Trusting in a season of loss

The past seven days have brought much loss—many endings. Some expected, some unexpected. All painful.

Summer (the school-free part, anyway) ended. My long stretch of no illness ended (thanks, stomach flu from hell). And on a more serious note, a few lives ended here on Earth. We lost an older woman my husband knew, mother to a close friend of his who preceded her in death, at 41, from cancer. I'm hoping he was there to greet his mom on her arrival. Another friend left us unexpectedly, of a heart attack. He was only a few years older than I am, and left a wife, children, and parents who never thought they'd outlast their youngest.

When people die at an old age, we can take some comfort in the length of their lives. When people die young? Suddenly? When widows are bereft with children still at home, and the one who is gone leaves big, gaping holes in many lives? There is honestly no comfort then, none that we can find here. It is tragic, and awful. No question.

I waver between acceptance, and argument. Why? I ask God. Why are evil people roaming, healthy? Why are sick, tired elderly clinging to life while elsewhere a young family mourns Dad?

There is no reply. I must return to acceptance: Acceptance of my place in this universe (quite lowly); acceptance of my gratitude that good people are among us at all, and I've been blessed to know them; acceptance of the fact that I have created nothing, and therefore have claim on neither the extension nor the snuffing out of life.

I know in my heart there is a Creator. I know He is great; I see His works and His wonders. I know the Holy Spirit is real, because I have heard that voice inside me, so sure and true and clear that it cannot possibly be attributed to any other source. I know that this world around me now is not a good one, that it is fueled and ruled by a force that wishes me to be discontent, depressed, disconsolate, and doubtful. Lastly, I remember who I was before I knew that Creator and his saving Son. She was a miserable girl, and I don't miss her.

So, I trust. I think of this hurtful place, in time and space, as a stop on a longer ride to my true destination. I will visit here, and find good here; I will try to be good here. I will also try to hold tight to promises of salvation, and an eternity of pure love and worship so fabulous that I cannot imagine it with my small, pea brain.

Sometimes faith, like contentment, is a choice.

Jagoffs and jackaninnies

Driving in our fair city can be rather trying. In even the idyllic suburbs, well beyond Pittsburgh proper, it's quite clear that post-modern driving skills continue to decline rapidly. I'm not sure how some of these people were legally granted driver's licenses... Alas, they were.

I am not proud to tell you that my personal battle-of-the-potty-mouth is waged most strenuously when I am behind the wheel. (Hey, I'm not a sailor's daughter for nothing! It's a constant struggle.)

Lately, other drivers have been even more lax, more rude, and more self-absorbed and distracted than normal. So, I've come up with a whole slew of other words to use in place of the vitriol that springs to my lips after I am cut off yet again, or watch a person cross the center center repeatedly only to find upon passing them that they are texting illegally, eating a meal, or fixing their hair...

Jagoff is always a nice word to swap in, being specific to Pittsburgh and rather enjoyable to utter. Jackaninny works well, as does asinine person or simply "big git" (thanks, H. Potter, for that one!) I won't lie, though; none of these substitutes can deliver the same mean satisfaction that the true bad words offer... However, these weaker word choices also carry less guilt than the "real" words.

That is, they used to carry less guilt. Then, we were re-reading the big commandments in Exodus. The one about murder. And the other one about lust. And how even just thinking about such acts was pretty seriously bad.

Which took me to Matthew 5. There are various references therein about how out of the heart come evil thoughts, and how to look upon a woman with lust is the same as committing adultery with her... Which, of course, translates to the concept of speaking about a fellow driver with murder in my heart... Yep, even when I use my cutesy little psuedo-swear words, God knows what I meant. He knows my heart—and therefore knows the word that I was thinking when I subbed in a less offensive moniker for that other driver.

There goes my awesome plan to stay verbally pure while driving.

?#*!.

Feelin' freaky

I recall when I was a kid that certain things really sent me off the deep end if I thought about them for too long. First, it was human beings themselves. I remember when we first began learning about internal body parts, probably in grade school and on into middle school, and I started to really grasp that we living creatures were miracles—that a heart was inside each of us, beating of its own power, and that we were literally pulsing with life, with blood, with functioning and even regenerating parts… and all this happened constantly without batteries, without our being charged in an outlet each evening. We were just alive, and someday we wouldn’t be. Period. It really freaked me out.

In fourth grade, I think, we learned about the solar system, studied all the planets, memorized their names and order with some funny sentence about my mom serving pizza (a mnemonics gimmick—it worked at the time I learned it, but the order of the planets is never straight in my head these days, so at some point in the past 30 years the trick failed me). But what really stayed with me was the absolutely ludicrous notion that the universe it infinite. What is infinite? What IS that? How can it be? Someone, a former teacher or a cheesy sci-fi author or such, planted an idea in my head that there was a final boundary to the universe…and it was a giant wall plastered with advertisements. That was ridiculous, but presented quite a memorable image—one that has stuck with me in spite of its silliness. Still, I couldn’t linger on that subject for long. Even now, the idea of infinity is unnerving to me.

Planets were fascinating, but even more so was our very own little orb. How could we be rotating all the time? And revolving at the same time? And yeah, there’s gravity, I know, but how can it be just the right amount that we don’t float away, yet don’t collapse upon ourselves either? The distance from the sun, too—that’s enough to send me out of my head. How can it be exactly right for providing warmth? For maintaining our weather patterns? It’s just the perfect distance to cause photosynthesis, thus sustaining us through food sources. It’s the reason Earth has life on it—and I know that’s no accident. But even embracing the idea of a genius Creator doesn’t lessen the jumpy sensations in the pit of my stomach when I dwell on that subject.

Nowadays, I’m becoming rather nervous about the state of our planet and its possibly changing atmosphere, what with the horror stories about rising temperatures, melting icecaps, polar bears drowning because they’re not able to swim far enough to find icy ground anymore. (Scoff if you want, but first sit down and watch An Inconvenient Truth. Whether or not you like Al Gore, he sets forth some very convincing and convicting information.) I’m also feeling pretty uncertain about the economy, and our dependence on foreign oil, and the fact that our whole culture is based on buying crap and driving places. If the oil stops, we’re screwed. I can’t even think about it or I’ll spend our entire savings on canned goods, weaponry, and a huge generator that’s powered by an exercise bike. But I can’t talk about that anymore—you know why!

And I’ve come full circle on the freaky topics, because now I’m freaked out by my own body—again. I was too consumed and distracted when I was pregnant to realize the insanity of growing a life inside me, but in the aftermath, I’ve been left with a little parting gift from the kid: a heart murmur. It’s in there, all the time, but I’m really only aware of it in quiet moments, especially right before I fall asleep. (Now, there’s a soothing, soporific thought: your heart is out of whack. Sweet dreams!) It’s something called a prolapsed mitral valve, I think. The doc explained it as a door (translation—heart valve) that’s actually a little bit too small for the door frame, so that each time it swings shut, it tries to swing all the way through. Pretty comforting, eh? I realize it’s small potatoes compared to the weird bodily things going on in lots of other folks out there, and I’m not complaining. It’s minor. It’s not a big deal. It’s very common, especially in women. It doesn’t require treatment, at least not at this stage. And yet… I feel it in there sometimes, I feel the missed beat, the pause while the valve is trying to swing back instead of sticking in the frame like it wants to. I feel it malfunctioning, even for a second.

A n d i t f r e a k s m e o u t.