chasing stubborn monkeys

“Juxtaposition” is the word of the day; forget m-w’s “emulate”. I woke up early after staying up late. I read some history and tried to translate them into coherent blurbs of relevant facts, interpreted data.

I took pictures of my friend’s wounds from his quadruple bypass. It was fascinating: I didn’t get squeamish at all. He wanted to remember the pain he’s in. These pics are to motivate his recovery and lifestyle changes. They’re his personal holocaust museum.

The incision on his chest was smaller than I was expecting. And, I wonder why they chose the right leg to take the arteries; it must have something to do with circulation. And how do they connect and reconnect the arteries to each other? Are they just kind of gummy and stick together naturally or do they glue or sauter them?

Next, I got my favorite photo of Mt. Fuji printed in a 4×6 and chose a frame for it. This complete stranger agreed with my frame selection without my prompting her. I knew her taste was impeccable by her praise of the fabulous photo I took.

After staring at a heart patient’s wounds for a long time this morning, I ate a cheeseburger for lunch, knowing my genetic propensity toward cholesterol. It’s so much easier to spot other people’s inanity than deal with mine.

I read a child’s version of Dracula with a third grader. It was gruesome, and she loved it. The neck wounds in Dracula made me think of the photos I took earlier in the day. It’s fun to hear her improve.

Even while contemplating the ethics and ethnicity involved through the process, I got a manicure. I looked at the overwhelming array of nail polish that is toxic for the earth. I listened to my manicurist’s broken English and stared at her high-heeled mules, thinking about perpetuating class inequities. I watched overweight women in sweats getting acrylics, disturbed by our sense of beauty and self-idolatry. Every aspect of the ordeal made me cringe. Yet, there I was, caring about all the hands that I’m going to shake and wanting to look polished for my interviews.

After gorging myself on homemade chicken & dumplings, spinach & artichoke dip and lemonade, my small group read aloud Genesis 1 and John 1 & 2. Then we discussed. It was a discussion with high nutritional content. I felt awe for Jesus: the mind-boggling splendor and tension of the prologue juxtaposed with Jesus performing the deed of turning water into wine at a wedding. The carress and collision of the macro and micro… the profound and quotidian… Jesus’s majesty and sense of humor… the complexity and simplicity. I guess the response is praise and obedience. How will I live in the creation story and the opening of John? Is it with curiosity, chutzpah and an endless supply of thank yous?

The bizarre piddle of today does not feel like it’s sitting beside tomorrow where I’ll be in NYC chatting, interviewing, bustling, getting lost and feasting on cheese. And, that I have my day-long interview with the local school in a week. My future feels like a formless, chaotic void. I need to pray to find out what I feel and want out of this process. Right now, I feel that my options will dictate my taste: beggars can’t be choosers. Wyoming or Idaho? Eegatz.

pink ribbons

At the bank this morning, I teased the teller about all the pink she was wearing. She was wearing a blouse with three different pinks and she had three enamel pink breast-cancer awareness ribbons on the lapel of her blazer. I thought it was funny; it didn’t occur to me that there was something beyond eccentricity at play. She looked up at me and said, “It’s for breast-cancer.” I glanced around to see if anyone else were wearing pink: nobody. It was an odd moment; I decided against any more smart-alecky comments and just stood there.

Then, she looked at me again and said, “My daughter died of breast cancer March 1st four years ago.”

I said, “I’m sorry.”

“She had two small kids. They found it while she was pregnant with her second one.”

“How old was she?”

“Thirty-two.”

“Wow, that’s young.”

“And, there’s no breast cancer in our family history.”

“It’s scary when you think about all the people behind the statistics.”

“It’s an epidemic.”

“I guess it is. This is a hard time of year for you?”

“Yes. A child shouldn’t die first. It’s not natural.”

“My mom says that’s the worst conceivable thing she can imagine.”

“It’s hard, but you get through. Family, friends, church. We got to have her for 32 years. It was God’s will.”

Then I mumbled some kind of theological weirdness. I probably said that death is the most unnatural thing I can think of for an eternal being. I have a really hard time when people say it’s God’s will for a 32 year-old to die of cancer. Statements like that make God sound like a real asshole. It’s near the same feeling I get reading the gospels: why didn’t Jesus do some wholesale healing? He could have at least healed everybody in Galilee. God’s economy and sense of efficiency is far different than mine. How do we reconcile his power and his goodness with my teller’s pink? It makes me think of the Wendell Berry poem where he goes from grace as gravity to gravity as grace. My thinking goes awry when I start thinking of God in total androcentric terms. God’s swimming with that woman in the pink mourning.