Surely it is hard for my son to understand my strange circumstances of healing even though it would seem a good thing to find one another again after we each expected the other’s death. But of course, it isn’t as sweet and simple as it would seem.
All of us living people seem to nurture a sense of ordinary in an extraordinary world. From our first breath we cry. From our first glimpse of light we hide our eyes. From our first touch or taste or sound we seek a source with explanation. Maybe it is a safety we all need. Maybe we need to meet amazement on our own terms or we would simply become stifled by so much awe. The patterns of Creation would surely overwhelm our senses with miracle if we weren’t able to name some things “ordinary.”
The whole of Creation has way more beauty than is needed to function. Creatures, smallness, largeness, wind, water, grandeur, sand for miles, sky forever, breath, breathless, lightness, darkness these are all everyday things of life yet overwhelming by extraordinary proportion. So each in our own way learns to accustom senses to the pervasive miracles. Each of us in our own way must simply name wonder as normal.
Healing – even when it hurts — is always amazing. When it surprises us it is miraculous or terrifying. It is a very short step from what we call the “normal healing” of each of us to this mythical kind Jesus bestowed upon me, that brings me from death to life at each of my deaths. I know this oddity was to give all people a sign or a metaphor for the spiritual healing of new life — the resurrection to which we all belong. I am simply the physical art piece of a Holy Sign, like an urn of water turned to wine – a word of poem — a metaphor for the invisible spiritual nature.
What can I say to my son? “I never told you about this oddness of me before because it is a hard thing to accept especially when it is your own father who is sitting here next to you on this hill of graves after so many years of grief. Might I give you more time for thoughts of this? I will leave word with Eve how I may be found if you would decide you want to see me again. I will go now to speak to her however she will have me — through bee veils or maybe just shouting through her door.”
(Next Chapter “Finding Eve” starts Tues. 11-5-19)
Lazarus Ink 