nobodysgod

I didn't write anything to post last week because, when life piles on too much too quickly, I try mightily to put first things first. The past week was one of those. And while keeping to my blogging schedule is high on my to-do list, this week nothing on that list--including the earthquake--outranked one wholly unexpected event close to home. The twenty-six year-old nephew of a very good friend had a heart attack Tuesday, a whopper of one. I watched the earthquake on television, and the tsunami, and the fires and hoped I cared enough, but was pretty sure I fell short. On Friday, my friend's nephew underwent quadruple bypass surgery. Late Friday night, I heard: he came through the surgery well--which sounds as though he passed some difficult graduate school admissions exam. But I heard through the stock medicalese that it was time to take a deep breath of relief--and let gratitude in.

Over the weekend, morning by evening, day by day, I heard that a tube had been removed, he was sitting up, yet another tube was removed, he walked a bit in the hospital corridor, he ate something. I did not give short shrift to any report, knowing that bit by bit is precisely how one reclaims a life. I have been told, and it makes sense, that from this point on in his recovery, being young will help. But wasn't he too young to need such radical intervention--to need to reclaim his life?

The television chides me: look again at the children of the earthquake, the infants whose mothers were carried off by the tsunami or fathers burned by fire--the young of Japan whose fight to reclaim a life will be far, far slower, if it happens at all.

My heart takes over chiding me. For my friend's nephew, I did what I could. All I could. I prayed and prayed and prayed. So now, while I continue to pray for his full recovery, I need to make space inside me to pray for those Japanese children. And the old there. And those in the middle. All who have survived. And those who have not.

I don't know what prayer does, other than keep me centered and relatively sane. But I believe it does more. I believe it reminds God that I know He is there. And I'm counting on Him to do what He can. Just as, I believe, He counts on me to do my part, which is to pray. To keep in touch.

Please note: Whenever I come to a place where it is appropriate to use a pronoun rather than "God," I use the male pronoun. In numerous Jewish settings, including my own synagogue, to avoid using the male pronoun, "God" is repeated. Sometimes, a descriptive phrase-name (such as "The Ineffable") is substituted for "God." I am averse to either method of avoiding the use of the male pronoun. The English language includes pronouns for a reason. They allow language to be fluid. That is not a small matter to me, both as a wirter and lover of language. But if I take a somewhat narrow view of usage, my view of God is not narrow. Both my mind and spirit know that God is not male exclusively. Both my mind and spirit know God as both male and female. I hope that my persistence in using the out-of-favor male pronoun will not prove an insuperable obstacle to your reading this blog. If you want to argue about it, I'm open--write me here or on my Facebook page.