Apparently
this is a writing weekend.
I went
to Yoga today and got my rear handed to me. Yes, I’m one of those weirdos who
likes that. I almost always feel better after a hard workout, though often the
feel better only comes after the post workout blubber. Still, better.
I was
driving to my house, all sweaty and sticky and smelly and it occurred to me
that you amazing, beautiful, supportive people don’t ever get to see this
moment. I’m compelled to write when my heart is screaming in pain, not so much
in the brief interludes between.
So, I
thought I’d share something that made me laugh. It made my mind twist a bit but
it also made me laugh, mostly at myself.
As I
mentioned in a previous post I recently read “A Grief Observed” by C.S. Lewis.
It was generally mind blowing and you’re-not-a-wacko confirming but I think my
favorite quote was this.
“Can a
mortal ask questions which God finds unanswerable? Quite easily, I should
think. All non-sense questions are unanswerable. How many hours are there in a
mile? Is yellow square or round? Probably half the questions we ask – half our
great theological and metaphysical problems – are like that.”
Is
yellow square or round?! When I read this I pictured God looking at the asker with
the look I so often give Will when he is trying to explain why a joke is funny,
head cocked slightly to the side, a look of intense concentration, utter
bafflement… then a small sigh and “Child, you don’t understand.” Of course this
is my silly anthropromorphization of God. But can’t you kind of picture it?
Well?
Is yellow square… or round?
After his wife's death, C. S. Lewis, writing about comments of observers who assumed he was "getting over it,"
ReplyDelete"Getting over it so soon? But the words are ambiguous. To say the patient is getting over it after an operation for appendicitis is one thing, but after he's had a leg amputated is quite another thing. After that surgery either the wounded stump heals or the man dies. If it heals, the fierce, continuous pain will stop. Presently he will get back his strength and be able to use a prosthesis. He has "gotten over it." But he will probably have recurrent pains in the stump all of his life and he will always be a one legged man. There will be hardly any moments when he forgets it.......At present, I am learning how to get about on crutches. Perhaps I shall presently be given a wooden leg, but I shall never be a two-footed creature again."
Loss becomes a part of your story. We prefer our lives the way they were before our loss, but that does not mean our lives cannot still be good now. We do need someone greater than ourselves to forge a new identity. You are seeking the very ONE who will help you every minute of every day of the rest of your life.