effigy

scheduled pain...away and far

In February 2001, I was playing racquetball and landed wrong on my right foot. It didn't feel too bad that night, but by August I was ready to succumb to X-rays and by October '01 I was under the knife to remove a tiny but troublesome broken "sesamoidits" bone. Took me some time to recover, and I think I really gained some compassion capacity for those who deal daily with crutches or more complex and/or painful encumberments.

I remember thinking how odd it is that we schedule ourselves for pain.

We do it when we are confident that the outcome of a surgical procedure will produce better ultimate results for us than the ones we are currently experiencing or consequently bound to keep experiencing. Still it's kind of funny to think, "Yeah, it would probably be good for me to be bedridden right around midterms because I'll just be prepping for tests at the time anyway. Sure, let's pencil in my outpatient tibial sesamoidectomy for October 11th and expect to be on crutches and miserable for the next five weeks following."

What a simple but effective illustration of faith.
An illustration of why / how Christ-followers are able to count affliction as temporal and loss and death as gain.

"He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose."
~ Jim Elliott

My apartmentmate had undergone more extensive surgery on her right foot and had spent the whole summer recovering from hers. We had similar-looking scars and some similar affinities. And one day while I was still on crutches, she asked me to write her a poem....

MIDTERM
(in anticipation of “The term is ended; the holiday’s begun.”)
for A2, 29 October 2001

a month before the birthday of the greatest metaphorian
(and yes that was a word contrived by me and no historian),
i sit with feet propped up to bear a class that’s boring, and
i write your long-awaited poem that lacks one rhyme: delorian?

this poem may be premature, like books that brag on living men
who well could wreck their lives and ours before they die; but, then again,
it may be just the first of more—or paramount of all my pen
has ever scrawled or fingers typed. if not, you’ll not be heartbroken.

i’ve seen your scrapbook, so i know your line of friends is deep and wide,
like timelines graphing plans and cities, towers, wars, lives lived (and died).
can clocks and talks and meetings on an autumn afternoon decide
the height and breadth of future? lengths of what you wanted? what you tried?

with time machines and VCRs and favorite books with doggie-ears,
we seek to hold intangibles, to touch what can’t be held, but years
go by. and people stay and cry and fly. and photos fade with tears.
though skycross-rainwash rainbows never keep, a crayon rainbow smears.

one lewis book describes our fight to relive our best memories,
attempting to reverse the film and roll back time to when we please.
we think we can obtain the same enjoyment from a second piece
of pie, and so we grab the scraps—we dub, we edit, xerox, seize.

big dreams and appetites! with children eyes, we look away and far
through foreign hoops, familiar hopes. we wheel and rock and stand ajar
like unsure doors or unhealed scars. but waiting, trusting—there we are
most safe, most sure, most satisfied. by faith, we look away and far.

the Lord is good to all of them that wait on Him, to all who seek—
so says the prophet jeremy, so says the Word of God. we speak
of u.s. news and world report, of policies, and what next week
will bring to our agenda, while we should be folding hands and meek.

so maybe as i close this poem, the poem i wrote at your request,
we two can pact to wait this speck of time we wait, and trust and rest,
like meekly leaning on our crutches till each broken part is meshed
with something whole and long and deep and wide that stands the timeline test.

Posted by joydriven at October 13, 2003 04:39 PM | TrackBack