Echoes
When I think of restoration, I think of destruction.
First, something doesn’t need to be restored if it hadn’t been wrecked in the first place.
But second, once something is restored, it can be wrecked all over again.
Like a child’s building made of blocks.
Up it goes.
Down it comes.
So what is the point of restoration, then?
To a child, making infinite buildings after infinite demolitions is the fun of creativity. Doing it differently the next time. Doing it better.
But a human being isn’t a bucket of blocks, waiting to be played with.
And while our destructions and restorations aren’t a matter of play, or even creativity, really, they could be seen as the means to spiritual growth.
Stages of growth.
The supports, the beliefs, the realities of that stage get to be swept away.
Just like that.
With pain ensuing.
Growth.
Being stripped down—like Job. Being reconstructed.
Restored.
Which is all great and wonderful on paper, but it leaves out one thing: the echoes.
The wafting, lingering feelings.
Yes, I went through this in order to learn that. But in the learning, I suffered.
Spiritual growth is not a matter of just being taught that something we thought is inaccurate, or not fully developed. It is the repeated experience of having what we are attached to wrenched away from us.
And that is where our need for restoration comes in—in healing from the heartbreak of loss. Of addressing what is left over from the destruction: the ghosts that remind us of our losses. Our sorrows. The ever-growing swamp of sadness inside us.