Loving the World

Whew! Last week was quite the whirlwind of death, wasn't it?  I want to transition just a little bit, away from the mortality of the thing to the living of it. Because last week, I said that death was God's grace - that it was His love that we would not have to suffer here forever, living separated from Him in a broken body in a torn-up world where we are basically just wearing ourselves out for the span of our lives under the curse. 

And I think that when you say something like that, it resonates with a lot of persons. Most of us feel this. If you're not feeling it acutely right now, you can remember a time when you were. If you haven't watched a loved one suffer and had some of these thoughts, you one day will. There's just something in us that responds this way to the brokenness in this world and in ourselves. We are weary, and we can feel it, and there's something refreshing about that moment when someone finally says it and we don't feel as alone in it any more. Or maybe we don't feel like it's "wrong" any more. Or maybe we give ourselves permission to admit it at least to ourselves. 

So let me say it again, for those of you who need that kind of permission today (myself possibly included): 

I don't love this world. 

I don't. I don't love living on this side of shame, always looking for fig leaves to knit together for myself. I don't love living where my body is constantly decaying and it's a fight to get it to cooperate with me. I don't love living with a thousand questions hanging over my head every day, everything from how I'm going to pay the next bill (toil) to how long the pain will last (labor) to when the next time something is going to strike my heel will be. 

I don't love watching my loved ones suffer. I don't like hearing stories of death. I don't like thinking about it. I don't like hearing the despair in the voices of those destined to die who either aren't quite ready yet or are more than ready and can't wait for it to just finally happen and be over with. 

I don't love the way we treat one another here. I don't love the name-calling and the backbiting and the mudslinging. I don't love the arrogance that we have when we're sure we're right and how quick we are to put everyone else down. 

I don't love having to work so hard to have so very little. I don't love that trouble lurks around every corner. I don't love lying awake at night and asking myself the questions that have no answers and worrying about the things that, honestly, probably aren't going to happen, but what if they do? 

I don't love poverty. I don't love disease. I don't love war. I don't love broken persons breaking other persons. I don't love trauma. I don't love betrayal. 

I would love to disengage, to leave this place, to go Home. I would love to be done here, to not have to pretend any more, to not have to fight any more. I would love to just remove myself from this whole mess. 

Because I just don't love this world. 

But... 

(Stay tuned.)