“He determines the number of the stars
and
calls them each by name.” Psalm 147:4
[Written a decade ago.]
Yesterday, I was walking up the grand stairway [today I’d take the elevator] in the
Campus Center, when some kid came racing out of the offices upstairs and
literally flew, right past me, down the stairs and out the door. Flew, feet a whirr.
Awesome, literally. I stopped going up myself because it was so artful, even
shocking—Fred Astaire on steroids.
Once upon a time, I could do that too—that’s the realization
that almost made me a fatality right then and there. I was stunned. I’d become
my grandpa, who’s long gone. I’d become an old man. [Not much has changed.]
I have a cold, and it’s nothing to shake a hanky at. It started way down in my lungs about a week
ago already, fetching a retching cough I’ve been battling ever since. Yesterday, the enemy forces climbed up my
windpipe and invaded my sinuses. This
morning I awoke with a mouthful of sickly gook. [Happens to be true today, too.]
Haven’t heard from our son in more than a week. We hope he’s doing well, all alone so far
away. We hope there is no relapse. We pray he’ll find some friends, some folks
with whom he can be at home. We want him to go to church. We’re scared, and we
have been for several years. [All’s well
on that score. They’re expecting a baby in a few months. Yesterday we bought a
new car so as to get there more safely and regularly 😊.]
This, my 36th year of teaching [I made it to 40], hasn’t started out
with great joy. [I’ve been retired for
five years.] For the first time in all those years, I think I’d move if the
right opportunity came up. But I’m nearly 60 [make that nearly 70] so who on earth will invest in someone who’s
barely going to be get into the parking lot before leaving again? Makes me dismal. [Listen, retirement is a dream.]
I’m facing a ton of papers today, but I have to get them
read because I’ve had them far too long. My students have every right to roll
their eyes when I come into class without them. I’ve got to get them finished. [Blessedly, all of that is barely a
memory.]
My wife’s cholesterol spiked. She never knew she had a
problem until the good doctor called a week ago after reading her test. “You
better start some pills,” he told her, wrote out the prescription. She’s been on them since. I’ve been starving
since supper last night because this morning it’s my turn for the test. [We’re both fine, just older.]
Her mother’s life is precarious, and in many ways she’d
rather be gone. She’s not morbid about it, nor deeply depressed; but she has
little sense of her own use anymore on this wintering earth, and she thinks she
herself a burden. She’s thought that for years.
Last week there was a bout with an ambulance. She vows, never again. [She’s long ago departed, as have my parents
in the last decade. Her father is now just about at life’s end. Soon, we’ll be
parentless.]
There are probably more laments, if I would sit here and
listen to the dark voices within me. I’m sure I could dredge up a few more. [Well, that might be tough. Life isn’t bad.
Honestly, I don’t think I spend as much time wringing my hands.]
To imagine that the Creator of Heaven and Earth has his eye
on that whole laundry list of personal ills is really beyond belief, isn’t it? [True.]. To believe he loves me despite
my curmudgeonliness, my abundant laments, seems impossible [Also true.]. To imagine that somewhere in that divine mind of his
he’s drawn a bead on my aches and pains is incomprehensible not only because of
the paucity of my ills [yet another
hurricane came ashore yesterday!] but even more so because there are
millions and billions of me’s [most of
whom have much worse problems.]
“He determines the number of the stars and calls them each
by name,” the psalmist says, sure as anything.
I think I see the night sky’s expo of stars better than most
[Back then we were living in town. Right now,
I can just step out the back door to see stars by the gadzillions]. The
comfort of Psalm 147:4 is that he knows them all, every one of them, knows
what’s happening in their incredible air space. “He calls them each by name.”
He’s got it all in hand. [Did
then. Does now. Not much has changed.]
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