Letters To Livia:  Escaping Black Holes

(Written for Evan's "Black Holes" competition)


“Let the stars of the twilight thereof be dark; let it look for light, but have none; neither let it see the dawning of the day”  Job 3:9

     Science would have us believe that a black hole is what’s left of a star when it collapses and dies.  It would be akin to a pothole along the road of space, which like when driving a car on our roads down here on Earth, you sometimes don’t see until you actually hit it, invisible until it’s too late, and you’ve already fallen in, where some amount of damage will occur.  But what is the damage, really?  Is it a snapped axel so that you can no longer drive your vehicle, or is it the pencil-thin stretching we think of when it’s brought to mind what we are told about black holes?  Perhaps it’s both, and in either case, there’s a gravitational force at work, pulling us into the black (pot) hole, where we will no doubt, sustain some sort of injury.

     So now we must ask, is a black hole a literal or a figurative thing?  It probably could be both, as scientific evidence has shown us that black holes do exist, and it could also be an allegory to those times in life when we feel as if we are in a black hole, being stretched to our limits, about to break and die, and some do, and some don’t.  If we are to go with the figurative meaning, for the purposes of this piece of writing, then we can also compare the black hole to “the desert”, or that place we know of from the Bible, where Jesus was tested for 40 days.  It’s a dry place where we feel there is no hope, no refreshing waters, and where we are beaten on a continual basis by the enemy, the accuser of us all, that fallen angel, now known as the devil.

     Now that we’ve made that connection between black holes, deserts and the place of testing, it’s probably fair to say, that many of us have been, are currently and/or will be in these places at some point in our lives.  Some of us, it seems, end up there far more frequently than others, but that’s neither here nor there—the point is, is that we are all tested at some point with trials that come our way, and how we respond to them is what determines whether or not we are stretched pencil thin to the point of death, by the gravitational pull of each of those black holes we encounter along our road.  

     At this point, let’s jump back to the top, where you see the passage from the Book of Job.  Did you read it?  Did you read it and ignore it?  Probably that one, yes.  But read it again—what is it saying?  Think of Job’s story:  he was tested to the limits of humanity itself, lost everything he had in life, possessions, family, standing in the community, yet not once did he curse God for it.  Oh sure, Job complained a bit, cried a lot, and probably wanted to give up, many times;  it’s only human to feel that way, and perhaps the passage is his way of showing us that yes, he fell into one of those black holes, a once bright point in the universe that collapsed and sucked him in.

      It’s also important to note, too, the ending of Job’s story:  he made it out of the black hole.  How, you ask?  By having faith and trust in God and by praising Him in all things, even the bad, which leads us to the purpose of me writing this piece, which is to be the first of a series of letters to you, my daughter, Livia, throughout the remainder of our lives.  You know as well as I, the amount of black holes we’ve hit along the road of the past 19 years you’ve been on this Earth, and some of them, you won’t fully understand until you are a wife and a mother, yourself, someday, but for now, just follow along with me.

     In a real black hole out in space, there is what’s called an “Event Horizon”, or the point at which you’re at the edge of the abyss, about to be plunged in.  Scientists say it is where you reach the point of no return, and certain death will happen, but I beg to differ—with God, all things are possible, even escaping the clutches of the forces within those black holes in our testing desert.  If God created all things, even black holes, don’t you think He also created a way to endure it all?  He sure did, and it’s through faith in Him.  Each time we see ourselves at the edge of yet another abyss, another event on our horizons, we can safely know that yes it will be a time of testing, but if you let Him, the Lord will go into that black hole and walk you through it.  Oh, you’ll be stretched while you’re there, and you’ll also die, but it’s a figurative death—with each black hole event, we die to ourselves a little more, by stripping away what’s not necessary anymore, what’s holding us back, and giving up what God really doesn’t want for us in our lives.  It sucks at the time, but having survived an ungodly number of black holes, myself, I can see now, that I am a stronger and better person for it, and far more blessed than I was before, just like Job was in his own story.

     I’m sure, Livia, you’ll remember this summer as one of drastic change, and many losses, as we are currently in another one of those black holes.  You’ll never forget the two back to back funerals we attended, Great-Gram’s and Aunt Chick’s, and those are only two of the four I’ve been to so far this year.  Losses all around, and major changes, but look further into the darkness and you’ll see that there’s a light coming.  As unpleasant as this is, at the time it’s all happening, it’s meant to draw us through to the next place or chapter of where we’re supposed to be in life, that for you, being college, and for me, what I have hoped, dreamed, and prayed for, for years:  a happier second half of my life than the first half was.  I believe that next week, as we move you to college, that that event will be the point at which there is return from the abyss;  we’ve been dipped in for a while with trials, and something has to signify the end, where we’re pulled out and into the new.  

