Roller Coaster Ride

This first week back has been an absolute roller coaster ride. I never did like those things growing up. To be hurdling down towards certain destruction one minute, whiplashed hard to the left, and then to start up another arduous and dangerous climb just isn’t my idea of fun. Why the heck do people pay money for that?

In the past seven days I have cried, I have gotten mad, I have laughed hysterically, I have collapsed in deep exhaustion. I have been renewed, I have dissolved, I have prayed, I have sinned. I’ve been forgiven. Every day has seemed like a week.

But my week has been a very pale shadow of Katherine’s.

She decided it was time to pack up and leave. During a millisecond of time when no one was in the room, she tried to get out of bed. Her friend returned from the ladies’ room to find her collapsed on the hard floor.

She spent the next two days having CT scans, x-rays, and a whole body bone scan. I’m not sure whether or not it was worth it for that brief freedom flight. But she still rolls her eyes and gives us a lop-sided grin when anyone mentions it. When asked where she thought she was going, she mouthed the word “Cabo.” I interpret that as, “Anywhere but here.”

I really can’t say that I blame her. I’ve pictured Gulliver many times during this strange odyssey. One minute she was cooking casseroles; the next, she found herself bound and gagged by Lilliputian ropes. When she was having a little drippy time one day, I shared that analogy with her. She nodded vigorously. Thinking outloud, I said, “Wasn’t it little rats that chewed the ropes off for him?” (We think it was, but we could be mixing up two different stories.) Anyway, the analogy works: I told her that the rats could be things like Physical Therapy, the trach, CT scans, suctions...unpleasant things that just seem to crawl all over you and drive you crazy. But those things which seem like annoying enemies are actually allies, working in concert to set her free from the ropes that bind her to her bed. Romans 8:28 doesn’t state that ALL THINGS are good, but that God WORKS all things for good as part of His providential plan. He might even incorporate a rat or two. She nodded assent to this and agreed--with a little eye-rolling--that she would try to resist the urge to burst out of those Lilliputian ropes so violently and prematurely that she might injure herself.

But it’s really hard to be patient when you’re in pain. You might be full of faith and holding fast one minute, and then thrashing around wildly the next. You might be submitting with joy one second, and wrestling with demons the next. I believe Faith is like that for many of us. One minute we’re standing strong, the next we’re cashing in the chips and trying to run away to Cabo. Held up by the arms of our friends, we take a baby step on the parallel bars...then we fall in a heap.

It’s not fun to fall, but it’s not the end of the world either. Two of my all-time favorite Christian writers addressed this in different ways across the centuries. The 13th century mystic Dame Julian of Norwich asserts that not only is it inevitable that we should sometimes fall, but that is it actually necessary. She states, “...For it is necessary for us to fall, and it is necessary for us to see the fall. If we did not fall, we would not know how wretched and feeble we are of ourselves, nor should we know the love of our Maker....And by the test of this failure, we shall have a noble and marvelous experience of love without end in God, for that love is hardy and wonderful. It cannot and will not be broken on account of trespass.” (from the 14th showing.) The love of God is so much greater than our sin! Writing 800 years later, C.S. Lewis concurred: “No amount of falls will really undo us if we keep on picking ourselves up each time. We shall of course be very muddy and tattered children by the time we get home. But the bathrooms are all ready, the towels are put out, and the clean clothes in the airing cupboard. The only fatal thing is to lose one’s temper and give it up. It is when we notice the dirt that God is most present in us: it is the very sign of His presence.” (Letters to Malcolm)

I am reminded of the refrain of a pub song from the 90’s, which I shall take wildly out of context: “We get knocked down, but we get up again.” To me, that’s a description of the Christian walk. Not attaining a level of consistent perfection by our own efforts, but a process of learning from our inevitable falls, allowing ourselves to be picked back up by strong arms of love, and starting back up the (sometimes rocky) path again.

For some of us, it’s like a roller coaster ride....up and down, up and down. But I learned something last night. We were celebrating a college graduation with some friends at a seafood restaurant overlooking Santa Monica Pier. (The one from the movie “Big” with Tom Hanks.) Someone brought the blogs up, and I told them I had started one called “Roller Coaster Ride.” From where we were sitting, we could see the roller coaster on the Pier all lit up with yellow lights. Katherine’s college roommate’s mother, Cathleen, was sitting next to me. Cathleen is someone whom I respect greatly: she has a PhD in suffering with dignity and joy. Her face lit up when we pointed out the roller coaster, and she grabbed my wrist. “We are going to ride that thing after dinner!”

And we did. Two 50-something ladies with bad back and hip problems got in those little cars with the 20-somethings and we whooped our way up to the moon and back down again, swooping low over the star-lit waves. Then we lifted our arms to the sky and Cathleen yelled, “For Katty!!!”as we did it one more time.

I’m not afraid of roller coasters anymore.