Doubt Comes In
Orpheus had walked the unending path into Hell and found his lost lover. Seduced by the promise of warmth and security, Eurydice was bound below with the lustful heart of Hades. After a raucous power struggle, Hades grants the young couple a chance to leave the Underworld. And now they are traveling home with one great stipulation: if Orpheus loses faith Eurydice returns to Hell for the rest of eternity.
So the song is set, with the title Doubt Comes In. Featured in the Musical Hadestown. Orpheus and Eurydice sing as they walk out of Hell single file. Single file to facilitate the test. Orpheus must trust that Eurydice is behind him, following him home. If he turns around to look behind him, she is damned.
“Who am I?” Orpheus sighs. “Why am I all alone?” “Who am I to think that she would follow me?¨
The mellifluous voice of Eurydice is heard by the audience but not by her lover. “Orpheus, you are not alone. I am right behind you. And I have been all along.”
The sound of something between a gentle glimmer and a crashing firework is heard as Orpheus gives in to his uncertainties. His heart leaps with joy to see that Eurydice is with him and plummets to untold depths as he realizes he has now lost her. His doubt has damned her to the underworld.
The song enthralls me because it tells an ancient truth. Man is not strong enough to rescue his own kind. We improve the lives of the people we love and at times it feels like we can rescue them from all that haunts them. But history shows again and again that humans cannot rescue their own kind.
Beyond the universal application, this week I feel a doubt like Orpheus. The Spanish government just informed me that my request to reside here as a student-teacher was denied. I have been waiting 8 months for these results, sure that they would be favorable.
The denial is just powerful enough to make me question my being here. “Who am I?” “Why do I feel so alone?” “Who am I to think that I could build a life in a place so far from home?”
A doubt similar to Orpheus’ attacks my strong conviction that I am meant to be in Spain this year. That the hopes of my wife and I and the guidance of a good God have kept us in Madrid. That this city is the place for the stories of our immediate future.
But there is a second song I love. From a totally different story and genre. The bluegrass rock band Mumford and Sons released it in 2009. And it shouts “Hold on to what you believed in the light, when the darkness has robbed you of all your sight.” IF (and that is a critical IF) our hopes are in something true and sufficiently powerful, the darkness does not damn us. If something extra-human can intervene, there is rescue.
Orpheus’ hope was misplaced, and in the climactic moment he lost his hope. My deepest hopes are securely placed and because of that my next step is to cling even tighter to them. To hold on to my hopes in the midst of my doubt.
edited for clarity and style February 27th
