Because most of my years involved struggling with darkness and depression, NOT being in that state so much anymore feels like a striking difference. When I reflect on this change, the image of the Rose Window in Notre Dame’s Cathedral comes to my mind. The perfect order that the rose window symbolizes. When my own version of that beautiful window is within reach inside of me, when I can access it, touch it, this is when I feel at peace. This is when I have access to order. The overwhelming chaos that continues to exist in my body – it calms and feels tamed.
Notre Dame Cathedral
I have only walked into the Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris, France once in my life. It was early in my 20s and it was brief. I was 2 years into a suffocating, miserable, abusive marriage. My Muslim husband hated my Catholic religion and took every opportunity to publicly condemn and demonize my faith. It felt like the most devastating of his many methods to maintain power over me.
I quickly learned to be submissive to my husband’s tormenting, which means I did not stand up for my faith. I was afraid of him. I trembled in his presence. Yet simultaneously, the shame of not speaking, not upholding my own faith, grew. Shame kept me trapped, and all I knew to be true was slipping through my fingers. Hurt, confused, vulnerable, and trying to care for our baby, I sank deeper into a depression that would last decades.
During our visit to Paris, I felt an overwhelming desire to walk into the Notre Dame Cathedral. We were shopping at the tiny markets that lined the streets outside, and I could not keep my eyes off the beautiful church. I asked if we could look inside, and my husband refused, disgusted at the idea. I cringed and kept my eyes down. I silently chastised myself for silly needs and childish longings that would spark his anger.
Normally, my fear of him and my own shaming words were enough to banish my desires and focus on his.
But this time, I walked away from where he stood in the street. I knew his anger would build to a terrifying level as he waited for me outside, yet I walked into the cathedral. Knowing I would pay for this, I walked in.
I was filled with fear, even shaking, to risk my husband’s anger. In that marriage, my body was always filled with aching. Pain. Restlessness.
When I stepped inside Notre Dame, I was struck with awe amidst the aching. I cried – real, wet tears that I not allowed in my marriage. I fell to my knees. I felt I had entered the deepest place inside of myself. It seemed the building design, the architecture itself, was designed to do precisely this – allow me to touch my own soul.
It was a full knowing of the order and beauty that still existed deep within me.
I stared at the rose window, far across the church, and I was mesmerized. There is harmony in this window. Perfection. The sun shone through its many colors, and I knew truth and beauty existed in the world and in me. It transcended the restlessness and the aching.
The Rose Window Shatters
Almost 30 years later, I am often feeling safe, content, even happy. It will never be perfect. I will likely always struggle, but there is much good and beauty and hope in life now.
A couple of weeks ago, I was intensely feeling this hope – this embodied sense of order within. I could look at and touch my own beautiful rose window. I could access this divine order inside. And then the familiar shattering happened.
In one particular close relationship of mine, conflict happens fast. No matter how tightly I hold and protect that beautiful glass window, that perfect order, it quickly breaks into thousands of pieces. And then for days or sometimes weeks, the chaos compounds inside me.
Depression blankets me all over again. The brokenness builds within. As each day passes, I withdraw in silence, and the glass pieces shatter into smaller, thinner pieces. It feels more hopeless to ever put that gorgeous work of art back together. I am raw. Hurt. Drained. And without order.
Isolation is Depression’s False Promise to Restore Order
This depression, this brokenness – it builds faster and deeper only if I keep all of this swirling chaos isolated to myself. I hide from everyone. It is absolute torture to battle through that chaos, to reach out and connect with another human. Impossible.
Isolating amidst depression is a superficially beautiful, empty lie that appears to hold much promise. If I can isolate deeply enough, long enough, I can restore the order inside me ALL BY MYSELF. That is the lie.
In this lie, I leave no open spaces in me for God to work, using the beautiful humans He placed in my life.
God Designed Us For Human Connection
We were meant to find safety in human connection. This is a complicated process after trauma, but I have found this safety in a friend. If I turn towards a person I love and trust…if I seek emotional safety in another human despite the risks of trusting, use my voice, express and be with my pain… my friend’s loving and nonjudgmental presence begins to regulate my body…the chaotic energy in me slows.
The vulnerability never feels good in the moment. Rather, I’m in tremendous distress moving through my emotions in someone’s presence. In these moments, the connection we have moves through the deep, wide open cracks, touching all the edges of my rose window’s broken glass and it is painful. But in this connection with my friend, God does His work.
I wish I could move towards connection easily. Letting my pain BE SEEN feels like the most horrible step to take. The deepest joys and pleasures of love, whether in a romantic relationship or a friendship, are often combined with aching and sadness.
Order Returns
The sense that there is more than this depression returns to me. I desire it. Once I find this place again, those broken glass pieces slowly move towards each other. I feel in my whole body that order can be restored.
It is not fast. I remain raw for several more days, but throughout those days, I feel a restorative energy become stronger than the chaotic one. There are times the chaos gains speed and swirls harder. Yet the momentum of the chaos is lost. Order becomes the stronger sense.
The Rose Window
The rose window represents the vision of the Beatitudes. Transcendent purpose is in all the symbolism of the window – in the numbers, the sequencing, the images. The entire window can be broken down into many sections, each containing multiple pieces. They are not random, but rather perfectly ordered and reflect the incomprehensibility of God’s love.
It is a meditation on eternity. Of the cycling of time. Of the complexity of the world and humanity, and God. It is too much to take in. I can take in a piece, and it makes me long for more.
Almost 30 years ago, in deep distress, I stared at that window and felt hungry for truth. Hungry for order.
It took 8 more years before I found the courage to walk away from the angry, explosive husband who waited for me outside. Eventually, I took a step away from chaos and towards order. Sadly, it took many more years to find the light shining again through my own soul’s rose window, but now I see it often. And when the pieces of that beautiful window are at least somewhat in place again, deep in my center… and I can touch my rose window…any chaos that remains in my body feels manageable again.
It has nothing to do with making myself perfect. I know God designed me, in my very biology, my nature, my body – to feel a sense of order. I am drawn to this incredible, indescribable gift.
