Damocles Sword

Of late when people ask me how I am, I tend to say that I feel like we're living with Damocles sword overhead. Do you know this ancient Greek anecdote? The ruler Dionysius II allowed Damocles to experience the luxury of being king, but hung a sharp sword directly over his head, held by only a singe horsehair, to show the insecurity of such a position. We use this phrase now to describe a situation of impending doom and fear where a potentially dangerous event could occur at any time. 

I think this pretty accurately describes how I feel at the moment. Right now Alex feels great. He's living his life normally again. He's making plans for the future, tentatively allowing himself to dream and enjoy life. But cancer hangs by a hair over all of that. This is a very challenging way to live. 

Contemplating this brings me back to how desperately we puny humans crave control. It's maybe one of the most consistent things I grasp for over and over in this life. Just a modicum of control, please? The "correct" thing to say right here would be how I have relinquished that to God, but have I? In truth, I think this thing is moment by moment. It's a constant laying down process. The bid for control is something I'm literally laying down at God's feet in one moment and picking it back up in the next. Ugh. 

Desk Note #2 - At the fringe of words

I often sit at the fringes of words for the sake of title.  This is no way forward into unknown territory!  How are whole word worlds to be tamed with such timidity? But I feel it even still, the weight of writing things down.  There’s a permanence.  No true eraser exists for words spoken into the online world.  No retractions of any real value.  Therefore, one must choose words carefully.  Craft the things to sing to their mark if at all possible and not to veer off into dangerous directions where bleeding and death can occur.  Such power, life and death held in these syllables and yet they are bandied about with very little care.  I do not come to the page lightly.  Now, this is not to say that I haven’t thrown my fair share of deadly words.  Alas, many and often they have flown.  But I’d like to think that as I advance in age, I advance in wisdom.

Here’s a little that James had to say on the subject:

 Don’t be in any rush to become a teacher, my friends. Teaching is highly responsible work. Teachers are held to the strictest standards. And none of us is perfectly qualified. We get it wrong nearly every time we open our mouths. If you could find someone whose speech was perfectly true, you’d have a perfect person, in perfect control of life.

3-5 A bit in the mouth of a horse controls the whole horse. A small rudder on a huge ship in the hands of a skilled captain sets a course in the face of the strongest winds. A word out of your mouth may seem of no account, but it can accomplish nearly anything—or destroy it!

5-6 It only takes a spark, remember, to set off a forest fire. A careless or wrongly placed word out of your mouth can do that. By our speech we can ruin the world, turn harmony to chaos, throw mud on a reputation, send the whole world up in smoke and go up in smoke with it, smoke right from the pit of hell.

7-10 This is scary: You can tame a tiger, but you can’t tame a tongue—it’s never been done. The tongue runs wild, a wanton killer. With our tongues we bless God our Father; with the same tongues we curse the very men and women he made in his image. Curses and blessings out of the same mouth!

10-12 My friends, this can’t go on. A spring doesn’t gush fresh water one day and brackish the next, does it? Apple trees don’t bear strawberries, do they? Raspberry bushes don’t bear apples, do they? You’re not going to dip into a polluted mud hole and get a cup of clear, cool water, are you?

Inner thoughts, and stuff

 It's already the end of January. What? Where does the time go? In truth it's only been 6 weeks since I last wrote a wee little blog post, but it feels like longer somehow. I think I'm back in that place of feeling like there are just too many words thrown out to the the wind on blogs and all social media combined. How much hot air can the world tolerate I wonder? Honestly, it's almost laughable all the bluster and wind of  millions of voices clamoring to be heard. If there had been social media in medieval times would it have been the same? Is this just the human condition but now we can hear EVERYONE's inner thoughts?

I guess I'm not exempt. Here I am giving voice to my inner thoughts. Sigh.

Anyhoo, my inner thoughts have been all over the place. Pondering the needfulness of suffering. Reflecting on the soul's craving to be known. Contemplating the mess that seems to continually be made of Christ's message. Chewing on the brevity of this life and wondering why we all crave legacy so much. (Can I be content to just be one more slight layer in the deep patina of existence?)  Yeah, I know. My brain is such a muddle.