Perhaps you've been watching the Olympics.  One of my favorite sports to watch is swimming.  Of course, we cannot talk about Olympic swimming without mentioning the American swimmer Michael Phelps.  We can all be amazed at Phelps's abilities, we can all be astonished at his achievements, we can all be awestruck at the human capacity for physical prowess that he embodies in his person.
     And we should.  He is a marvelous specimen of homo sapien.  Like Kenny Baker, whom I mentioned yesterday, Phelps found his niche and proceeded to excel, to excel beyond what anyone might have imagined (except perhaps his coach Bob Bowman who early on identified Phelps as one who could have enormous success swimming).
     Given the public nature of Phelps's life, most of us know that he has experienced some very dark moments, some heart rending of mental and emotional angst.  He's had quite a journey.  Phelps definitively demonstrates that darkness is often essential to personal fulfillment and success.
     Religions around the world would agree.  Sacred writings are filled with examples of people who endured enormous tragedy and darkness as they walked in faith with their god.  In the end, however, every one of these people found profoundly greater communion with this god.  They judged the darkness to be worth it.
     This side of darkness, we often find this difficult to swallow.  We live in a glorious yet broken world.  Pain and loss are inevitable.  Yet if God is there, and he is, a constant and continuing source and presence of love, we can know and believe that however dark our journey may be, ultimately love will prevail.  It will not be our love, but God's love for us. It will be God's love for us that will carry us through our pain.
     Pain can last for a lifetime.  To this, we can often make no decent response.  Yet God's loving presence ensures that purpose and meaning will endure.  How and why, we frequently do not know.  But we know they do.
     The world may be fractured, but it is open to God.