"Life's Most Terrifying Burden"

Tuesday, April 1, 2014

May I just say, first of all, how terribly sad I am to have been too exhausted to do anything for April Fool's Day?  I really love this holiday, and I have occasionally gotten REALLY into it.

Not that that's always had good results, which brings me to the reflection book's answer to the question "What is life's most terrifying burden?"

Loneliness.

The gospel today was apparently the story of Jesus healing the man who waits for the sacred well to be stirred up but never makes it in time for the miracle because he has no one to help him into the water.  What a thing to have to admit to someone -- I have absolutely no one who can help me.  I suffer alone.

Of course, that's not usually the case outside of stories.  More commonly, it's that his designated caregiver has to work a job and a half to pay the medical bills so can't hang out with him beside a well all day -- they sacrifice companionship not to any skewed priorities but to staying afloat.  To staying alive.  Or there's a rotating schedule but someone is late or couldn't make it at the last minute.  Or everyone else is just tired too -- tired of the waiting and the water stirring and the sudden mad rush followed by crushing disappointment.

What I mean is even being loyal to someone, even being there for someone, you can often end up feeling alone.  Because you can't stop your life dead, most of the time, when someone calls.  You can give them what time you can, you can rearrange until you pull your hair out, but it's a lot.

You need a whole community, most of the time.  That's what my family had when my father was sick.  People coming out of the woodwork.  It was still hard and sometimes lonely, but there were people to help my father get to the well.

But perhaps the well is a bad metaphor for the real spiritual healing that the story symbolizes at least in part -- because it's not just the first to get there, the way it is on earth much of the time.  It's not just who wins the race and scurries scurries scurries around like crazy.  Salvation and healing are for everyone.  Free of charge, come as you are when you can.

It seems like there should be hoops.  We've done enough terrible things that their should be hoops that impose hardships and make us face our lives and our choices and make hard decisions about priorities and sacrifice...

But Jesus took care of all that.  Now it's free.  Now you can just pick up your mat and walk home.  Carry with you the memory of your weakness and your illness and everything else, but go about your life.  You are healed.  No hoops necessary.