spoken well of me.” And later Jesus said that we were no longer servants, but friends (John 15.15). A real friend will have it out with a friend, rather than let the friendship die.

So is being perpetually single bitter to drink? Certainly, it often is.

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