awake, o sleeper

i've been on many adventures lately. i think it's good for me.
a few nights ago, 3 friends and i went to a park after hours to rappel from a bridge. when we were walking, a cop car drove by, and we all had to hide in the brush to avoid getting caught. my legs got cut up real bad. last night, i was with the same people and tried longboarding. i was really afraid of going fast and losing control etc etc, but once i got the hang of it i started getting a little bolder. we went from 15th street to campus, and on the way back, i totally biffed it and tore up my knee. i haven't skinned my knee since i fell off a bike in like second grade. the boys were really helpful. i didn't want to longboard back and was being a big baby but did it anyway. because once you fall off the horse you get back on.

however, i accidentally pushed the longboard into the sewer. fail. then i got a slurpee at the discounted rate of 75 cents in an xmen limited edition collectors' cup to compensate.

[addendum-i feel like i have a habit of twisting stories to make them more exciting. we got the longboard out of the sewer. and by we i mean they.]

needless to say, there are several battle wounds on my legs.

i started my weekend job taking care of old people yesterday. it was so different but so good. i've visited nursing homes for several years, but i've never actually had to do anything but talk to people. now i get to help them eat, get around, go to the bathroom, etc. more of the dirty work. i had to ask Jesus several times to show me how to love like He does. yesterday i was with a 92-year-old woman. i was told she had dementia, which she probably does, but i really think people underestimate the elderly. i saw how active Jesus was in this woman's life. i got to read scripture to her and pray for her and she just closed her eyes and clung to Christ. i saw her feet move to the rhythm of the revival songs she was listening to on the television. i saw her restful heart when she had me sing her ten hymns from a songbook and i saw the joy in her eyes when we talked about Heaven and how excited she was to see Jesus and her husband and have no more pain. she wanted to be free and to have the veil removed from her eyes. she told me she had dreams about Jesus and wasn't afraid to die. i witnessed the grace God was giving her in this.

the man i visited back in minneapolis told me he talked to God every night to let him know he was ready to die whenever it would please God. this stirs up a memory of a really intense time i had of dealing with the reality of death last fall. i had a lot of times when i'd wake up in the middle of the night and feel death really close. not like i was going to die, but i was just reminded of how transient life was and felt a sense of urgency. i don't know if it was from the Lord, but i was reminded of jonathan edwards' resolutions and how he resolved to think of his own death every day. i want to do that. i think it would cause me to live differently. to see things in a more godly perspective. fall semester, i was reading a book called suffering and the sovereignty of god, and one of the sections was about death. the author was saying how God will give us grace to understand and not fear death when the time comes. like a father who gives the train ticket to his child just before he gets on the train, i won't get the grace to die until it's time to die. i don't know if that makes sense, but it helps me to rest in the confidence that Jesus gives me new grace for each situation he ordains for me. i may fear it and not understand it now, but He goes before me and prepares the way. what a comfort.

i wrote a poem about this for my capstone project. about how skewed my view of death is. maybe i already wrote about this, but it's a theme that's woven into my life really tightly: i fear so much that heaven will be a place with no emotion or sensation. i fear numbness. i fear i'll have this veil over my eyes and all my senses that will keep me from feeling things.

i have it so backwards. the veil is on my eyes now. i am numb now. my senses are suppressed now. i cannot experience beauty or experience God or His creation the way He intended because of sin. when I see Jesus, he will remove the veil from my eyes and it's then i will be free. Only in Heaven will I experience all five of my senses in the rich, colorful, focused way God intended them.

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Awake, O Sleeper

What’s that time between sunset and night?
No, not twilight— that fading part of day
when light becomes anonymous.

That’s how I dream of eternity.

A dank cellar choking on air
when you throw open the latch,
a procession of skeletons climbing
a ladder to a basilica of shrines and penumbras.

And that’s how winter was: antihistamines glazing my veins
in a hospital triage, and just like that, three days gone.
My balsa bones drift in a crucible river and I am distant,
otherworldly, serious like death.

The world without end I hide from is cadent like suffering—

where saints tie tourniquets, god washes mouths with anesthetic,
mute choirs muffle hymns through mouths of bells.
Rings of old coffee cups on tables without edges
and everyone’s mumbling something about death.

I wake.
Across the street, a wife’s heart says no more
and a husband lets go of her delicate hand.