night prayer

Lord, it is night.

The night is for stillness.

Let us be still in the presence of God.

It is night after a long day.

What has been done has been done;

what has not been done has not been done;

let it be.

The night is dark.

let our fears of the darkness of the world

and our own lives

rest in you.

The night is quiet.

Let the quietness of your peace enfold us,

all dear to us,

and all who have no peace.

The night heralds the dawn.

Let us look expectantly to a new day,

new joys,

new possibilities.

In your name we pray.

Amen.

health (s)care

I just had a little health "scare." I went to the doctor b/c I was still feeling under the weather, almost 2 months after being diagnosed with mono. He decided to run a bunch of tests, b/c he's a thorough doctor (quite a good doctor from my brief impressions so far). those tests, however, included tests for scary things like leukemia.  The lab girl took 6 vials of blood (count em, 6). I spent the week between the bloodletting and the follow-up appointment twiddling my thumbs... running through scenarios in my mind... trying to not run through said scenarios in my mind... watching "House" episodes with their parade of random, obscure illnesses that turn into other obscure illnesses on the spot and regretting it b/c it only fueled the "bad news" scenarios. I waited for Wednesday at 3:45pm to see which scenario would actually unfold.

Well, it's Wednesday at 5:30pm, and the "scare" is over, trumped by all good news. all my major organs are functioning normally, no major illnesses, and my bad cholesterol count is extremely  low. Tests only show that I have definitely had mono lately. I have to admit, I was freaked out about getting the results from these tests. This time it just hit home, what with the combo of watching too many medical dramas, knowing some people my age who have been diagnosed with serious illnesses, and being on my own in St. Pete's with no peer-aged friends, a new doctor, and loads of time alone in my new apartment to let my imagination run wild. But it's all good news. I'm off the hook, left to just wait for my residual mono symptoms to run their course for another month or so.

This has all got me thinking, though, maybe because I will probably do a chaplaincy program in a hospital sometime soon, about our conflicted relationship with our own bodies. how strange it is to have something wrong with the thing that is physically closest to you, your body, but to have to wait for someone "out there" to do tests in a lab and tell you what is going on inside your own body. the way that our bodies betray us when they get sick and malfunction. the way that in doing so they can thwart our hopes and dreams for the future, and it can all be over, whether slowly or suddenly. One day during this past week of waiting, in a flurry of anxiety, I said almost out loud to myself, "I just want to get through life without dying." Then I had to laugh at the irony of it. I do wish that it were possible.

It is funny; to me the resurrection is probably the central Christian belief, and yet when faced with a small chance that my body was in trouble, that hope seemed so faint and far away. I was forced to realize how cerebral my belief is, how ungrounded in true testing it often is. Theory versus reality. perhaps it is time to pray for help with my unbelief. perhaps it is time to pray for real-er, more grounded faith about my body and God's intentions for it, which to me are abundantly clear in the following two passages...

I know that my Redeemer lives,

and that in the end he will stand upon the earth.

And after my skin has been destroyed,

yet in my flesh I will see God;

I myself will see him

with my own eyes—I, and not another.

How my heart yearns within me!

-- Job 19

My heart is glad and my soul rejoices,

my body also rests secure.

For you will not abandon me to the grave,

or let your faithful one see decay.

-- Psalm 16