THE GROWING EDGE — free as the sky

Times are bleak, turbulent, and filled with incredulous self-interest and twisted cruelties—like “Are you kidding me?” force me to let out a deep sigh of disbelief. We live in the dark times. I have loved Parker J. Palmer’s seasoned and insightful writing over the years, and I follow him on social media. He recently shared a quote from Howard Thurman below. It rang something deep in me. Most of all, Thurman’s prophetic and poetic words, which really are the same, gave me faith and hope against the current harsh and bleak conditions, especially regarding my motherland, Korea. By definition, faith and hope require patience and waiting amid uncertainties and unknowns.

All around us worlds are dying and new worlds are being born; all around us life is dying and life is being born. The fruit ripens on the tree, the roots are silently at work in the darkness of the earth against a time when there shall be new lives, fresh blossoms, green fruit. Such is the growing edge! It is the extra breath from the exhausted lung, the one more thing to try when all else has failed, the upward reach of life when weariness closes in upon all endeavor. This is the basis of hope in moments of despair, the incentive to carry on when times are out of joint and men have lost their reason, the source of confidence when worlds crash and dreams whiten into ash. The birth of a child — life’s most dramatic answer to death — this is the growing edge incarnate. Look well to the growing edge!

According to Palmer and Thurman, “the roots are silently at work in the darkness of the earth” and there is “the growing edge” unseen and unnoticed. Life is brewing and growing in the dark, resulting in new lives, fresh blossoms, and green fruit. Born in Florida in 1899, Howard Thurman, a black man, knows bleakness and darkness. He was an author, theologian, philosopher, mystic, and civil rights leader. When Thurman spoke of “the growing edge,” his words carried more punch and weight due to the unique dark times of his era. Thurman has spoken these words not out of a vacuum or fantasized ideal, but out of his own life’s poignant experiences. The waves of the growing edge continue to hit the shore of dark humanity, refusing to succumb to the darkness, and infusing with unquenchable life and light.

If Richard Rohr and other mystics are right, then the dark periods are all great teachers precisely because we are not in control. Thus, the darkness forces us to relinquish our control and let God be God, and put our active faith in God. The birth of Christ and His perpetual coming has come to us as “life’s most dramatic answer to death” which is the ultimate darkness. The incarnation of Christ is the ultimate growing edge. And the perpetuity of Christ’s incarnation continues to flood us as light in darkness.

I have witnessed the growing edge come to life and infuse life all around, over and over again. Thus, it is not hard to look to the growing edge! And I am.