I had to turn the light off to write this.
Yep, it’s going to be one of those posts, get out while you still can.
The sky outside is black and orange, very close and full of dissonance. The rain is pelting the screen and tearing the just-rusted leaves from the trees. Sure, it’s a prelude to winter, but do you have to be so harsh?
Sorrow piles up like clouds near me, around me, smothering the people I love; but my life is good. I often think that’s worse. It’s hard to enjoy delicacies when your brother loses his dinner; it’s even harder to enjoy them when your brother loses his hands. But I cannot push back these clouds. I cannot replace a hand. I can only stand here and call out to them in the blinding haze.
And that gets old quick. “Marco… Polo…” How many times can you ask a person how they’re doing? “I’m here, where are you?” How many times can thunder crash before you stop jumping at it? “I’m here, where are you?”
The ugly green interstate sign with obscene lighting tells drivers where to go in no uncertain terms; yet we have so little direction. The roads are so straight, so well defined, so intentional and so utilitarian. Not at all like our guts. Winding, folded, wound and packed together inside us, jostling for position, going nowhere but accomplishing amazing things. Until they don’t.
So go the lymph nodes, so goes the spleen, so goes the gall bladder, so goes the pancreas? Ad infinitum, ad nauseum. I cannot fathom my own body destroying itself. A wicked cancer that grows and chews and digs and bursts and tunnels and kills. God used some vile people in His day to accomplish His purposes; but what is cancer doing in His toolbox?
Or perhaps the more relevant question is, will my friend die?
