Defeat, My Defeat

my bold companion

I told my husband he needs a hobby. He works and works and works, so that we can scrape by in this strange age we live in. Grocery bills in a household like ours are no joke. He does very little for himself, so encouraging him to have a hobby seemed like the least I could do. He took me up on it, and though he hasn’t actually begun this new hobby, he has been researching it and gathering a list of supplies he will need. Blacksmithing is what he chose. It seemed like a bit of an odd choice at first, though I know that with his work world being entirely digital the idea of being able to create or repair something concrete, something that doesn’t disappear when you hit the power button, would probably be highly beneficial. I realized this morning, however, that this choice is even more perfect than I thought. Whether consciously or subconsciously, he picked a hobby that is highly metaphorical for the phase of life we are currently in. We both feel like we’ve been living in a furnace and hammered to a pulp. What a year it’s been, and from the very beginning. Lately I’ve slipped into despair more often than I’d like to admit. I’ve felt so defeated. 

Blacksmithing. Why did he choose blacksmithing? 

Maybe it was his spirit reminding him of the Great Blacksmith, the One who can take an ugly hunk of a soul and put it in a furnace, beat it with a hammer, shape it and cool it and smooth it and turn it into something beautiful and useful. 

There’s a hymn called Zion Stands With Hills Surrounded. The last verse goes like this:

In the furnace God may prove thee

Thence to bring thee forth more bright,

But can never cease to love thee;

Thou art precious in his sight.

God is with thee, God is with thee;

Thou shalt triumph in his might.

Another thing my husband has taken up lately is poetry (and I thought he couldn’t be any more attractive). He shared some of his favorites with me. This one has its teeth in both of us. (If you really want to be moved, listen here. I have it on repeat today.)

DEFEAT

By Kahlil Gibran

Defeat, my Defeat, my solitude and my aloofness;

You are dearer to me than a thousand triumphs,

And sweeter to my heart than all world-glory.

Defeat, my Defeat, my self-knowledge and my defiance,

Through you I know that I am yet young and swift of foot

And not to be trapped by withering laurels.

And in you I have found aloneness

And the joy of being shunned and scorned.

Defeat, my Defeat, my shining sword and shield,

In your eyes I have read

That to be enthroned is to be enslaved,

And to be understood is to be leveled down,

And to be grasped is but to reach one’s fullness

And like a ripe fruit to fall and be consumed.

Defeat, my Defeat, my bold companion,

You shall hear my songs and my cries and my silences,

And none but you shall speak to me of the beating of wings,

And urging of seas,

And of mountains that burn in the night,

And you alone shall climb my steep and rocky soul.

Defeat, my Defeat, my deathless courage,

You and I shall laugh together with the storm,

And together we shall dig graves for all that die in us,

And we shall stand in the sun with a will,

And we shall be dangerous.

Perhaps experiencing such defeat as we have this year isn’t a bad thing. Perhaps we needed it. Perhaps it is making more of us than any triumph we hoped for might have.

Something else I’ve learned this year is the need to face darkness. I’ve shunned it my whole life, so much so that I’ve hardly even dared look at it. Sin, pride, ego, despair, anger, self pity, and whatever else might live in the Shadow. I’ve made extraordinary efforts to ignore it all. But that doesn’t make it disappear nor does it make it stand idle. Instead it snakes its way in behind my back, only to jump-scare me when I’m most vulnerable. Slowly, I’m working to take off the blindfold. To look it in the eye. To examine it first with some distance, then with curiosity, and finally with compassion. To cling to the Atonement of my Savior, for it is because of Him that I can embrace the shadow without being consumed by it.

There is a scene in Somewhere Real Good where Grace, who is utterly terrified of the dark, must face it. She must enter it. What she finds is not what she expects, and she is forever changed. The darkness clings to her, and she is afraid of it until someone teaches her its value. Then, the darkness becomes one of her greatest tools in her journey, protecting her, propelling her, and strengthening her. I won’t spoil the story, but I will say that she would never be able to get where she needed to go, to do what she needed to do, to become what she needed to be, without the darkness. Without shadow. 

Goodness. It’s almost 9:30 am here, and the sun has finally broken over the mountains. It’s warm and brilliant and is making the snow sparkle. My sweet seven-year-old told me the other day that that is his favorite thing about winter–the way the sun sparkles on the snow.

I am determined to stop resisting the furnace and the hammer. I will find the sparkle in this wintery season of my life. I will reach out to my Defeat and together we’ll take this journey. We’ll laugh together at the storm and dig graves for all that die in us, and we shall stand in the sun with a will, and we shall be dangerous.