It’s late October, and you can feel the season leaning toward change; everything feels like it’s holding its breath for what’s next.
Earlier this week I went to see ‘Orfeo ed Euridice’ at Canadian Opera Company. Last evening I headed back into Toronto to see David Byrne in concert. Two very different experiences, but they’ve been circling around in my head in the same way.
In the, opera Orfeo is driven by love so deep it sends him into the underworld to bring Euridice back. He’s almost there, and then that one glance backward undoes everything. It’s heartbreaking. And very human.
David Byrne’s music dances around the edges of that same longing. In Everybody’s Coming to My House, he sings:
“Everybody’s coming to my house
and I’m never gonna be alone”
Except of course, he still is. That’s the tension in the song. The house is full, but something in the heart is still unsettled.
I’ve also been sitting with Gospel of Luke (12:49–53), the Gospel from yesterday’s Mass:
“I came to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled.”
These aren’t soft or comforting words. Jesus isn’t talking about easy peace. He’s talking about the kind of love and truth that shakes things up, real love isn’t always neat or comfortable. It burns, like October air.
And maybe that’s the point. God’s love isn’t small or easy, but it is steady. It meets us in our doubts and calls us forward. It gives us the courage to keep walking when the way isn’t clear. Love asks something of us, yes, but it also carries us when our own strength falters.
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