     That’s not to say, though, that all of life up to now has been miserable, and this is the end, but to some extent, it is the end of that and many things.  You and I both survived cancer, and you made it past a few years filled with epilepsy, no easy task there for any of us involved, but it was nice of the ambulance drivers to stop billing our insurance for all those rides to the Emergency Room, so I got to save a ton of co-payments which I put toward your college tuition….see?  It all comes around!  But enough of my dark humor—you’ve see that plenty of times as well, and have done a fine job of it yourself.  

     Other black holes we have survived are many, some you know about, others you don’t, some we are still surviving, but through them all, I have constantly prayed and brought it before God.  I had to smile to myself, a wistful smile, when you said “I forgot how to pray” at Chick’s ultra-Catholic funeral.  We stood up, we sat down, we stood up again, we sat down—all the ritualistic things that indoctrinate the Catholic faith, yet miss the mark drastically, and which is what I replied to you after you said that:  There is no “how” to pray.  There is no right or wrong way to do it, you just do it how it works for you, because God requires no set formula for it.

      Yes, we had no other option at the time, but to put you into Catholic schools, where you learned all this stuff, and I quietly deprogrammed you as necessary, over the years, but here’s something you don’t know, Livia:  we never had you baptized into any religion.  As prickly as your father could and can still be, he did have the sense to not want to put you through all the Catholic this-that-and-the-other-things, that he had to do, growing up, but schooling was not what it is now, when you first started, so we did what we felt was the best route.  And so you got immersed in it a little, but you turned out just fine, with better discipline than many of the people you see around you in life, and you have some true friends from those days, who you’ll carry with you throughout the remainder of life.  In fact, we kept you home on the days when all the Catholic stuff was going to be shoved down the throat of the school, and I’m not dissing Catholics here, despite what you may think—I just disagree with much of their doctrine, but the people themselves that we know, are good people, even your boyfriend’s mother, who is quite over the top with it, as you well know.   She prays with shrines all over her home, but I do it quietly and behind the scenes because that’s what works for me.  And just so you know, in case anyone ever asks, here’s something else of interest:  you actually were baptized, despite what Dad thinks and knows.  I did it myself.  Before you were born, a friend of mine had gone on a trip to Israel and brought back with her, some vials of water from the River Jordan, where Jesus was baptized.  (This was before the days of airline security checks where they peruse every bodily black hole you have, to ensure you don’t have a bomb up your arse—see?  Black holes again!)

     Anyway, Maryann gave me a vial of this water, and I kept it in the freezer for a few years, and one day, after I’d let God back into my life when I was 29, for I was an aetheist for a number of years, and that’s a story for another letter, I thawed the water.  I took it and poured it on your head, and dedicated you to God myself, since Dad didn’t want you officially baptized as far as what the world considers “official.”   I figured that if Jesus Himself, didn’t have some big fancy ceremony, and his cousin, John the Baptist dunked him in the Jordan, then why couldn’t I do the same for you and have God recognize it, as he did by sending the dove to land on Jesus after his immersion?  So I did, and I asked God to always watch over you, and spoke aloud that I baptized you in His name, and I believe that He accepted that.

     And now, I’ll wrap this up by saying that as you leave home next week, this is the start of something new for everyone.  You’ll have your own, new black holes to watch out for along the road, but don’t let them be so bad that it forces you to disbelieve in God anymore than you currently do.  We all go through periods of disbelief, and some turn around, and some continue on with it.  All I’m saying is, keep the option open to allow God to show Himself to you.  You have a mother of faith, who prays quietly, each time you leave the house in your car, and with the rest of life barreling on, I’m not always going to be there, physically, to help you in every black hole you encounter, be it due to distance, or my own inevitable physical death, despite all the little figurative deaths from all my own little black holes.   We all die someday, as we’ve seen this summer, but all we can do is hope to live as long as Gram and Chick did.

     It’s the natural course of things, though, you going off to live your own life, and discover for yourself where you’re supposed to go, but as I step aside a little to let you fly, remember that I’m always here to catch you, and that God is always there to catch us both.  Let Him ride passenger with you, in that little blue Mazda you’re driving, and let Him steer you around the potholes and pull you out of the black holes you may not see and fall into.  Let Him be your GPS—it’s worth it, but you’ll have to discover that for yourself, and as I sign off for now, I die another death of change, for the stretching and molding is never really done, until we go the way of Gram and Chick and hear the words “Well done, good and faithful servant.”

Love,

Mom