Talking Tuesday: Glory to God for All Things

I think I mentioned briefly last spring that one thing I focused on during Lent last year was how we in the Orthodox Church understand the phrase, "Glory to God for all things."  We say it a lot, and it is tempting to feel that it is a pat response to life's triumphs as well as its trials and tribulations.  I will say, however, after observing devout people say it in the midst of terrible suffering and really mean it, I think there is something worth plumbing there.

I think there is more to unpack than one brief blog post, but I will at least start with a passage from Rod Dreher's How Dante Can Save Your Life.  I had said I would try to review the book, but alas, I think I will not get to it.  I can say that it is well worth reading, particularly with a prayer rope nearby, as the text invites contemplation and prayer.

"Dante is never going to go home to Florence.  This is his fate.  Yet he must transcend it.  How?  He must stand outside of his pain and suffering, find meaning in it, and affirm the goodness of life despite its injustices.  We know that he will create art from the experience and through it show the world the way to overcome the brokenness that led to his own exile, and, metaphorically, to the sense we all have of being alienated from God, others, and ourselves.

Each one of us lives in exile from the life we would like to have, or that we think we deserve.  Every time we feel disappointment or hurt, it is like tasting the salt of another man's bread.  Every time we suffer, it is like going up another man's stairs.  Exile is not just something that happens to refugees; exile is the human condition. 

We are lost, we are searching, we are waiting for a sign to tell us the way home.  The poet Dante had to have everything taken from him to discover how lost he truly was--and to find his way back.  This is what the pilgrim Dante is learning on his journey through the afterlife, and this is what he, to fulfill his role as the hero, must go back and tell all the other wayfarers so they may save their own lives."

~Rod Dreher, How Dante Can Save Your Life, New York: Regan Arts, 2015, p 278.

We cannot begin to know God, to love Him, to become like Him, until we understand first how very lost we are, how needful of salvation.  When we start from a place of brokenness, a place where we are lost, hurt, afraid, and then we encounter the Lord, we can begin to say, in the midst of our suffering: Glory to God for all things.  To say, this pain, this suffering is for the glory of God, even if we don't understand it.  This sickness, this hurt, this disappointment, this life, this is for the glory of God, even when we are exhausted, broken down, weary.  It is what I want to be able to say in those low moments, crawling along the valleys.  It is easy to say it when we stand upon the mountaintops, when things are easy, and life seems good.  I want to say it with full meaning and understanding in my depths, through everything.

Glory to God for all things.