Too near the cross for comfort

Mamma said there'd be days like this..

The Shirelles sang well.

This month I spent three weeks traversing Eastern Washington and Oregon visiting my mother in intensive care after a surprise late night diabetic reaction nearly claimed her life, and then just as nearly claimed her personality. While she was unresponsive for several days, I made a quick round trip back home to bury a woman just her age, then a week later unplugged life support on a rowdy, fun loving three year old who's body lost a quick bloody knuckles game with E-Coli.. then a few days later his great grandpa lost the same game, and we buried them on Thursday and Friday, bippity, boppity boop. June.

Mamma said there'd be days like this, there'd be days like this my mamma said...

Tears will be close for months, I think. These things make me tender in a way no movie can match. And they make me feisty. I have real questions for God about justice and mercy, when cute little three year old boys die. I have questions that wail with the bereaved mother at 2AM in the hallway of Doernbecher's Children's Hospital as the doctors, hospital administrator and counselors wish to gather us for a family meeting, and they are so relieved to see me, the calm pastor in his soothing clerical collar present to ease the scene, as Mamma wails, "I can't go in there, I know what they're going to say; nooooooooo!" And I feel anything but calm and soothed inside with my breaking heart pounding with love for this family and also desperately aware of my own child, sleeping at home an hour and a half away... Questions, God.. Questions.

Don't let them start, for they spiral - one on top of another, growing, racing, connecting, accusing, into a vortex of dissatisfaction.

Or maybe let them go - for they spiral - one on top of another, growing, racing connecting, accusing, into a cruciform paradox.

"Hey," says the voice at the other end of my lament.

"I lost my son too; Hurts doesn't it?"

God showed Job all of creation, and he told him he was right to complain about losing his whole family.

Job's friends were wrong to blame the victim. They get rebuked.

Job gets eyes to see, and his mind can't take it.

God shows me the cross and lets me wail with the women.

My eyes see Jesus, dying with Dominic, and my mind can't take it. "He's mine," says the Lord, pulling him through the cross into eternity, "you said as much when you baptized him."

But he was ours too, and we're not done with him! . . . And maybe when you get close enough to the cross to wail with the women, it's gonna be hard to see beyond the pain.

Tonight I believe that it's easier to be a theologian than a disciple. Theologians get vexed by paradox- and while this can be a very maddening experience, it is still sterile and remote. Theologians see God in words and concepts, in books and diagrams. Disciples get biotoxins, uncleanness and bodily fluids on their hands- experiences that are neither sterile nor remote. Disciples see God in three year olds with tubes draining (and supplying) normal and improvised orifices. Disciples touch, wipe tears, hold, hug and smell. And we discover that God weeps too.

Maybe I wouldn't trade June away. I liked being that near the cross, even if it left me tender. Something holy happened there...

And maybe tenderness is desirable?

Mamma said there'd be days like this, there'd be days like this my mamma said.

Peace.