On my walk today, I was quite dispirited. I am watching another mother's child die, through email and her blog. They upload pictures and I see the deterioration. She has a brain stem tumor and it's fatal. Her family is enjoying these last precious moments, living a lifetime in a matter of months. I call her Precious.
After Isaac was spared, did Abraham give any thought to the children who were not spared?
I walk on. Around and around and around the track. I do not feel that God intervenes, so I am not railing at God. I do not feel He saved Little Warrior. I feel that the system is what it is, and the system does what it does. No reason.
My heart hurts.
On my iPod, Cry for Help is playing. It is at that time that God joins me. He slips his hand in mine and we walk on, silently. Around and around the track.
God appears in different ways, as my imagination follows different paths, depending on the day or the circumstance. Today he looks kinda like your regular image of Jesus. Except he's wearing an Indian kurta set today. Hard to run in robes.
What if God Was One of Us comes on. He kind of smiles sideways at me. We've talked about this before. I know that he can be as frustrated with The System that is in place as I can be. But he knows that this is how it has to be. Free will and all.
A song from Next Stop Wonderland comes one. Have you ever been to Brazil? I ask him. He again looks sideways at me, with a look that, if he were not God, would be described as a smirk. Yeah, okay.
I don't speak the language of the song. What does it mean? He doesn't answer, as is his norm. He reaches over and pushes a button on my iPod to go to another track. He does this frequently. It would annoy me, coming from someone else, except he always goes to a good one.
It's Abba. He loves Abba for some reason, and I find Abba songs frequently popping up where I don't expect them.
Why now? Ah. Of course. Abba sang the songs, even when they didn't know English. They sang with emotion, even though they might not have known exactly what the words meant. Sometimes, the words aren't the important part. Just like this, whom I'm walking with. My imagination? The universe? The interdependentwebofexistenceofwhichwearejustonepartbutcanaccesswhennecessary?
"God" works.
I am getting to the end of my walk. The next song comes on. How Soon Is Now comes on. I swing my head around, startled.
I am the son
And the heir
God is ... giggling. After a second, I start laughing, too.
We walk off the track together, arms slung over each other's shoulders.
Stop at the nursery to pick up Little Warrior. God waits outside for me. When we come out, LW jabbering about her day, he stoops and kisses the top of her head. She's too busy trying to get to the water fountain to notice.
He walks with us out to the minivan. I get LW settled in her seat and turn to him.
"But ... Precious."
He wraps his arms completely around me and holds me close, his cheek resting on the top of my head. "I know," he says softly. He lets go and looks at me.
I give a nod into the minivan, asking if he wants to come home with us. He shakes his head no. He half-jogs back across the parking lot, and goes back inside. I think I saw a pick-up game of b-ball starting as we left.
And Little Warrior and I go home.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
Your post reminded me of a story inside one of Robert Fulgum's books. It talks about a mystical experience he had inside a grocery store in Pocatello, Idaho.
While he was walking through the store, the usually banal and ho-hum messages around him were transformed into deep spiritual reflections.
He concludes the story by saying, "Don't worry if this has happened to you. Worry if it hasn't"
I love this post.
Thank you for this beautiful post, LE. It's how I find God some days too, just walking beside me.
Post a Comment