He has not dealt with us according to our sins,
Nor rewarded us according to our iniquities.
For He himself knows our frame;
He is mindful that we are but dust.
I am feeling particularly"dusty" today. ("I am a gentleman in a dustcoat trying. . . ." John Crow Ransome). I read Psalm 109 this morning out on the front porch in the cool of a new Hampshire May morning.
"For I am afflicted and needy, And my heart is wounded within me.
I am passing like a shadow when it lengthens;
I am shaken off like the locust."
I thought of my dad, visibly approaching the end of his life here on earth and wondered, yet again, how it feels to realize one's earthly sojourn is really almost over. I tried stretching my legs like I always have, but I cannot come close to touching my head to my knees as I always used to do effortlessly. My interior voice says I am out of practice, but a softer, more insistent, more honest voice says no matter how diligently I stretch or run or practice yoga or do Pilates there is a process which cannot be stopped. I am in decline. I don't see it every day, and most days I feel as good as I ever have, but I know I am slowly falling apart. I am passing like a shadow when it lengthens.
Although we live in a culture more attuned to Dylan Thomas than T. S. Eliot - which tells us to rage against the dying of the light, to fight the signs of aging, to believe we are only as old as we feel, I don't want to live my life in denial. I don't want to embrace the illusion of control.
I remember vividly a dream I had during my first pregnancy. I was out on a dock sort of thing in the middle of a large lake. It was not an unpleasant place to be, but I could not stay there, of course. I realized the only way to get back to shore was to swim, and I was not at all sure I could swim that far. But eventually I realized I had no choice.
Labor in childbirth felt like that, too. I would feel as if I were at the top of a huge, snow-covered hill, about to be given a push over the edge, and then there was no stopping. I could not say, "I don't want to do this." I would have no control.
That was probably the most frightening thing about natural childbirth - which I did 7 times. It was inexorable. Once the labor began there could be no hesitation, no stopping for a break, no considering whether I really wanted to go on; and I never wanted to go on! (I remember one wonderful Texan midwife I had. At some point I protested, "I can't do this anymore." She smiled wryly and said, "And just what do you think your options are at this point?") I was, indeed, in the control of an unstoppable force and all I could do was try to give myself up to it, as gracefully, as fully and as trustfully as possible. It was harder and it hurt even more if I fought it.
I always switched mental metaphors once the contractions began in earnest. I would see each as a wave to ride, to go with, to hang onto and to emotionally stay with until it passed. I never knew how intense or how big each wave would be, but I had no choice but to trust it, and I learned it was less frightening, if not easier, if I did not try to fight the force that had me in its grip.
Is death like birth? Not just the actual moment of death but the long dying that leads up to it. Scripture indicates it is for those in Christ. The death I feel at work daily in my body, and sometimes in my spirit, too, can be seen as the birth pangs of a new resurrection. I do find it frightening, but I must trust the life-giving force who carries me along. Not some impersonal energy, but Someone who loves me dearly, and who has never once rewarded me according to my iniquities, but only according to His mercies. I want to learn to trust Him in this phase of my life, too.
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