September 6, 2020: The Good and the Hard – Michael Hidalgo

In this poem a geber shows up on the scene. A man (what kind of man and exactly “who” this man is has been the subject of much conjecture) who has experienced the pain, the suffering and the exile firsthand. He then launches into a description of what he has befallen him: his skin and flesh grow old, his bones have been broken, he has been besieged and surrounded with bitterness and hardship, he dwells in darkness like those long dead, he has been walled in, and weighed down with chains. When he calls for help his prayer is shut out, his way has been barred  with blocks of stone, his paths have been made crooked, he was dragged from the path, mangled and left me without help, he was the target of arrows, his heart was pierced, he was a laughingstock of all the people, they mock him all day long, he is filled with bitter herbs, has only gall to drink, his teeth has been broken with gravel, he has been trampled in the dust, deprived of peace, he has forgotten what prosperity is and now says, “My splendor is gone and all that I had hoped from the Lord.”

His response to all of this? The Lord is good to those whose hope is in him, to the one who seeks him; it is good to wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord. W.T.F.? Seriously? How can this be? How can one name all that has befallen them and then turn to the one causing all the heartache and express trust? O’Connor writes, “When you meet the geber, you meet someone with tangled theology. Hope and horror stand side by side. Hope and honesty stand side by side. Hope and contradiction stand side by side.” And that’s the thing about hope - it doesn’t ignore the crap and the hard circumstances. It stands right beside them.

Many have been told that hope is to the exclusion of the raw emotions expressed by the geber - you either have hope, or you succumb to your circumstances. Here, however, is someone who has hope, and sits with humiliation, deprivation, suffering, bitterness, and the horrors of what he’s witnessed. Isn’t this how it often is? That hope is near to all these other circumstances? It’s possible to say in the same breath, “God is good” and “This is hard and it hurts and I’m getting screwed all in the same breath.”