3rd in a series of reflections on my fight with a rock—🌏—the rock won!
if you wish, listen 1st to “The 2nd Chapter of Acts—Mansion Builder”
The beauty and power of the 66 Books of the Bible is ‘the narrative’ or interpretation Israel or the Church understood from God’s Presence within Story…
For several years I’ve lost my way spiritually, waundering in the dessert of longing to once again know God, to love God as I did in my forties or my childhood. I live inside a faith tradition that teaches God can so fill our very breath that we love God first as no other and our neighbor as ourselves.
Worse, my tradition requires of its pastors a testimony of the same. Much of my journey has been marked with integrity—some of it with hypocrisy and most of it covered with human hopes, fears, ego needs, wounded spaces, addictions (including to Jesus—which is not the same thing as loving God), discoveries, triumphs and failures.
So, I’ve always dreaded the pastoral reports and Regional gatherings with their expected ‘up testimonies’ when much of the time I was depressed, creative and gifted, nevertheless down.
What has been salvational, besides the seasons when love seemed center, has been my discovery that much of the penal based ideas of what my American evangelical faith popularly believed were not to be found in the ancient or historic church; things like hell as a deserved and eternal punishment or the rapture or even heaven as the end goal. All of these in their present and popular form had evolved from specific church periods or as a distortion of an incredible truth that lay alongside but understood in healing and cleansing terms, in the language of restoration, not legal penalties.
It initially shocked me when I realized the imaginative skill of Biblical writers who interpreted history as spiritual narrative and often in ways that were a scandal to the popular theology—of Matthew, for example, writing to his mostly Jewish congregation nestled within Greek culture and feeling the isolation of having been rejected by the Jewish faith (at great cost) and now trying to make sense of Jerusalem’s imminent or recent destruction, the Holy Temple desolate.
Matthew in his memory places his readers inside Jesus own drama of rejection by the elders of Israel and near that very Temple prophesying in great sorrow that Israel did not recognize God’s coming in peace and the inevitable result of choosing power over love would be the Temple’s destruction. “He responded,“ referring to the Temple, “‘Do you see all these things? I assure that no stone will be left on another. Everything will be demolished’” (Matthew 24:2 CEB).
That day would come suddenly when “the sun will become dark, and the moon won’t give its light. The stars will fall from the sky and the planets and other heavenly bodies will be shaken” (Matthew 24:29 CEB)—all popularly understood references to Rome and the power of the empire’s regents. Matthew remembers the urgency in Jesus voice. “At that time there will be two men in the field. One will be taken and the other left. Two women will be grinding at the mill. One will be taken and the other left”(Matthew 24:40-41 CEB).
The rapture, right? No! At least not as these 1st century Christians would have heard it. In rapture theology you want to be the one taken. But for a Jew in Palestine, you want to be the one “left behind“ and not swept up by a now angry invading force and sent into exile far from home. All of this happened, 70 A.D. just as Jesus predicted.
What we 2000 years removed fail to perceive was the all embracing idea held by Jews, the early church and the historic church until the last 200 years—resurrection and the “day of the Lord” or the “Renewal of All Things”. On that day the Genesis Creation will be restored and Shalom or “well being” will reign over the earth, starting with Jerusalem. The reign of Love will at last be established in the earth and we, who have died before that day will be resurrected and caught up in the air to welcome Jesus as we would a Roman Caesar suddenly visiting.
What our existence will be like prior to “The Return” is speculation, properly based upon inferences from parables. If ever another place other than Terra Forma becomes our temporary or permanent home one thing was crystal clear to these believers. God has never given up on the Daughters and Sons of Adam; but we, together with Jesus at his return would be busy fulfilling the very prayer Jesus taught us to pray. “Bring in your kingdom so that your will is done on earth as it’s done in heaven” (Matthew 6:10 CEB).
As my Ambulance techs were saying good bye, only after assurances from my charge nurse that i‘d be taken care of, did I began to relax. I could tell from her demeanor that she had understood why a choke collar was not in place and my own concern with breathing was central. Harborview was over-run, even hallways full of ER patients waiting. I assume because I looked bad I was swept off to a corner draped and semi private space two rooms seperate from the nurses station.
Joetta had arrived and Emily, a young, vibrant blond had warmly received her and made sure she was comfortable. I relaxed even more.
Seconds later Emily came back in and as the nurse in charge told an orderly to relocate me to an open space in the very center of the nurses main station, explaining in smile, “I want to keep you near where I can have an eye on you.” We were off.
From that time about 2 pm till 2:30 AM, upon release, I was caressed by exceptionally skilled nurses and doctors and all in the midst of chaos, groans, cries to my right and left and down the hall.
