Trouble and Relief
My experience is not reality.
I flew recently.
A child was screaming on the airplane. “No no no, I don’t want it mommy.” His voice cut through the cabin as we descended. It was a long descent.
We all knew what it was.
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His ears hurt. The pressure would ease once we were on the ground. Some passengers shook their heads, some chuckled. We had been there. A small pain, passing, part of flying. Bothersome, not serious.
The child did not know this. For him, it was endless. Torture with no prospect of relief. His cries to his mother to make it stop made the plane's chuckles uncomfortable. The appeal to Mother for relief, drove one to a sort of fond pity.
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We know the feeling well: gripped by fear, unable to trust that help or time or grace might change things. Subject an unpleasant experience that I do not understand, unaware that it is not serious and that it will soon end.
I wonder: What must God's attitude toward me be at such a moment? Do you pity me, Lord?
– from the mountain
Consider:
Where am I the child?
Reading:
“Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart . . . .” — Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet
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“Man is not troubled by things, but by his opinions about things.” — Epictetus, Enchiridion
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“As a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear him. For he knoweth our frame; he remembereth that we are dust.” — Psalm 103:13-14 (KJV)
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