Waiting

I have a terrible, miserable cold. It struck a day before some kind of chemical rained down on children and other innocent beings in Syria. At first, I thought God wasn’t coming by because of my germs. Who can blame him? This is one bad virus. But then suddenly I saw him on the news, dark hair matted, eyes glazed, legs peppered with red eruptions of flesh, curled around the pain of human depravity. A film crew had caught his image, there among the least of them, burned and screaming. I touched the TV screen, sending God what I could send, which felt like nothing. “God,” I said to the image. “God, I see you. I see you.” But then I turned away. I went to bed disoriented, waiting, my soul as congested as my lungs. I couldn’t let myself cry. I was too sick.

The next day, I glimpsed God in Egypt, standing among corpses and mutilated bodies, directing emergency workers to the injured. I didn’t turn away this time. Mesmerized, I watched the dead moving toward burial, the keening of those bereaved washing over me as I stood inert, depleted. What a fucked up, dreadful world. And what am I to make of God, always down in the thick of it? Hungry, imprisoned, bereft, tortured, excluded, persecuted, hated, ugly, alone.

I used to think I knew how to join, how to be of use. I used to have firm white bones and clear ideas. I used to be young and impudent. Now I listen more. My steps are slower. Now I raise my eyes to the hills, watch the sand hill cranes float by, and wait. I’m a bruised reed, a smolder candle. Waiting. Grateful for the grasses and willows whispering sweet nothings in the wind.