gruesome, yet true
I almost didn't go into Trinity today. I'm busy, crazy busy, but I went anyway. I hobbled in on my post marathon legs late.
I saw dear sweet K. the dog lover who sends boxes of dog food to a dog named Daisy in Wisconsin. I love that guy, he's a bright spot. He showed me the videos he'd rented for his weekend in a house, dog sitting. He got some great Discovery Channel movies from the libray. T-Bone was there, too, he said he looked for me at the marathon but didn't see me and it was cold. Same was true for several other guys, they had actually looked for me on S. Congress around 11:00.
Then M. came in. I hadn't seen him at Trinity for ages. I'd heard something terrible had happened to him, but no one would tell me what it was, exactly.
I saw him today. He's missing his left hand.
M. has told me he has "mood" problems, he's been in and out of the state hospital. He believes he is unredeemable, that God will not forgive him because when he was a child, M. says, he committed the unpardonable sin, blasphemy.
I remember the unpardonable sin. I was terrifed that perhaps I had committed it and not known what it was, what if I had accidentally said the wrong thing and whoa, there I'd be unpardonable, unforgiveable for life. Then one day, I decided that God must be merciful, or really, what would be the point. It made sense to me when I was a kid, and it still does.
I saw M. today and he told me that he was unredeemable, that God will not forgive him, that he loves God and Jesus, but he is one of the dammned. I told him I disagreed, I told him that wasn't true, but truly, I could have been saying, "pass the salt" he didn't hear me, he couldn't hear me.
How do you get through the day when you believe you are unforgiveable? Well, M.'s left hand was severed when he laid his arm on a railroad track, purposefully, so the train would sever his hand. His hand was full of turmoil, he said.
He was taken to the hospital, then spent two weeks in the state hospital and is now out again, they could only keep him two weeks. He said he really liked being in the psych hospital, except for all the scary crazy people.
Every time I looked at his handless left arm today, I shuddered, I had to leave the room a few times and just take deep breaths. It was horrifying to think about, it was pitiful to see. Worse, was imagining going through the day thinking you are one of the damned, the unforgiven, the unredeemable, the lost.
file under: friends
I saw dear sweet K. the dog lover who sends boxes of dog food to a dog named Daisy in Wisconsin. I love that guy, he's a bright spot. He showed me the videos he'd rented for his weekend in a house, dog sitting. He got some great Discovery Channel movies from the libray. T-Bone was there, too, he said he looked for me at the marathon but didn't see me and it was cold. Same was true for several other guys, they had actually looked for me on S. Congress around 11:00.
Then M. came in. I hadn't seen him at Trinity for ages. I'd heard something terrible had happened to him, but no one would tell me what it was, exactly.
I saw him today. He's missing his left hand.
M. has told me he has "mood" problems, he's been in and out of the state hospital. He believes he is unredeemable, that God will not forgive him because when he was a child, M. says, he committed the unpardonable sin, blasphemy.
I remember the unpardonable sin. I was terrifed that perhaps I had committed it and not known what it was, what if I had accidentally said the wrong thing and whoa, there I'd be unpardonable, unforgiveable for life. Then one day, I decided that God must be merciful, or really, what would be the point. It made sense to me when I was a kid, and it still does.
I saw M. today and he told me that he was unredeemable, that God will not forgive him, that he loves God and Jesus, but he is one of the dammned. I told him I disagreed, I told him that wasn't true, but truly, I could have been saying, "pass the salt" he didn't hear me, he couldn't hear me.
How do you get through the day when you believe you are unforgiveable? Well, M.'s left hand was severed when he laid his arm on a railroad track, purposefully, so the train would sever his hand. His hand was full of turmoil, he said.
He was taken to the hospital, then spent two weeks in the state hospital and is now out again, they could only keep him two weeks. He said he really liked being in the psych hospital, except for all the scary crazy people.
Every time I looked at his handless left arm today, I shuddered, I had to leave the room a few times and just take deep breaths. It was horrifying to think about, it was pitiful to see. Worse, was imagining going through the day thinking you are one of the damned, the unforgiven, the unredeemable, the lost.
file under: friends
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