Isn't it amazing that you are a living thing? That you stir the air, and change the motion of atoms when you look at them? Isn't it incredible that your lungs expand, and compress, and that the air you exhale is different from the air you inhaled? And your heart has been beating for hours and days and years and decades, without your instruction or consent?
Isn't it noteworthy that your fingers aren't raw, after all you've touched this week?
I don't understand. And I have so much - so much freedom and goodness and capacity to enjoy, to assimilate and cultivate. But I can be blighted by things as slight as moods. Or the amorphous, generalized concern that others are suffering, and what right have I to enjoy - anything?
Heaven forbid I laugh when hell is screaming.
Part of me believes this. Believes that for my faith to mean anything at all, suffering (especially eternal damnation) is so deadly serious that I should be willing to drop everything to save those in its path.
But part of me also believes that death is a joke. That I don't understand the matter at all, to look at it so drawn and wide-eyed. Methinks I saw the mask wink; a joke was played on hell, and Heaven still rolls with the wit of it.
What creeps up my esophagus is a sob that chokes on its own freakish laughter. I've gone mad and wild somewhere - but the sense and sanity is all on the side of love. On the moth blown off the hand outside, the woolly bear avoided on the road. On the quick kiss and the glass of water and the smile at the tired stranger. On the cheerful cleaning up of things, even the trash and the public toilet.
A joke has been played on hell, and the clang of Heaven's bells rings down and drowns my fear with joy, if I will let it.
Today at dinner Mom said, "God loves you," and I absently said, "I hope so." She said, "I KNOW so." And I realized how morose my inner thoughts had become. How circumstantial, or not: based on the most impersonal abstractions. The things I can't control or even experience, to say with authority that God was there or not. Lord, help me.
Clouds and thick darkness surround him;
righteousness and justice are
the foundation of his throne.
-Psalm 97:2
Let me love You
and be obedient,
and leave what only You can do
in Your hands.
Isn't it noteworthy that your fingers aren't raw, after all you've touched this week?
I don't understand. And I have so much - so much freedom and goodness and capacity to enjoy, to assimilate and cultivate. But I can be blighted by things as slight as moods. Or the amorphous, generalized concern that others are suffering, and what right have I to enjoy - anything?
Heaven forbid I laugh when hell is screaming.
Part of me believes this. Believes that for my faith to mean anything at all, suffering (especially eternal damnation) is so deadly serious that I should be willing to drop everything to save those in its path.
But part of me also believes that death is a joke. That I don't understand the matter at all, to look at it so drawn and wide-eyed. Methinks I saw the mask wink; a joke was played on hell, and Heaven still rolls with the wit of it.
What creeps up my esophagus is a sob that chokes on its own freakish laughter. I've gone mad and wild somewhere - but the sense and sanity is all on the side of love. On the moth blown off the hand outside, the woolly bear avoided on the road. On the quick kiss and the glass of water and the smile at the tired stranger. On the cheerful cleaning up of things, even the trash and the public toilet.
A joke has been played on hell, and the clang of Heaven's bells rings down and drowns my fear with joy, if I will let it.
Today at dinner Mom said, "God loves you," and I absently said, "I hope so." She said, "I KNOW so." And I realized how morose my inner thoughts had become. How circumstantial, or not: based on the most impersonal abstractions. The things I can't control or even experience, to say with authority that God was there or not. Lord, help me.
Clouds and thick darkness surround him;
righteousness and justice are
the foundation of his throne.
-Psalm 97:2
Let me love You
and be obedient,
and leave what only You can do
in Your hands.
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