5.

All of creation groans and is in pain from the beginning until the present moment. Yes. I ran over a beautiful raccoon with my truck this afternoon. One ran out in front of me and I had time to swerve but then another came over the bank, up out of the roadside ditch and I felt and heard it hit the back wheel, twirl up and hit the side of the truck a second time, and in the side mirror I saw its large sable body spin and slump in a heap at the side of the highway. I couldn’t stop for the large semi-truck directly on my tail. I might have tried more evasive maneuvers but for that truck, and not wanting to cause an even larger tragedy. I destroyed that little creature’s life; I ended it. And I caused grief to others. I’ve seen animals mourn their dead. I expect the other, or others if there were more, went to see their dead friend, or their dying friend and they were helpless to do anything for him. I know that feeling. I’ve been there myself with the dead that I have loved. I won’t go into the details of how life drained out of me the rest of the day, but it did, and I became very numb, and I yearned to leave this world myself, but for those I’d leave behind and the sadness that might cause. Life feels like a warzone, each passing moment taking one or another of us randomly, leaving some of us to fight another day. Some people go out of their minds in war, some turn to anything to dull the pain, some go all in and become mercenaries, killers for hire. I understand them all.

But I found a little chapel at the edge of the woods, metaphorically, and I crawled inside and prayed: Lord Jesus Christ have mercy on me. I said this many times, quietly to myself, as I mourned the raccoon. I cried, and I survived another day. In younger years I would have returned to help that little creature, or to bury him. But now I cannot bring myself to see what I’ve done. I can’t see another dead animal, or human, I am reaching my limit. I’m only fifty-five; what shall become of me? It doesn’t matter, the same as will happen to us all, death will find me randomly on the battlefield, tomorrow or next year, or in ten years, but it will happen; and in the meantime all of creation mourns and cries in pain, and I am witness to all their suffering, with nothing but duct tape and baling wire to use to fix the monumental problems that only God himself can fix. But he is acting at leisure. Which I understand, though I don’t, but who am I to argue?

I find it remarkable that living is both clinging to this world and yearning for the next at the same time. Loving life and wanting death. Enduring and fighting for another day, hoping to see the sun rise, desiring to live a little longer, and the next moment reeling from “the terror of knowing what this world’s all about” and wishing we’d never been born. Maybe that’s just me. But to some degree I imagine we all have some similar feelings about our exile here. Lord Jesus have mercy on me. I crouch in my metaphorical chapel, saying my prayers, grateful that night has fallen finally, sorry for the little raccoon, and determined to stay in here and not go outside again. I’ll watch the sun rise through the window and pretend there is a way out, but knowing there isn’t. There is only the way through, as they say; there is nowhere to run. But God is in control, Jesus Christ is risen, and ultimately there is a resurrection. Every story ends in death, but every story also ends in new life. I don’t know this, but I believe it.

~FS