So Jesus said to Peter, “Put your sword into its sheath; shall I not drink the cup that the Father has given me?” John 18:11
Besides the noticing that John left out part of the story, the part where, somehow the spirit was willing, but the flesh was weak, and he couldn’t stay awake to comfort his friend, he did detail Peter’s activities this evening.
Besides that I mean. At some point, I just have to set aside the me asking questioning wrestling grieving and step into the Plan.
I guess this is something that God brings me back to time and time again. Just today, as I was mulling over this verse in my back and forth in swimming, somebody said something snitty about the chlorine level, and the guy in the next line caught my eye and said, “Quitcherbellyachin’.”
Brice was in a writing class with me. Ten years ago. He remembered something I wrote then, and sad, but true, things haven’t changed much. Such is the nature of man. God keeps whispering, “Trust Me.”
Prompt: Bellyache
June 19, 2003
Backpacking up steep gravely switchbacks was kinda my dad’s idea of family togetherness and fun. “Quitcher bellyachin’, it’s only another seven miles to the saddle.”
I know that we are in a tidal wave of self-expression, and getting in touch with our feelings and emoting, but the older and hmmmmmmm if not wiser, more free with my advise I am, I have settled into my British-stiff-upper-lip-
taking-jaunts-in-weather-suitable-for-mad-dogs-and-Englishmen motif.
In camp candlelight moments of clear contemplation, these are the lives we honor- not the bitchin’, whining, and fussy about being comfortable that so mark our talk shows and instant messaging. Even these superficially trite melodies-to-write-by pay homage to sinking ships and packing out over the Alps.
This month as I tackle family oral traditions and try to wrestle them into words over and over again, I encounter the still peace and taut jaw of pushing through the crashing hurricanes, torrential floods, bug-swarmed nights and even the most heart -wringing calamity of all- helplessly crouching by a child whose life is seeping away like a low tide.
I am not some sheltered ninny- I have lived those moments common to man: long-term debilitating and bone-crushingly painful illnesses, losing my home to a rifle-wielding friend, starting completely over again ten years ago with a suitcase of clothes and a few boxes of books and once crumpling by a mattress on the floor, bathing my three-year-old daughter gripped by a malaria fever that carried her into frantic, delusional tremors. Kneeling, cradling this fiery body I stepped into the eye of the storm where grace reigns.
It is not fatalism because fatalism is hopeless and dark and incapacitating. When the world spins crazily out of control is when we can come face to face with our Creator. Even now, the Aspen Fire rages less than half a mile from my mountain home of twenty years- if the wind shifts this afternoon, it will be the first to go.
Lean into the pain; welcome each wrenching spasm of childbirth because a soul is being born. Pour out mercy with the same measure with which we hope to be met. Rage only destroys our own personal forest, leaving charred stump scars while the perpetuator walks away scot-free.
Attitude is everything. It's not foolish Pollyanna wishfulness that looks for the silver-lining- it a realism that understands the rhythm of death and renewal. Unless a seed falls into the ground and dies it does not produce fruit. Flex your knees as we take the turn.
We live in a world of shriveled, tasteless produce (an exception of course being Brice’s watermelon) nurtured only from air-conditioned tractors with surround-sound stereos. The community stories we now share are gleaming Matrix tales- crafted far away from reality as stale formulas designed to foist sleek cars and low-slung jeans on a docile public viewing audience.
“Quitcher bellyachin’; it’s only seven more miles to the saddle.” And if we stop our self-absorbed sniveling about a growing blister and lift our eyes up to the granite cliffs rising up from the eons, the perspective will make us gasp with wonder.
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