There’s been a LIFTING!
Lenten reflections. Dr. Gary Straub. Meadow@StMatthews. March 2026
“Well, I woke up this morning, and my mind… was stayed on Jesus!”
Let the record show that since early Monday morning, March 23, 2026: there’s been a lifting! A lifting of the fog of fear, dread & ennui that can so easily grip the mind of a person diagnosed with cancer, undergoing surgery, and now immunotherapy. Under the weight of such a siege of extended trauma, the soul disappears into The Dark Depths! (Ps 130)
Yet this past Monday: “I woke up this morning in my rightful mind, and God set my feet on the right road… and God didn’t have to—but God did!”
As I own and reckon with this moment of lifting, I am recalling the witness of American writer William Styron, who suffered severe, prolonged and profound depression. Modern medicine diagnosed him “clinically depressed,” which totally devastated him. He stumbled thru his days & struggled thru his nights. Bill wallowed in his weakness while hovering between hope and an odd sort of Kierkergardian despair. His doctor (at her wits end) finally just prescribed “long walks.”
Bill walked the beaches near his bungalow. One uneventful afternoon, as he returned and hung up his coat, he quietly whispered to his wife: “there’s been a lifting.” Styron did not analyze it; publicize, emphasize or commercialize this merciful moment. He simply acknowledged this mysterious soul shift.
My mind conjured St John’s account of an angel who stirred the waters of Siloam. Divine Healing touched the one who won the foot race —“first to the pool.” This lopsided circumstance must have struck Jesus w/ compassion, because he granted a lifting to one who would never be awarded the blessing of first place prize. (Jn 5:4)
It may seem unseemly—perhaps presumptuous— for me to claim “healing” just yet. After all…erring on the side of caution is a sin particular to Mainline Christianity. Sometimes I wonder: have we ghosted the Holy Ghost? Why do Mainliners label irrational & inexplicable events as crazy charismatic and snoop around to spot a nearby TV Evangelist? Is God’s Spirit still in the blessing business? Can there be Divine Lifting without a label?
In my mild mannered, (keep it to myself) practice of mainline theology, there’s still ONLY ONE full and faithful response to a moment of mysterious visitation and astonishing lifting… Hallelujah!
I’m not blessed with Leonard Cohen’s voice. I can’t approximate his hauntingly sacred song. All I have to fall back on is my bluegrass roots. So from my Nashville seminary days, this sweet chorus still comes to mind:
“Glory, Glory, Glory—Somebody touched me—
it must have been the Hand of the Lord!”
