There is for me.

It came around just before this last Christmas season. I won’t say it snuck up on me, exactly, I mean, I saw it coming. But all the same it walloped me. Again.

“And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. And we beheld his glory, glory as of the only Son of the Father, full of grace and truth.” John 1:14

The Word became flesh. And dwelt among us.

The Word. The Second Personal Expression of God. The One through Whom all things were made. Wonderful Counselor. Son of Man coming on the clouds of Heaven. Messiah. Christ. Jesus of Nazareth. God with our skin and our bones and our muscles and our feelings.

Among us. Here. Not on my street, exactly, not even on a street like mine. But still here, walking and eating and enjoying cool breezy days and sweating when it was hot.

Listening and talking and telling stories and learning peoples’ names and generally acting like you and I might act in a similar situation.

It still grips me when I think about it, it seizes my imagination.

Full of Grace and Truth.

Grace. Mercy. Steadfast love. That conviction deposited deeply in a soul that whispers no matter what you’ve done, no matter how weak or limited or stupid or stubborn you are, you are truly loved. No matter what, you belong.

Truth. Things do matter. There is a better way and another way that is not better but worse, maybe much worse. Truth about God and us and the way the world works and doesn’t work and was meant to work and might work again.

Truth often causes us pain; but Grace helps us not waste it.

I recently told a group of therapists and ministry leaders, Jesus loves us as we are but never leaves us where we are.

I said that and then the Christmas season came and my wife set up the manger scene in my study and I was looking at it one night.

And the force of it hit me all over again. Word. Flesh. Us. Grace. Truth.

Who is this Creator that knows all of us, hears all of us, holds all life in his hands, continues all life by the force of his being and the breath of his mouth, who—while continuing to do all that—actually inhabited our limited space for a time—just exactly the way we inhabit it?

If he went to such extravagant lengths to reach us, why do we hold anything back from him?

It is deeply troubling that someone with such talent and resources should be dead of drug addiction at age 46. That he leaves friends, family and three young children who cared about him adds to the weight of what is so wrong about this story.

But Philip’s death troubles me for another reason, too. It reminds me that all of us bear within ourselves the seeds of our own destruction—our own very unnecessary loss.

I have my own set of compulsive issues—different from Philip’s but no less threatening. Philip’s death reminds me that all of us, but especially we who are addicts, are just one set of poor decisions from losing our grip on reality. We are one set of bad choices from setting in motion a sequence which will unleash our powerlessness and take us out.

It’s a naturally human response to a situation like Philip’s death to evaluate and judge. Perhaps it’s a way of understanding how the darkness enveloped his soul; or a way of convincing ourselves we’re safe. It isn’t necessarily true, of course, but we look for what helps us cope with what we don’t understand, what we fear.

For some of us there seems to be a more perverse delight in finding blame in others. It’s a malignantly misguided effort to justify the righteousness of our own small lives. It’s a gross misuse of human intelligence and energy. It robs us of mental health and psychological wellbeing as much as addiction does.

It’s inappropriate for any of us to judge how Philip lived his life and how that life came to an end. That is his journey and he alone is responsible for it. But for those of us who love life, and appreciated Phillip’s, his death makes our souls long for a different outcome.

So what is a healthy, appropriate response to the death of Philip Seymour Hoffman? Grieve the loss of him. Celebrate the goodness of him. Care about those who were close to him. If we have the capability to comfort them, do that.

And look to the care of our own lives. What are our disabilities? Where are our blind spots? Who knows us well? With whom do we share our selves, our thoughts, our fears and our choices?

And if we’re addicts, be vigilant. We carry the well-developed seeds of our own destruction. Rigorous attention and cultivated support are what keep us alive and well.

May God have mercy and rest Philip’s soul. May God comfort Philip’s family and his friends. And may God guide and hold us all.

He doesn’t. The man dies.

For four days Lazarus is dead. Since so few of us have died and come back to talk about it (four days I’m saying) we don’t really know what it was like for him during that time. Was he aware of time? Was he asleep? Was he somewhere else, another dimension?

Whether he was asleep or elsewhere, at some point Lazarus became aware he was now in a very dark place, a cool, deadening place, firmly wrapped in a blanket of cloth and ointment. If he remembered being so gravely ill, my hunch is he didn’t feel like that now. If he remembered hurting with the pain that so often is this life, I think he felt no suffering now.

We can’t know for sure where he was. He might not have known where he was. However strange it was, it had to have been more peaceful than the process of dying.

Wherever he was, and however he was, he then heard a Voice, a familiar voice, the voice of his friend. “Lazarus, come here.”

Where was “here”? “Here” was back into the world where suffering is common and hope often deferred.

He had a choice to make. Perhaps if he ignored the Voice it would go away. He could stay where life in this realm couldn’t hurt him anymore. He could stay safe. He could cling to comfort where he had found it.

Lazarus made his choice. He got up from where he was and he followed the Voice.

Occasionally our lives have moments that bear resemblance to the day Lazarus woke up to the Voice. I don’t mean we find ourselves in a Middle Eastern tomb with Jesus standing outside calling our name. I mean we can be moving along in life, gravitating to those places of comfort and safety where suffering is mitigated and fear is dialed down.

And then we hear a Voice in the distance. It’s not clear. It’s hard to hear over the din and stimulation of our lives. But if we notice it and then listen—which are two different things, let’s be honest here, we hear lots of things we never really listen to—if we notice and then listen, sometimes we get a glimmer of clarity.

And if we hear and then listen and then recognize the glimmer of clarity, we have a choice to make. Do we get up? Do we risk laying aside the blankets of insulation and comfort we cling to? Do we risk walking out of our shadows of safety into vulnerability and exposure?

This is the question we have to face time and again if we’re interested in a genuine spirituality.

The search for a robust spirituality is to hear the Voice of heaven (Jesus) through the gauze and goo that so easily enwraps us in this life. And not only to hear the Voice but to listen to it and to follow it.

“Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts,” writes the psalmist.

“Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts,” writes the author of Hebrews, repeatedly.

So hearing and listening and obeying the Voice has to do with our hearts. Our hearts are easily hardened. Some of our hearts are hardened because we don’t think we’re worth speaking to. Think about your own heart. Does your heart feel like you are a person God is interested in? Cares about? Will speak to?

So, hearts that are willing to believe that we are worth speaking to are open, softer hearts. Others of us have hearts that are hardened because we’re too busy, or too preoccupied. And some of us have hearts that think they know better than anyone else; these are hearts that need no other voice.

It’s openness that matters, and then paying attention to the specifics. Because the Voice is usually not vague. “Come out, Lazarus.”

Come look at this. Come out of there. Come do this with me. Come give me that you’re holding onto. The Voice gives us direction, and the direction is life.

“Come to me, all who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”

I’m learning that recovery and the truly spiritual life are flip sides of the same coin. The genuine and robust spiritual life is a life of recovery. It may be recovery from independence or codependence or dependence. It might be recovery from isolation or pride, envy or resentment, or other things entirely.

Spiritual growth is moving from disintegrated to integrated living, from and fractured thinking and feeling to wholeness. And that’s what recovery is.

Each day is a gift. Each day is opportunity. Are we hearing? Are we listening? Are we following?