Moments of Madness

A sudden madness
A tumble into momentary blackness
Swept into a senseless darkness

What was sweet
becomes abhorrent.
Suspecting worst of the
sweetest intentions.
Caught in a whirlpool
of self-destruction.
The bird takes wing,
fleeing home like
it were a cage,
plummeting through trees,
barks, branches, leaves,
plummeting straight into
the hunter’s net.

Help, save me!
If I could just have
two freaking hours of
pure silence.
Away, away from the noisy din
The noise,
The crowds.
If I could just have two hours of
pure
silence.

The rhythmic tides of the sea became clearer as I awoke. The familiar smell of the sea around me as I blink my eyes to adjust to the sun. He was there. Waiting for me to awake.

I was out at sea, He said. Trapped by a whirlpool. He’d realised I had disappeared. He dropped everything and He went to look for me. The moment He saw me He plunged into the sea to fetch me, to save me from the raging sea.

My eyes misted. And immediately I felt ashamed for getting lost. Again. How could I have been so careless. How could I have walked away from Him and straight into the arms of danger, and death? I watched His tender gaze, and huddled away in embarrassment.

It rang clear in my head, as clear as day. “Sense is a good thing. Evil cannot ever make sense. Evil doesn’t make sense.” My rebellion is not something to be understood, but to be saved from*.

How could the waters that we often played and rested in also be the very waters that threatened to drown and wrest from me all that was only so precious to me?

Rebellion is not something to be understood, but to be saved from. One can’t make sense of evil, because sense is good. Evil is senseless.

That’s when I realised, He would always come for me. He would always come to save me when I got lost.

I turned back to Him, and relaxed. He had finished setting up a crackling fire. I warmed my hand and toes to it. Rest up, I’m making us some fish, He said. I nodded, being every bit the child I was. I lied down, watching Him intently grilling fish. He told me about His day, building the ship He was going to take me to adventures on. Okay, I thought. Not keen on ship, keen on plans He’s making for us.

After a while, I said: So what are we doing today? Half-expecting Him to give me a sick day, He said instead: I have a couple of things to work on that we could do together. Some invitations to make and such. You want to hop on?

Yeah, sure, I said.

I watched Him work on the ship as I finished breakfast.

And then, I clambered out of bed.

*See The God I Don’t Understand by Christopher J.H. Wright.

The Lost Sheep, Painted by Alfred Usher Soord (1868-1915), Oil on canvas, Painted in 1898, © Alfred Usher Soord

Peruse

The world goes on its usual speed. Time plods on, steadily.

It is not that sense that time is flying that bothers me. It is how much is going on all at the same time. It is the hive of activity that pulls the world forward, unbeknownst to it.

I am more interested in slowing down. Stepping away to observe. To look. Watch the current running along and lift the pebbles, the rocks, carry along the fishes that cruise in its stead. Just watch. Simmer. Mull.

And after sometime, for some reason or without one, strike the waters. To part it. Parse it. Dissect it. Understand it. For that brief moment in time. Before letting go its merry way again.

My Body is Me

Itch, rashes
Frustration: eczema –
A tinge of distraction throughout my day
The threat of nights disturbed

I breathe in
I breathe out
I look to God
Thankful I am forced to love my body
My skin
For it is me, part of what was created in His image
The part dualism rejects as temporal and inferior to the soul
My body is me, my skin is mine

Tingles in my throat
Thyroxin pills every morning
My life depends on them
till death do us part – my first marriage

I breathe in
I breathe out
I look to God
Thankful I am forced to care for my body
My hormones, then faithfully made by my thyroid
Now ingested by my stomach through my mouth
These are me, part of what is created in His image
(Graciously responding to back-up plans in the event of failure)
The part dualism rejects as temporal and inferior to the soul
My body is me, my thyroid is mine

As I care for my body I think of
the new one I will receive
Made new in Christ in the eschaton
Brand new skin
Brand new thyroid
Still me, but different
Still me, and better
The best, as God would have it.

Christ has gone ahead to prepare this new dwelling:
Perhaps not a mansion, but a new body
This new dwelling, as Paul would say.
As I nurse these wounds I treasure the one God has made
And look forward to the one He will make
My body is me, as I await the eschaton.

___

John 14:2

2 Cor. 5:1-5; 1 Cor. 15

glorious rain

glorious rain. somewhere, somehow, some forest, tree, plant and herb are joyously soaking up the rain, and tomorrow mud puddles may form for wild boar to roll in. and at the same time, somehow, somewhere, homeless persons could be drenched, or huddled together in a cramped shelter, unable to sleep and possibly developing a cold tomorrow. and i, i rest safely as usual on this bed, safe from the thunder and the storm, imagining a world outside that i’ve never known, falling asleep to the sound of glorious rain.