The resident ER physician was the first to get his eyes, hands and ears into a position of a needle deadening the area under my left eye, cleaning up the open wound and making certain the bleeding in my mouth, now largely clotted was the direct result of a probable broken nose and nothing worse. He spoke with masculine strength but from a gentle heart talking almost to himself but informing me in real time. I do better with information, even if bad. “This facial cut is deep and intersects the main nerve controlling your cheek, but I don’t..“ He hesitated, digging just a bit. “Nope, I think we’re good. The nerve has not been severed and I think once swelling goes away, you’ll be fine.” I breathed out air I had been evidently holding, relaxing. thinking, ‘Crap, I must have really messed myself up.’ Then as his light moved along my nose and an instrument apparently just under the edge of the eye, he moaned. It wasn’t good or bad, but curious. He searched some more and I was hoping the deadening agent would not wear off. He said nothing more, finished cleaning me and then told me that I was fortunate. I didn’t feel very fortunate and was awaiting the bad news. “I can’t say for sure Mr. Mattson,” as he was simultaneously cleaning my chest and setting instruments aside, “but I think the gash did not tear into your tear-duct, but simply parallels it. If I’m right we can get you out of here.” ‘Please God, may he be right!‘ Such prayers comfort, as irrational as they may be, given it already is what it is and a petition to altar reality being too late by definition. It’s like settling in to watch a Seahawks game after it is over and praying for their victory.
”So, Mr Mattson, here’s what we’re gonna do.” My attention now back into the reality at hand. “I want our plastic surgeons to take a closer look and perhaps an eye doctor. K?” “Thank you doctor” I heard myself saying, my mind settling into the notion of a late evening release, perhaps. “You are indeed fortunate sir,“ the doctor continued, “I see no broken teeth and if the gash didn’t penetrate your tear duct we can avoid reconstructive surgery. I’ll check in on you later.“
As Joetta and I waited my heart and mind went to the absolute chaos surrounding and the incredible gifting and compassion of the care-givers. Old men, like myself, in much greater pain, not very lucid, demanding immediate attention as their groans pressed. Drug induced (apparently) cries for help turning to an occasional threat. A nurse asking a patient in the hall if the symptoms were the result of heroin or perhaps meth-anphetame‘s, assuring him she would not report him to police as her mission was different. With obvious compassion and great skill she probed his intentions. Was he willing to go to detox and seek remedial treatment? He wasn’t. So, after getting him a sandwich and allowing him a few minutes sleep she rather forcefully and gently (with security backup) woke him, reviewed an over-dose medication he could take in such an emergency and forced him out, explaining… ”Jacob, I wish I could let you sleep here but this bed in this hall needs to be used by another and now.”
It was now about 8 PM, the shift had changed and I had been placed out in the hall adjacent the main nurses station to make room for other trauma patients. I literally had a ringside seat at multiple narratives of pain management, Jacob literally five feet away—we sharing the same young, skilled nurse who seemed to be pulled into trauma situations as I was simply waiting for two doctors; a plastic surgeon and an eye physician. My nurse later remarked that her own daddy was a preacher in the South, which explained to some extent her down home compassion, charm and toughness.
Twenty six hours later, last night as I fell to sleep listening to the “2nd Chapter of Acts”, the first Christian rock band I had heard, my spirit wept inside the pain of my bloated face. As I closed my eyes I suddenly realized I was literally more like Jesus after being beaten by the soldiers than ever before, my long albeit yellow hair completely the picture. I was moved to rolling waves of tears and a godly kind of sorrow I’ve rarely felt since my restoration in my forties. Nothing mattered except loving Jesus and a world over-run with pain yet sharply divided as to causation and who is deserving and who is not for the trauma beds of our culture.
What awakened within was the absolute inability to love God except as God enabled, cleansing out the open wounds of my soul very much like my doctor did, finally cutting out and removing the blood soaked shirt still around my body at 10 PM, three hours before the 30-40 sutures were sowed into my face.
“What can wash away my sin?
Nothing but the blood of Jesus.“
As I worshipped and let go of every human need and desire once again to my Heavenly Father I was keenly aware that it was not some penal code of an angry offended God being satisfied but the very real and deepest wounds, egoisms, affections needing the healing touch of a nurse/doctor God not afraid to get into the hells we create with calming life. As my tears resided I noticed I was breathing freely and so fell asleep.
Blessings
Tomorrow: If I have the strength, the last narrative of this journey—
if you wish, listen following to “The 2nd Chapter of Acts—Which Way the Wind Blows”
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